Required Texts:

• Shiva, Vandana. (1999). Stolen Harvest. South End Publishers. (ISBN: 0896086070)
• DeLillo, Don. (1991). White Noise. Penguin. (ISBN: 0140077022)
• Glendinning, Chellis. (1999). Off the Map. Shambhala. (ISBN: 1570623600)
• Cajete, Gregory. (1999). Native Science. Clear Light. (ISBN: 1574160419)
• Thoreau, Henry David. (2004). Walden. Princeton. (ISBN: 0691096120)

Videotapes:

• Course Introduction
• The Features of Discourse
• The Palouse: Discourse and Land
• [The film "To Till a Field" in the middle of the Palouse lecture,
  shortly after the lecture begins.]
• Thoreau: 19th Century Discourse
• Emerging Discourses: Postmodernism
• Emerging Discourses: Native American Perspectives
• Emerging Discourses: Eco-feminism and Environmental Justice
• Discourse and Place: Koppel Farm
• Conclusion

Welcome to American Studies/English 472: Ecological Issues and American Nature Writing. The course consists of a series of video lectures, 5 textbooks, and the WebCT online course space.

Our central focus for the course is the relationship between nature and culture. Our basic approach is discourse theory.

As I was writing the introduction to this course a few years ago, the world's leaders were meeting in Johannesburg for the Earth Summit to address issues as diverse as links between poverty and environmental degradation, global warming, water quality, and soil erosion--in a nutshell, the issues that define the relationship between humans and their natural environment. It would be difficult to claim that much progress has been made on those issues since that summit. Closer to home, the decisions that we make as individuals and as members of communities also influence that relationship. In both cases, discourse theory can help us to understand the assumptions that we rely upon to guide our decisions.

Because of the very real consequences of these decisions, the study of the relationship between nature and culture is much more than an academic exercise. For this reason, we juxtapose "nature writing" and "ecological issues."

The course consists of 4 main topics, broken up into 3 Units

Unit 1: Discourses of Nature and Culture.

This unit introduces the major themes of discourse theory.

Unit 2: Historical Contexts.

This unit focuses on two key historical periods of the American past:

1. the colonial period, in which Europeans re-defined their relationship to Nature on a new continent and in relationship to Native American cultures; and
2. the nineteenth century, when Americans of all types were beginning to come to terms with a nation that was becoming increasingly urbanized, industrialized, and commercialized.

Unit 3: Emerging Discourses and The Course Project

This unit includes 4 subtopics and the course project:

1. Postmodernism. In the past several decades, new ways of conceiving the world and the human place in it have been labeled "Postmodernism." The tenets of postmodernism impact our understanding of the relationship between nature and culture.
2. Native American Perspectives. These perspectives provide us with the original American discourse on nature and culture. They continue to influence our understanding and our actions.
3. Eco-feminism and Environmental Justice. Environmentalism has long been criticized for being too male, too white, and too middle class. In the 1970s new challenges to traditional environmentalism arose in the discourses of eco-feminism and environmental justice. Mainstream environmentalists are still trying to come to terms with the change of discourse.
4. Globalization. For better or worse, "globalization" often turns out to be little more than "Americanization." American attitudes towards the environment are being exported around the world by global corporations and international organizations.

Course Project. Your course project, which begins in the early weeks of the course and continues to the end, brings you back home. This project will focus you on some local manifestation of the relationship between nature and culture.

When this course is finished you should be able to:

• Understand a variety of discourses that impact the relationship between nature and culture.
• Recognize the historical development of these discourses.
• Identify and analyze underlying assumptions of these discourses.
• Analyze local environmental issues as they are shaped by various discourses.
• Articulate and support a position on the relationship between discourse and environment.
• Formulate strategies for doing local research

Evaluation Criteria

• Articulate the relationships among different environmental discourses.
• Articulate relationships between historical events and historically contingent discourses.
• Articulate key underlying assumptions of these discourses.
• Analyze local issues within the framework of discourse theory in a research project.
• Develop and support an argument informed by the relationship between discourse and the environment in a research project.
• Develop a coherent strategy for researching a local environmental issue.

