ENVI 330B - Landscape and Meaning

Institution:

Westminster College (Salt Lake City)

Subject:

Environmental Studies

Description:

This course will function as one of the Westminster Expedition Courses (and must be taken with ENVI 330A, ENVI 330C, and ENVI 330D). This course will examine the link between the landscapes of the West and the cultural meanings attached to them. The natural landscapes that surround us contain a world of meaning. The earth is home, habitat, playground, resource, waste-sink. It is seen as dangerous and peaceful, bountiful and depleted, crowded and open. Places like Yellowstone National Park, the Nez Perce Trail, the Atomic Test site, or the expanses of the Bitterroot mountains carry with them profound histories and meanings the often confound their natural appearance. How do we reconcile these contradictions? What do they mean in terms of the cultural and political ecologies of particular places? How do the cultural values we attach to natural landscapes challenge our understandings of their history and our own involvement in the natural world? By looking at the cultural geography of the environment we can analyze how the meanings of nature are actively created and why it is contested by different people in different places. And, perhaps most importantly, why it matters. In this course students will examine these landscapes of meaning in person. They will hear from experts, managers, and discuss the contested meanings that surround them. Students will prepare questions for guest lecturers, write descriptive field notes while observing and participating in social life, reflect on your interviews and field notes through exploratory essays, write critical reviews of existing relevant research, and complete an original analysis of a cultural landscape that incorporates properly-cited primary and secondary source material. You may take lots of pictures, video, or record sounds and present them to the public on the expedition blog.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.westminstercollege.edu

Phone Number:

(801) 484-7651

Regional Accreditation:

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities

Calendar System:

Four-one-four plan

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