AJ15057 American Nature Writing

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2005
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 2 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Professor Caren Irr, Ph.D. (lecturer), Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: doc. Mgr. Tomáš Kačer, Ph.D.
Prerequisites (in Czech)
AJ09999 Qualifying Examination
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 15 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/15, only registered: 0/15, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/15
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
How do geography and the natural environment shape the individuals or cultures that inhabit them? How can humans-especially high-consuming, materialistic, modern Americans-discover and express a less egocentric relationship to nature? What responsibilities do people have to understand and enhance the eco-systems of which they are a part? In this course, students will explore these and related questions through selected readings by the most important American nature writers: Thoreau, Muir, Carson, Leopold, Abbey, Snyder, Dillard and Lopez. Digressions into the treatment of landscape in contemporary American visual arts as well as the state of green politics in America today can also be expected.
Syllabus
  • Primary readings (selection):
  • Henry David Thoreau, Walden
  • John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
  • Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac
  • Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us
  • Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
  • Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild
  • Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
  • Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams
  • Secondary Bibliography:
  • Lawrence Buell, The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture
  • Michael P. Cohen, The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness
  • David Ehrenfeld, The Arrogance of Humanism
  • John elder, Imagining the Earth: Poetry and the Vision of Nature
  • Neil Evernden, The Social Creaton of Nature
  • Robert Pogue Harrison, Forests: The Shadow of Civilization
  • Annette Kolodny, The Law of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters
  • Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America
  • Joseph W. Meeker, The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology
  • Roderick Frazier Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind
  • Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology
  • Donald Worster, Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course is taught only once.
The course is taught: in blocks.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: Intensive course from April 25 - May 11, 2005.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2005/AJ15057