The contemporary environmental crisis is considered as a particular manifestation of a cultural crisis which afflicts Western civilization and its imitators. This course is designed as a chronological survey of human nature interrelationships in Western traditions. A unit on Western Europe focuses on deforestation, development of the agrarian landscape and European colonization after the 15th century. The focus of the course then shifts to lectures on the ecological history of Europeans in North America and discussion of the intellectual history of ecological ideas since the eighteenth century. The course involves lectures, weekly discussions and research papers or presentations.
Emphasis is placed on evaluating water resources from a multidisciplinary perspective.
ENVR 220 or consent of instructor. This course provides an introduction to the study of plant and animal distributions, both past and present. This is a broad field which overlaps several other disciplines, including biology, geography and geology. The study of plant distributions will be emphasized and approached from historical, cultural and ecological perspectives. Applications of biogeographic knowledge and theory to conservation problems will also be discussed.