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ENVS / HIST / WR 504: HISTORY OF WATER IN THE NORTH AMERICAN WEST
University of Idaho Spring 2009 Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. – 5:50 p.m. ALB112
Professor Adam M. Sowards Office: Administration 319 (mailbox in Admin. 315) Phone: 885-0529 (no voicemail) E-Mail: asowards@uidaho.edu (preferred contact) Web: http://www.class.uidaho.edu/asowards/ Office Hours: Tuesdays, 9:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m., Wednesdays, 2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m, and by appointmentPlease 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.
COURSE DESCRIPTION Water is a vital resource for humans, plants, and animals. It is also a critical part of westerners’ identities and sense of place. Its absence and presence is keenly felt by all those who live in the West. This graduate course seeks to examine the history of water—its use, management, and general significance—throughout the North American West. A fundamental premise guiding this course is that understanding how the past produced our present helps us comprehend the world in which we live and perhaps may assist us in our attempts to chart a better future. This is an interdisciplinary topic, but the course uses the scholarly lens of history to investigate water. This may be an unusual combination, but it generates useful perspectives. As such, I hope we accomplish several objectives through the course of this class. First, by the end of the term, we ought to have a strong basic sense of history as it relates to the North American West and its water. How have things changed regarding water use, management, values, and the relationship between water, society, and other resources? This is the level of acquiring basic information. Second, we will be introduced to and conversant in a number of conceptual models or ideas that historians have created to understand water—or nature more generally. Although created by historians, these models may well be useful in other fields, or at the intersection of disciplines. With luck, they may shine light into your own area of inquiry and reveal entirely new ways of seeing a research problem and reveal innovative pathways to deeper understanding. Third, you will have the opportunity to explore your own project through independent research. Whatever project you work on will require you to examine its history (e.g., history of a watershed or a germane piece of legislation or a shifting set of management strategies) along with putting it into the larger historical context and intellectual framework. That is, the research on your own independent project integrates the first two objectives. When you leave this course, you will have a good background to help explain why the West’s water and related features look as they do, and you will have produced a piece of scholarship on your own that demonstrates the value of historical perspectives to explain an environmental question. An organizational note: Most of the assigned books are focused on the Pacific Northwest. That is the region in which we live and that we likely know the best, and so this emphasis is appropriate. However, there is much history to know of water in the rest of the North American West. Consequently, most weeks you will read an additional article on a topic usually quite similar to that one covered in the week’s assigned book. That essay will most likely focus in the Southwest, Rocky Mountain West, Great Plains, or Borderlands region to give us a better rounded geographic distribution.
REQUIRED BOOKS The following list constitutes the required books for this course. They are available for purchase at the University of Idaho Bookstore. It is possible, even likely, that you could find some of the books cheaper through online or local booksellers.
Please Note: I recognize that the reading load for this course is somewhat different from what many students are accustomed to, especially those not in the humanities. Please recognize that you will not be held responsible for every detail on each page of all assignments. Strategies for more efficient and effective reading can be found here: http://www.class.uidaho.edu/asowards/reading_hints.htm. With dedicated practice, employing these strategies will save you time and even may increase your comprehension.
ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING Participation (25%): I expect everyone to have completed the assigned reading and thought about it before class. I also expect you to be willing to share your questions, ideas, and well-reasoned judgments during our discussions and respond constructively to others’ thoughts. Class time will primarily be focused around discussing the assigned readings and sharing information we have read independently. (I will provide contextual lectures as needed.) We will focus our discussions on ensuring that we understand the material and how it connects to earlier readings or information we know from other sources. In addition, we will deliberately spend time examining how the scholars have done their work. That is, we will investigate what sources the writer used, how they were used, in what ways did the author write the history. In short, we will examine the history (i.e., what actually happened) and the act of writing the history (i.e., how we research and construct something coherent out of disparate parts). A related topic that is sure to enter our conversations is how we can use the information or model provided in the reading to help your own work.
Author/Book Introductions (5%): Before we begin our discussion of each book, two or three students will offer a short introduction of the author and book. You should research a little into the author, finding out as much as you can about him or her (e.g., educational and personal background [including, if possible, major professors and influences], professional position, etc.). In addition, you should locate some scholarly book reviews of the book, read them, and summarize them for the class, paying particular attention to what the reviewers think are the contributions of the book and if it speaks to any scholarly controversies. The introductions should only be five minutes or so, and while you are welcome to research the author and book to your heart’s content, I only expect you to spend maybe 30-60 minutes of research on it at the most. This is graded to ensure that you prepare for it, but keep its importance in context and do not overdo it.
