READINGS AND TOPICS (TENTATIVE)

Week 1: Jan 11 - 15
Introduction: greetings and logistics; theories of literature about the environment. John Haines, "The Writer as Alaskan: Beginnings and Reflections." Leslie Silko, "Landscape, History and the Pueblo Imagination." Gary Snyder, "The Place, the Region, the Commons"

Week 2: 18 - 22
Mountains and Motion; nature as myth; place as imagination. Henry David Thoreau, "Kataadn," "Walking"

Week 3: 25 - 29
Great Lakes; ecology, ethics, cycles and cultures.
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac Week

4: Feb 1 - 5
Great Plains; regionalism; vernacular landscape. Sense of place and past.
Wallace Stegner, Wolf Willow

Week 5: 8 - 12
Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces

Week 6: 15 - 19 Rivers; water and memory; art and grace.
Annie Dillard, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Week 7: 22 - 26 Peer Review of Paper #1

Week 8: Mar 1 - 5 Paper #1 Due.

SPRING BREAK

Week 9: 15 - 19
Atlantic Coast; Land use; regional stories and artifacts of place John McPhee, The Pine Barrens

Week 10: 22 - 26
The Desert; environmental politics, the biocentric epiphany. Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Week 11: 29 - April 2
Far North; narrative uses of place and space; the remote setting. Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams

Week 12: 5 - 9
John Krakauer, Into the Wild

Week 13: 12 - 16
Tourism; ecotourism, native as "other," the "discriminating" tourist. Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

Week 14: 19 - 23 Peer Review of Paper #2