Assignments are of several types:

Traditional Threaded Discussions in WebCT

These assignments are meant to mimic in-class discussions. If this were a regular, on-campus course, we would spend a great deal of time around a table discussing ideas that arise from the texts that we read, from the lectures, and from your research. Since we have no table, the traditional threaded discussions on WebCT will give us an opportunity to interact informally with each other. Since it is conversational, your tone can be informal, like conversation around a table. For a traditional threaded discussion we expect you to submit one main post that fulfills the requirements of the assignment. In addition, you should submit responses to at least two other students as part of the threaded discussion.

Modified Threaded Discussions in WebCT

These threaded discussions are designed to encourage academic written discourse, the kind that appears in academic journals and in books. This discourse is also a dialogue, like the kind that occurs sitting around a table, but with some differences. Academic written discourse is more formal and ideas are more fully developed than in conversational dialogue. For a modified threaded discussion, you need only submit one post, but in most cases that post should include your response to another student or students. You should integrate your response to other students with your own ideas, perhaps agreeing, perhaps disagreeing, but always developing the ideas in your own direction. It is never enough to say simply that you agree with another student. (See individual assignments for particular guidelines.)

Formal Written Assignments

There are two of these: the academic essay on Thoreau's Walden and the research paper for your course project. The writing for these assignments will be yet more developed and more formal than that for the modified threaded discussions on WebCT. For these kinds of assignments you would, for example, avoid the first and second person (I and you) in favor of the more objective 3rd person. Paragraphs will generally be longer and more unified, as you develop your ideas using information from sources. These assignments will be submitted via the WebCT assignment tool.

Something Else

This assignment (a part of your final project) will be different for every student. It may be a newspaper article, a speech or lecture, a video. It will require you to think carefully about the relationship between your topic and your intended audience.

Incompletes are granted only with permission of the instructor and are subject to the following guidelines:

1. Students must request an incomplete in writing or by e-mail from the instructor before the end of the semester.
2. The request must be signed and dated by the student (or identified by student's e-mail address), and must explain the reasons behind the request for the incomplete.
3. In order to be considered for an incomplete, there are two main conditions:
   
   • Students must request an incomplete in writing from the professor/ instructor.
   • The request must be made via regular post (snail mail), must be signed and dated by the student, and must explain the reasons behind the request for the incomplete.
4. If extraordinary circumstances (e.g., family emergency, serious illness) are involved and are documented to the instructor’s satisfaction, the professor/ instructor retains the discretion to grant an incomplete even if the minimum conditions outlined above are not met.

If an incomplete is granted, the standard WSU policy applies (i.e., ALL work must be completed within one full year from the end of the enrollment semester at issue. Otherwise, an automatic grade of "F," or failing, will be entered on the student’s transcript).

Referring To Others

Our modified threaded discussions as well as the essay on Walden resemble "real" academic discourse, in which scholars present their ideas (in a journal article or a book, for example) and then other scholars respond to them. In this way, knowledge is constructed; it’s a community effort. But how does one do this? Typically, when you refer to another’s work for the first time, use both names of that person. For example:

Susan Jones argues that civilizations are nothing more than polite structures for promoting violence on a large scale. Bob Martin, on the other hand, is more optimistic. Martin suggests that civilizations are "the best thing since sliced bread." I believe that the truth lies somewhere between these two positions. On the one hand, civilizations—with their states, police forces, and armies—undoubtedly contribute to violence. However, these same institutions may actually reduce violence at the personal level, by discouraging crime, for example. Of course, we must ultimately consider particular civilizations when we try to answer such questions. The ancient Egyptian pharaohs, for example, provided a stable political system, which presumably offered the common Egyptians a measure of stability in their personal lives. . . .

Note that the second reference to an author uses only the last name. Note also that you can use the words of another scholar, as long as you don’t overdo it and as long as you use quotation marks. Finally, when you respond to another scholar, it is not enough to say simply: "I agree," or "I disagree." You need to explain why you agree or disagree. And you need to explain with an effective argument, using facts, opinions, and ideas.