Natural Resources 232

Nature and Culture

 

Spring Semester 2008 (3 credit hours)                              Kathy Crowley, Teaching Assistant

Mon., Wed., & Fri., 10:10-11:00                                                      Email: kfc6@cornell.edu

Bradfield 101                                                                                     Office:          Fernow Hall

Jim Tantillo, Instructor                                                        Laura Martin, Teaching Assistant

            Office: 101-A Rice Hall                                                         Email: ljm222@cornell.edu

            Phone: 255-2821                                                                  Office:          Fernow Hall

            Email:  jat4@cornell.edu                                         

course web page:    http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/courses/nr220/              

                                               

                       

A.        OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE

 

In this course we will examine the history of human-environment relationships, the diversity of environmental values and ethics, cultural manifestations of nature, and the role of society in forming natural resource and environmental policy.

 

Although offered in the Department of Natural Resources, this course is rooted in the humanities and will cover topics drawn from history, philosophy, literature, and art.  Cultural artifacts, which include what William Cronon refers to as Òfound objects,Ó are an important source of inspiration and knowledge about humansÕ relations to the environment.  We will examine art, literature, film, cartoons, paintings, photographs, music, maps, advertising, and other cultural objects in order to better understand nature and culture.

 

There are no prerequisites for the course.  Naturally, the more you bring to it, and the more you put into it, the more you are likely to get out of it.  The class will be (I hope) a great deal of fun (as well as a lot of work!); and if the class is to be fruitful each participant will have to contribute a great deal to its success.  We will be learning from each other, challenging each otherÕs assumptions and biases, and raising questions, many of which cannot be easily answered.  But thatÕs what a university education should be all about.

 

 

B.        EXAMS, PAPERS, AND PARTICIPATION

 

(1) Exams.  We will have a two-part mid-term exam: take home portion given out Wednesday, March 5 (due March 14) and 50-minute in-class exam on Wednesday, March 12. A final exam will be given during final exam period ÒAÓ (Wednesday, May 7).  Exams will consist of essay-type questions.

 

(2) Term Paper.  Students will write a 10 - 12 page term paper (approx. 3, 000 words) on a subject to be determined in consultation with the instructor and/or teaching assistant.   A term paper prospectus is due on Monday, March 31, 2008.  One to three pages, although obviously the more you give us the more we can evaluate.  The term paper is due Monday, April 28, 2008. There will be grade penalties for late papers.

 

(3) Participation:  There is a class web blog at http://natres232.blogspot.com . Participation on the class blog is encouraged and will contribute to your participation grade.

 

(4) I will also occasionally assign short in-class writing exercises as well.  These are designed to help you develop the writing skills you will need to do well on the essay exams.

 

 

C.        GRADING

 

(1) Mid-term exam: 25%

(2) Final exam: 25%

(3) Term paper: 25%

(4) Participation, class blog, short writing assignments: 25% 

 

This is a three-credit course and may be taken on an S/U basis.

 

 

D.        COURSE MATERIALS

 

Required Books to Buy:

 

The following books have been ordered at the campus store.  You are required to buy the following and bring them to class if needed for discussion.

 

Cronon, William. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.

 

Cronon, William, ed. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996.

 

Hughes, J. Donald. Pan's Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

 

Krech, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.

 

Pollan, Michael.  Second Nature: A GardenerÕs Education. 2d ed. NY: Grove Press, 1991.

 

Electronic Course Reserve:

 

Electronic course reserve readings are available on Blackboard as printable pdf files.

 

Optional Books to Buy:

 

Adler, Mortimer Jerome, and Charles van Doren. How to Read a Book. Rev. and updated ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.