Thematic Writing (5 * 6% = 30%): Writing is a necessary skill for completing any graduate degree and being successful in most careers. It is hard, time-consuming work, and you can always improve your writing skills. In addition, writing is an important way to process and refine your thoughts. To give you an opportunity to work at these critical skills, you will turn in short papers for each theme. Your papers will be based on the books and essays we read. Their purpose is to get you to identify the main questions and answers of the scholarship, to critique the ideas and interpretations offered, and to synthesize and present your own ideas and judgments. In short, they are to demonstrate your thinking about these topics. Such a broad-based paper on such important and wide-ranging themes could easily amount to a dozen or two dozen pages per theme, but I do not want that (and neither do you!). Instead, focus down to the essentials (this is a critical skill in itself) and explain your ideas clearly and succinctly in about three to four pages (typed and double spaced). We have seven books and themes; you are required to turn in essays for five of them. Here are some more specific instructions if you find you need them: Your papers should answer the following questions: (1) What are the main topics the authors cover, or the main questions s/he seeks to answer? (2) What do the authors argue, or what are their interpretations? (3) What do you think about those arguments? Do you find them persuasive? (4) How does this material connect with each other, with other material from the course, and with other information you have? Feel free to begin the semester writing your papers in a straightforward way with numbered paragraphs corresponding with these questions. However, by the end of the course, I would hope that you are writing coherent essays that seamlessly cover these sorts of questions with graceful prose.
Research Paper (30%): Each student will write a 15 - 20-page research paper based on the course topic. There are two acceptable approaches. One approach is to do primary source-based research (i.e., sources produced at the time by participants or observers). For students with a well-defined topic already, perhaps for their thesis or dissertation, and with access to sufficient sources, this is the best option. It could amount to creating most of a chapter for your thesis. Although this project should be based mostly on primary sources, it must be informed by secondary sources (i.e., sources produced after the fact—usually quite a bit after the fact—by scholars). Locating primary sources is often difficult, so begin searching for them early. Fortunately, a web-based project has digitized many primary sources related to water. See the Western Waters Digital Library at: http://www.westernwaters.org/index.php/index. Most likely, though, you will need old-fashioned library research. The second approach is perhaps more appropriate for students who do not already have a specified topic. The research for this approach would be to examine the scholarship about a particular issue related to water history. So instead of investigating primary resources to produce new knowledge, this research approach asks you to rigorously survey the existing scholarship on a significant question (e.g., How have Winters water rights been implemented? How has the Bureau of Reclamation instituted its program in the West? How has the United States pursued binational water agreements?). I much prefer the first option and believe it serves students the best; however, I recognize that various factors outside our control can make a primary source-based research project impractical. More information will be forthcoming.
Research Presentation (10%): During the last few weeks of the semester, you will have the opportunity to present your research project to the class. You will have 15 minutes to present, followed by a question-and-answer period. Feedback on this presentation by me and by the class will help you revise your argument for your final project.
THEMES AND READING SCHEDULE This is my best approximation of our reading schedule. Inevitably, something unanticipated will arise and force adjustments to the schedule. I will inform students when such changes occur and make changes to this schedule.
I am still in the process of building the article/essay bibliography. I will add these as I complete them.
WEEK ONE: Introduction; Thinking Historically Wednesday, January 14
WEEK TWO: Encountering the West’s Water Wednesday, January 21 Read: Helen Ingram, John M. Whiteley, and Richard Perry, “The Importance of Equity and the Limits of Efficiency in Water Resources,” in Water, Place, and Equity, ed. John M. Whiteley, Helen Ingram, and Richard Warren Perry (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008): 1-32; and Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, vii-xxiii, 1-201. Choose one to read: Norris Hundley, Jr., “Hispanic Patterns: Community and Authority,” from The Great Thirst: Californians and Water: A History, revised edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001): 27-64. Arthur F. McEvoy, “Aboriginal Fishery Management,” from The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-1980 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986): 19-40. José A. Rivera, “Irrigation Communities on the Río Grande” and “Evolution of the Acequia Institution,” from Acequia Culture: Water, Land, and Community in the Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1998): 1-12, 25-40.
WEEK THREE: Encountering the West’s Water Wednesday, January 28 Read: Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, vii-xxiii, 202-367; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson One Read articles (after finishing Stegner):
WEEK FOUR: Irrigating the West, I Wednesday, February 4 Read: Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden, ix-xi, 3-116; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Two Choose one to read: Stephen Bogener, “Mr. Wrecklamation Man,” from Ditches across the Desert: Irrigation in the Lower Pecos Valley (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2003): 160-81. James Earl Sherow, “The Incomplete Conquest,” from Watering the Valley: Development along the High Plains Arkansas River, 1870-1950 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990): 28-47.
