UNCOMMON GROUND: RETHINKING THE HUMAN PLACE IN NATURE

Our first readings from UNCOMMON GROUND will establish some of the key questions and themes of our program from a very contemporary perspective.

The product of an interdisciplinary seminar of scholars and professionals, UG is a collection of widely ranging essays that attempt to clarify our relationship to nature through new definitions of such terms as"wilderness" and examinations of cultural trends and phenomena that highlight our complex and multicentered connections to the non-human world.

We'll keep returning to this book to catch the different perspectives as they fit with our general themes.

WEEK ONE:

Cronon: Intro (23-68)
Cronon: The Trouble w/Wilderness (69-90)
Spirn: Constructing Nature (91-113)
Olwig: Reinventing Common Nature (379-408)
Harrison: Toward a Philosophy of Nature (426-446)
All: Toward a Conclusion (447-460)

WEEK TWO:

White: "Are You an Environmentalist or do you work for a living?" (171-185)
Proctor: "Whose Nature? The Contested Moral Terrain of Ancient Forests" (269-297)

WEEK NINE:

Price: Looking for Nature at the Mall (pp. 186-203)