 

Novak, Barbara. Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting, 1825 – 1875.  Third edition, revised.  New York: Oxford University, 2006

E.         SCHEDULE OF TOPICS AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

 

 

** Required Readings

+ Suggested further readings

(no asterisk)  Additional bibliography

 

 

 

WEEK ONE (Jan. 21 - 25)               Introduction

 

** Cantor, Geoffrey.  ÒTeaching Philosophy and History & Philosophy of Science (HPS) to Science Students.Ó School of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, 2001.  At http://www.prs-ltsn.leeds.ac.uk/philosophy/articles/cantor/cantor3.html (handout).

 

** Ellis, Jeffrey C. "On the Search for a Root Cause: Essentialist Tendencies in Environmental Discourse." In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, 256-268 plus notes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

 

** Proctor, James D. "Whose Nature? The Contested Moral Terrain of Ancient Forests." In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, 269-297 plus notes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

 

** Marx, Leo. "Environmental Degradation and the Ambiguous Social Role of Science and Technology." Journal of the History of Biology 25, no. 3 (1992): 449-68 (e-reserve).

 

 

Suggested reading:

+Marx, Leo. "Pastoral Ideals and City Troubles." In The Fitness of Man's Environment, 120-44. New York: Harper Colophon, 1964.

 

 

 

Part I.  Historical Background

 

WEEK TWO (Jan. 28 – Feb. 1)       Pan's Travail

 

** Hughes, J. Donald. Pan's Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

 

Suggested readings:

+ Kyle, Donald G. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

 

Lovejoy, Arthur O., and George Boas. Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity. New York: Octagon Books, 1973.

 

 

WEEK THREE (Feb. 4 - 8)              Hunters, Poachers, and Medieval Game Laws

 

**Manning, Roger B. Hunters and Poachers: A Social and Cultural History of Unlawful Hunting in England, 1485-1640. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.  Introduction, chap. 1, "The Cultural and Social Context," and chap. 3, "The Game Laws" (e-reserve).

 

** Thiebaux, Marcelle. The Stag of Love: The Chase in Medieval Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974.  Chap. 1, "Literature and the Hunt," pp. 17-58 (e-reserve).

 

Suggested readings:

+ Williams, James. ÒHunting, Hawking, and the Early Tudor Gentleman,Ó History Today 53, 8 (Aug. 2003): available online at http://www.geocities.com/katacheson/howardwilliams.html

 

+ http://www.uidaho.edu/student_orgs/arthurian_legend/hunt/arthur

 

+Morrow, Don. "Sport as Metaphor: Shakespeare's Use of Falconry in the Early Plays." Aethlon 5, no. 2 (1988): 119-29.

 

 

WEEK FOUR (Feb. 11 - 15)            Romanticism: An Overview

 

There will be a required evening showing of the Disney movie Bambi this week.  We will show the film Tuesday Feb. 12 (location TBA) at 7:30 pm, and again on Thursday Feb. 14 (location TBA) at 7:30 pm.   Bring your popcorn!

 

Monday:

** Lowenthal, David. "The Place of the Past in the American Landscape." In Geographies of the Mind: Essays in Historical Geosophy in Honor of John Kirtland Wright, edited by David Lowenthal and Martyn J. Bowden, 89-117. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976 (e-reserve).

 

Wednesday:

** Thoreau, Henry D. "Walking." In Excursions, 154-204. New York: Thomas Crowell, 1913 (e-reserve).

 

** Cronon, William. "The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature." In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, 69-90 plus notes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

 

Friday:

** Cartmill, Matt. A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature through History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Chap. 9, "The Bambi Syndrome," pp. 17-58 (e-reserve). 

 

** Lutts, Ralph H. "The Trouble with Bambi: Walt Disney's "Bambi" and the American Vision of Nature." Forest & Conservation History 36, October (1992): 160-71 (e-reserve).

 

Suggested readings:

+ Novak, Barbara. Part One of Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting, 1825-1875. 3rd ed., revised (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006):  Chap. 1, ÒIntroduction: The Nationalist Garden and the Holy Book,Ópp. 3-14, plus notes; Chap. 2, ÒGrand Opera and the Still Small Voice,Ó pp. 15-28, plus notes; Chap. 3, ÒSound and Silence: Changing Concepts of the Sublime,Ó pp. 29-38, plus notes; and Chap. 9 of Nature and Culture, ÒArcady Revisited: Americans in Italy,Ó pp. 173-193, plus notes.