WEEK FIVE: Irrigating the West, II Wednesday, February 11 Read: Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden, 117-209; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Three All read: Donald Worster, “Hoover Dam: A Study in Domination,” in Under Western Skies: Nature and History in the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992): 64-78. Choose one to read:
WEEK SIX: Energy and Power Wednesday, February 18 Read: Richard White, The Organic Machine, all; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Four
WEEK SEVEN: No Class: Professor Sowards in Tallahassee, FL, for the American Society for Environmental History annual meeting Wednesday, February 25
WEEK EIGHT: Dams and Fish Wednesday, March 4 Read: Matthew D. Evenden, Fish versus Power; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Five & Six Choose one to read: Helen Ingram, Nancy K. Laney, and David M. Gillilan, “Divided Neighbors,” in Divided Waters: Bridging the U.S.-Mexico Border (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995):104-45. Stephen P. Mumme, “From Equitable Utilization to Sustainable Development: Advancing Equity in U.S.-Mexico Border Water Management,” in Water, Place, and Equity, ed. John M. Whiteley, Helen Ingram, and Richard Warren Perry (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008): 117-46. Raúl M. Sánchez, “Building Dams and Damning People in the Texas-Mexico Border Region: Mexico’s Cuchillo Dam Project,” in Fluid Arguments: Five Centuries of Western Water Conflict, ed. Char Miller (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001): 303-28.
WEEK NINE: Class Canceled Wednesday, March 11
SPRING BREAK, March 16-20; No Classes
WEEK TEN: Rivers and Social Justice, I Wednesday, March 25 Read: Katrine Barber, Death of Celilo Falls, 3-95; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Seven
WEEK ELEVEN: Rivers and Social Justice, II Wednesday, April 1 Read: Katrine Barber, Death of Celilo Falls, 96-186; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Eight Choose one to read: Michael L. Lawson, “Reconstruction,” from Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982): 135-59. Alan S. Newell, “First in Time: Tribal Reserved Water Rights and General Adjudications in New Mexico,” in Fluid Arguments: Five Centuries of Western Water Conflict, ed. Char Miller (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001): 95-119.
WEEK TWELVE: Multiple Use Management and Water, I Wednesday, April 8 Read: Nancy Langston, Where Land and Water Meet, ix-xii, 3-90; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Nine Choose one to read: Thomas Clay Arnold, “The San Luis Valley and the Moral Economy of Water,” Water, Place, and Equity, ed. John M. Whiteley, Helen Ingram, and Richard Warren Perry (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008): 37-67. Philip Garone, “Rethinking Reclamation: How an Alliance of Duck Hunters and Cattle Ranchers Brought Wetland Conservation to California’s Central Valley Project,” in Natural Protest: Essays on the History of American Environmentalism, eds. Michael Egan and Jeff Crane (New York: Routledge, 2009): 137-62.
WEEK THIRTEEN: Multiple Use Management and Water, II Wednesday, April 15: Tentative Class visit with Nancy Langston Read: Nancy Langston, Where Land and Water Meet, ix-xii, 91-169; Joseph M. Williams, Style, Lesson Ten
WEEK FOURTEEN: Urban Water, I Wednesday, April 22 Read: Jared Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 1-101 Research Presentations
WEEK FIFTEEN: Urban Water, II Wednesday, April 29 Read: Jared Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis, 102-83 Research Presentations
WEEK SIXTEEN: Research Presentations Wednesday, May 6 Research Presentations
FINAL EXAM SCHEDULED (Final Research Papers due) Friday, May 15, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
POLICIESCommunications Policy: Because of various professional obligations, I routinely send and receive more than one hundred e-mails a day. Not surprisingly, this can become burdensome and highly time-consuming. So, please, before you call or e-mail me (or any professor) with a question about the course, ask yourself this important question: Is there ANY other way to gain this information or answer this question without asking a professor? If so, use that other method! If you e-mail a question that can be answered from reading the syllabus or an assignment or some other handout, I will not answer your message. That being said: Students are welcome to e-mail (or call my office phone) to make an appointment to see me, or to attend to course-related matters where answers are not available. Indeed, I very much enjoy consulting with students and helping them work toward improvement in classes. Late Work Policy: Your grade drops one full grade for each day your work is late. Furthermore, you must be in class the day it is due to turn in work. If you do not come to class, your work will be counted as one day late unless you have made prior arrangements. 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. Also, you must initiate this process within one week of the time the assignment was returned to the class. After re-evaluating a grade and meeting with you to discuss the assignment and evaluation, I may change it. 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. Further actions may be warranted, including reporting the offense to the Dean of Students. 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. |
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