History 424 (S08)

This course will examine Americans’ interactions with the natural environment using the analytical lens of history. It will also investigate history using the analytical lens of the natural environment. It will focus on how nature shapes what humans do and how nature is shaped by what humans do, concentrating on the last 250 years. In addition, the course will explore Americans’ ideas and attitudes toward the natural world and the political struggles related to the environment.

I have asked the UI Bookstore to order the following books. You may find them cheaper elsewhere.

· Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America

· Joseph M. Williams, Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace, second edition (highly recommended short text on writing)

· Additional readings will be placed on reserve or be made available on the web

Thematic Papers (3 * 16.67% = 50%): The course is organized around five major themes, corresponding to one major book and additional articles, lectures, and other materials. A series of questions will help guide our exploration of the theme. At the end of the section, you will turn in a paper, at least five pages long (typed, double-spaced, with appropriate notes), that answers the thematic question(s). You will choose three of the five themes to write on over the course of the semester.

Service-Learning Project (10%): As a class, we will complete a service-learning project for the University of Idaho Sustainability Center. This project will give you practice researching in local archives, collect valuable information interested students and scholars can use to construct local and regional environmental history, and help strengthen the resources UISC has available as it helps move the university toward a more sustainable future. More details will follow shortly.

Research Project (25%): One of the most valuable things advanced undergraduates can do in a history class is an independent research project. It allows students to practice being historians and gives you a chance to study, in-depth, a topic of your own choosing. For this assignment, students will conduct a research project in American environmental history based chiefly in primary sources (i.e., those documents produced at the time and by participants or observers). Topics must be approved by me. Because you have other obligations in this course, the research project will be relatively short and narrow. The final paper will be approximately eight pages and consult at least three primary sources and two scholarly sources. Your main interpretations must be drawn from the primary sources.

Participation (15%): Just as you don’t get paid for your job just by showing up, you don’t get credit by just being in the classroom. I expect you to come to class ready to work. That means you will have read the assignment carefully and critically and will be prepared to offer your thoughts, ideas, and questions about the reading. Because my experience has taught me that many students will not do that without inducement, a significant part of your grade will be determined by your preparedness. This will be judged in several ways:

Participation will be evaluated by contributions to discussions, attendance, and in-class assignments, through general observations by professor and peers. Talking a lot is not necessarily a surefire way to get high grades here (although never speaking is not a positive alternative either). Good participation requires thoughtful listening, intelligent questioning, and careful responses.

Quizzes may be used to test student comprehension of reading material or lectures. They are likely to be unannounced. If you miss a quiz, you will not have the opportunity to make it up unless you made prior arrangements with me. If we have at least five quizzes, I will drop the lowest one; if we have at least eight, I will drop the lowest two.

Other work done in class may be collected; this may be individual or collaborative assignments and is likely not to be given a letter grade but a meets / fails to meet / exceeds expectation grade.

POLICIES

Late Work Policy: Your grade drops one full grade for each day your work is late. This is in effect for the first four days. After that, a completed paper can earn up to 50% of the assigned grade. With legitimate, documented excuses or for absences arranged ahead of time, exceptions can be made.

Grade Challenges: I am willing to entertain grade challenges provided they are submitted in writing and that you wait 48 hours after the assignment is returned before you hand in your objection. You will then need to set up an appointment with me to discuss the assignment and grade. You must initiate this process within one week of the time the assignment was returned to the class.

Plagiarism: To plagiarize is to present someone else’s work as your own. To present someone else’s work as your own means to use someone else’s information, ideas, or writing without explicitly acknowledging with quotation marks and/or citations that the ideas and/or writing are not your own. You may be plagiarizing even if you are not directly quoting. Plagiarism is a serious offense and I will give a 0 to the first assignment in which a student plagiarizes. If a student plagiarizes again, I will fail that student in the course. If you have ANY questions or confusions about plagiarism, please let me know before you turn in your work. It is essential to be using others’ ideas and information; however, you just must provide credit where credit is due. You may find additional information about Academic Honesty (and dishonesty) as part of the Student Code of Conduct: (http://www.students.uidaho.edu/default.aspx?pid=56182).

Accommodations: Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have a documented disability. Please notify me during the first week of class of an accommodation(s) needed for the course. Late notification may mean that requested accommodations might not be available. All accommodations must be approved through Disability Support Services located in the Idaho Commons Building, Rm. 333, 885-7200, or dss@uidaho.edu.

The schedule of readings and assignments is posted on the web because additional readings will be added as we move forward through the semester. I have included the five themes and questions, however.

PART ONE (Weeks one through four): CONTACTING NATURE

During various times, different natures came in contact with one another, yielding enormous ecological changes. One such period of contact was the growth of human populations in North America about 12,000 years ago. The next major contact occurred at the time colonists and slaves from Europe and Africa arrived in North American with their animals, germs, and plants. In this part of the course, we will examine these periods of upheaval when new types of nature came into contact for the first time.

How did the contact between different sets of nature (i.e., indigenous vs. exotic) shape interaction between humans and between humans and non-human nature in the North American landscape?

PART TWO (weeks four through seven): PRODUCING NATURE

The economy has done much to shape human-nature interaction, even as economic arrangements remained firmly embedded within culture. Understanding the interaction of economy, culture, and ecology remains a central—if not the central—focus of environmental historians. In this section of our course, we will examine how Americans have produced (harvested, used, processed, exploited) nature.

What were the consequences of interaction between economic ideas and practices, cultural and political values, and ecological conditions?

PART THREE (weeks eight through ten): SAVING NATURE

As long as humans have populated North America, there have been cultural and political practices designed to save or preserve or regulate nature. Although wilderness of preservation has long been a keystone of preservationists, there have been a number of other competing ways of saving nature and much contention around the very idea of wilderness. In this portion of the course, we will examine the ways Americans understood nature and worked to limit humans’ negative impacts on it.

What have been the consequences—intended and unintended—of Americans’ changing ideas about nature and how best to “save” it?

PART FOUR (weeks ten through thirteen): URBANIZING NATURE

Cities are natural, though that is not something we readily acknowledge. Nature shapes how urban areas develop and urban development profoundly shapes nature. Because of the mass of humanity that combines in cities, environmental changes frequently result in changed and problematic social relations. In this part of our course, we will focus on the ecological impacts of cities and how they shaped social relationships.

Explain the relationship between environmental changes and socio-economic relationships in urban settings.

PART FIVE (weeks fourteen through sixteen): CONSUMING NATURE

Throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, many Americans most closely relate to nature through their consumption. Everything from food to scenery is consumed in our modern economy, and it all comes from nature. However, one of the striking shifts that has happened, especially in the last half-century, has been the vast increase in distance between where nature is “produced” and where we consume it. In this final section of our course, we will focus on how modern Americans consume nature and the ecological effects of that consumer-based relationship.

How do Americans’ consumer habits affect the American landscape?

Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m., and by appointment

Please Note: It is my pleasure to do what I can to help you meet your goals in this class. If you find yourself having trouble, please send me e-mail, use my office hours, or set up an appointment to see me.

POLICIES