 

+ Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1924. ÒOn the Discrimination of Romanticisms.Ó PMLA, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 39 (2, June): 229-253. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-8129%28192406%2939%3A2%3C229%3AOTDOR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 (e-reserve).

 

Campbell, Colin. The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. New York, NY: Basil Blackwell, 1987.

 

Richards, Robert J. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

 

 

 

Part II. The Wealth of Nature

 

WEEK FIVE (Feb. 18 - 22)              Early Humans on the Continent

 

** Krech, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.

 

Suggested readings:

+ Novak, Barbara. Chap. 5 in Nature and Culture, ÒThe Meteorological Vision: Clouds,Ó pp. 71-87, plus notes.

 

+ Slater, Candace. "Amazonia as Edenic Narrative." In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, 114-31; notes on pp. 488-90. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

 

 

WEEK SIX (Feb. 27 – Feb. 29)        United States Economic and Environmental Development  

 

** Cronon, William. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.  Preface, Prologue, and chaps. 1 – 5.

 

Suggested reading:

+ Novak, Barbara. Chap. 7 of Nature and Culture, ÒThe Primal Vision: Expeditions,Ó pp. 119- 134 plus notes, and chap. 8, ÒManÕs Traces: Axe, Train, Figure,Ó pp. 135-169, plus notes.

 

 

WEEK  SEVEN (March 3 - 6)         U.S. Economic and Environmental Development (continued)

Monday-Wednesday:

**Cronon, NatureÕs Metropolis, chaps.  6 – 8, and Epilogue.

 

Friday:

** Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. "Anthracite Coal and the Beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in the United States." Business History Review 46, no. 2 (1972): 141-81 (e-reserve).

 

** Winpenny, Thomas R. "Hard Data on Hard Coal: Reflections of Chandler's Anthracite Thesis." Business History Review 53, no. 2 (1979): 247-58 (e-reserve).

 

Suggested reading:

+ Stradling, David, and Peter Thorsheim. "The Smoke of Great Cities: British and American Efforts to Control Air Pollution, 1860-1914." Environmental History 4, no. 1 (1999): 6-31 (e-reserve).

 

 

Mid-term exam: the mid-term take-home essay will be handed out on Wednesday, March 5 and is due in class at 10:10 on Friday, March 14.  There will be grade penalties for late take home essays.  The mini-essay portion will be held in-class on Wednesday, March 12 at 10:10.  Note: the readings from Week Eight will not be included on the mid-term exam.

 

 

WEEK EIGHT (March 10 - 14)      Art, Literature, and Film

 

** Hall, Lawrence Sargent. "The Ledge." In River Gods & Spotted Devils, edited by John Culler and Chuck Wechsler, 129-46. Camden, SC: LiveOak Press, 1988 (e-reserve).

 

Suggested readings:

+ Brooks, Winfield. "The Shining Tides." In River Gods & Spotted Devils, edited by John Culler and Chuck Wechsler, pp. 1-27. Camden, SC: LiveOak Press, 1988.

 

Faulkner, William. Big Woods: The Hunting Stories. New York: Random House, 1955.

 

Huffman, Alan. Ten Point: Deer Camp in the Mississippi Delta. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1997.

 

Sklar, Robert. 1994. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. 2nd, revised ed. New York: Vintage.

 

Spring Break  (March 15 - 23)

 

 

 

Part III.  Conservation and Preservationism

 

WEEK NINE  (March 24 – 28)       Saving Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted

 

** Spirn, Anne Whiston. "Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted." In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, 91-113; notes on pp. 482-88. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

 

Suggested reading:

+ Novak, Barbara.  Chap. 4 of Nature and Culture, ÒThe Geological Timetable: Rocks,Ó pp. 41-70, plus notes.

 

Note that term paper proposals are due on Monday, March 31.

 

 

WEEK TEN  (March 31 – April 4)             Ecology and the Origins of American Conservation

 

** Warren, Louis.  ÒThe Killing of Seely Houk,Ó chap. 1 in The HunterÕs Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 21-47 plus notes 186-191 (e-reserve).

 

** Warren, Louis, ÒBoon and Bust: PennsylvaniaÕs Deer Among Sportsmen and Farmers,Ó chap. 2 in The HunterÕs Game, pp. 48-70 plus notes 191-194 (e-reserve).

 

Suggested readings:

+ Isenberg , Andrew C. "The Returns of the Bison: Nostalgia, Profit, and Preservation." Environmental History 2, no. 2 (1997): 179-96.

 

+ Jones, Susan. "Becoming a Pest: Prairie Dog Ecology and the Human Economy in the Euroamerican West." Environmental History 4, no. 4 (1999): 531-52.

 

 

WEEK ELEVEN (April 7 - 11)        Ecology and the Origins of Conservation (continued)

 

** Barbour, Michael G.  ÒEcological Fragmentation in the Fifties.Ó In Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, 233-255; notes on pp. 510-514.  New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

 

** Worster, Donald.  ÒClements and the Climax Community,Ó chap. 11 in NatureÕs Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2d ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 205-220 plus notes.

 

Suggested reading:

+ Tobey, Ronald C.  Saving the Praries: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895-1955.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.

 

 

WEEK TWELVE (April 14 - 18)     Our Relation to Nature: Hands-On or Hands-Off?

 

**  Pollan, Michael.  Second Nature: A GardenerÕs Education. NY: Grove Press, 1991. 2d ed.

 

Suggested reading:

+ Budiansky, Stephen. Nature's Keepers: The New Science of Nature Management. New York: Free Press, 1995.

 

 

 

 

Part IV.  Conclusion: Environmental Philosophy and Other "Problems"

 

WEEK THIRTEEN (April 21 - 25)  Do Mountains Exist?  Ontology and Ecology

 

** Mark, David M., and Barry Smith. 2003.  ÒDo Mountains Exist?  Towards an Ontology of Landforms.Ó Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 30 (3, May): 411-427 (e-reserve).

 

** Haldane, John. "Admiring the High Mountains: The Aesthetics of Environment." Environmental Values 3 (1994): 97-106 (e-reserve).

 

** Schiappa, Edward. "Towards a Pragmatic Approach to Definition: "Wetlands" and the Politics of Meaning." In Environmental Pragmatism, edited by Andrew Light and Eric Katz, 209-30. New York: Routledge, 1996 (e-reserve).

 

Suggested reading:

Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. 1959. Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

 

Stamos, David N. 2003. The Species Problem: Biological Species, Ontology, and the Metaphysics of Biology. Lanham: Lexington Books.

 

 

Term Papers Due: Monday, April 28, 2007 at 10:10 am

 

 

WEEK FOURTEEN  (April 28 – May 2)  Science, Ecology, and Environmental Values

 

** Shrader-Frechette, K. S., and Earl D. McCoy. "How the Tail Wags the Dog: How Value Judgments Determine Ecological Science." Environmental Values 3 (1994): 107-20 (e-reserve).

 

** Peretti, Jonah H. "Nativism and Nature: Rethinking Biological Invasion." Environmental Values 7 (1998): 183-92 (e-reserve).

 

** Sagoff, Mark.  "The Allocation and Distribution of Resources," in The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment, Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy. 50-73 plus notes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988 (e-reserve).

 

Suggested readings:

+ Botkin, Daniel B. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

 

+ Nelson, R. J. "Ethics and Environmental Decision Making." Environmental Ethics 1, no. 3 (1979): 263-78.

 

+ O'Riordan, Timothy, and Andrew Jordan. "The Precautionary Principle in Contemporary Environmental Politics." Environmental Values 4 (1995): 191-212.