AMH 5930

American Environmental History, Fall 2013

R 8-10 (3-6 pm) K-F 229

Professor Jack E. Davis

Ofc. Hrs.: T 11:35-12:35PM /R 1-3PM (K-F 235)

Presented within the context of the larger and more familiar historical experience, this course is an overview of the relationship between humans and their natural physical surroundings. If we as students of history ignore that relationship and reduce nature to an inert backdrop to the drama of human actions, Ted Steinberg argues, we limit the results of our historical inquiry. Taking this point a step further, we should avoid the trap of conceptualizing environmental history as nothing more than the study of the human impact on nature or as the historical antecedents of the nation’s contemporary environmental issues. We should instead begin with the premise that the natural environment was not a passive object--which humans simply contemplated, exploited, or protected; it was instead an active variable that shaped the course of American history. Throughout human history, physical surroundings to a large extent determined the ways in which humans organized their lives. If we incorporate these ideas into our study of history, we gain greater insight into the identity, beliefs, and values of human groups and how each defined its relationship with others. As William Cronon writes in his seminal Changes in the Land, "the great strength of ecological analysis in writing history is its ability to uncover processes and long-term changes which might otherwise remain invisible" (vii).

This course covers the full sweep of U.S. history, from pre-Columbian cultures to the present; yet it is not intended to provide a comprehensive survey of U.S. environmental history. The course instead has been designed to introduce students to major works representing a fairly broad sampling of approaches to and topics in environmental history. As in any field within our discipline, no single mode of inquiry or interpretive category defines environmental history. Scholars with interests in social, political, intellectual, labor, gender, urban, and regional history, and history of science can all be found working in environmental history.

Course Objectives:

Regardless of their individual primary field of choice, students have the opportunity to take from this course analytic tools that can help advance their study of history, anthropology, science, political science, to mention a few disciplines. One of the course’s objectives is to provide a working knowledge of the methodologies, interpretive categories, and historiography in environmental history. With this knowledge should come a new understanding of the role of environmental history, its potential impact on other fields of history, and its contributions to the study of the past. Students should also treat the course as an opportunity to improve their skills as an academic historian--critically analyzing works of history, asking heuristic questions, researching all types of sources in any number of environments, and presenting their findings in a cogently argued and clearly written text.

Course Requirements:

C Class participation discussion leadership 20%

C Annotated bibliography contribution 10%

C Review Essays:

Chicago Manual of Style worksheet

· 3 essays x 10% = 30%

· Research Paper 40%

Including prospectus/bibliography and presentation

( Please see the last section of the syllabus for a description of these requirements.)

Course Grading Scale (see UF grading scale at end of syllabus):

A+ =97-100

A =94-96

A- =90-93

B+ =87-89

B =84-86

B- =80-83

C+ =77-79

C =74-76

C- =70-73

D =65-69

Assignments not completed earn a 0

Plagiarized assignment (see plagiarism section below) earn a 0

Assignments not turned in before or by stated due date will not be accepted. All assignments should be emailed to jackedavis@gmail.com in Word (versions prior to Word 2007). I will line edit using track changes and comment boxes.

Required Texts:

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (Touchstone, 1990) ISBN 0671695886 PAPER

William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill & Wang, 2003). ISBN 0809016346 PAPER

Jack E. Davis, An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century (University of Georgia Press, 2009) ISBN 0820330779X PAPER (do not buy unless you can find a copy for under $16, my cost new to you)

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: Fates of Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999). ISBN 0393317552 PAPER

Mark D. Hersey, My Work is That of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011) ISBN 0820338702

Andrew Hurley, Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). ISBN 0807845183 PAPER

Andrew C. Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 2001) ISBN 0820338705 PAPER

Carolyn Merchant, Earthcare: Women and the Environment (New York: Routledge, 1995). ISBN 0415908884 PAPER.

Christopher Morris, The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and Its People (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Adam Rome, The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation (New York: Hill & Wang, 2013) ISBN 0809040506 hardcover.

William Souder, On a Far Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson (Crown, 2012).

Christian Warren, Brush With Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning (Baltimore, MD., Johns-Hopkins University Press, 2001). ISBN 0801868203 PAPER

Donald Worster, A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir (Oxford University Press, 2008) ISBN 0195166825 Cloth

(Students are required to search for and find all other assigned course readings.)

Week I (Aug 22): Introduction: The Natural Web of History; What is Nature?

Roderick F. Nash ed., American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989), 1-24.

Ted Steinberg, "Down to Earth: Nature, Agency, and Power in History," American Historical Review 103 (June 2002): 798-820 (read on-line responses at www.theaha.org).

Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1999), 65-69.

Film: "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (episode one).

Week II (Aug 29): History and the Environmental Determinist Model

Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Film: "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (episode two or three).

Week III (Sept 5): Social and Environmental History

Cronon, Changes in the Land

(Chicago Manual of Style Worksheet Due.)

Week IV (Sept 12): Dispossession and Domination

Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison

Week V (Sept 19): New Philosophy and Values

Worster, A Passion for Nature

Film: "Cadillac Desert" (episode one).

Week VI (Sept 26): Down South; Second Nature

Hersey, My Work is That of Conservation

Week VII (Oct 3): Way Down Upon a River

Morris, Big Muddy

Film: "Cadillac Desert" (episode two).

Week VIII (Oct 10): Defining Environments: Public Health and Poisoned Space

Warren, Brush with Death

(Prospectus/Bibliography Due)

Week IX (Oct 17): Women and the Environment

Merchant, Earthcare

Week X (Oct 24): Changes on the Conservationist Landscape

Souder, On a Farther Shore

William Souder to join class; public talk afterward

Week XI (Oct 31): Women, Water, and the Florida Model

Davis, An Everglades Providence

Week XII (Nov 7): Technology, the Urban Landscape, and Environmental Injustice

Hurley, Environmental Inequalities

XIII (Nov 14): Wasteland Revised

Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Film: “Cadillac Desert” (Episode 3)

XIV (Nov 21): The Movement

Rome, The Genius of Earth Day

XV Thanksgiving Break

(Research Papers Due on Monday by Email Attachment)

XVI (Dec 5): The Last Hurrah

Conclusions and Paper Presentations; Dinner at my house

Course Requirements Descriptions:

All written work for the course must be typed or computer generated and in 12-point double-spaced print. Your work must also be presented in third-person language.

Class participation has two requirements. First, students must complete the assigned readings of the week and come to class prepared to discuss the scholarly merit of the work. Second, they will be responsible for leading one class discussion. The discussion leaders should come prepared with a set of questions to direct the seminar.

Historiography contribution asks one or two students to assume the responsibility of making an oral presentation summarizing scholarly work on the theme of the week. The student or students should compile a written bibliography of that work and provide copies to his/her classmates.

Review essays should be approximately 750 words in length each and cover the reading for one’s assigned weeks. The written reviews will be due the week after the assigned reading has been discussed in class. With book reviews from academic journals serving as a model, the essays should identify the author’s central argument; evaluate the author’s research, empirical analysis, and success in supporting her/his interpretation; and assess the book’s organization and quality of presentation. Essay grades will in part be determined by the student’s consistency in following the rules covered in the Chicago Manual of Style worksheet.

Research paper grades are based on (1) turning in a prospectus/bibliography on the assigned date, (2) an in-class presentation of the research undertaken for the paper and the conclusions articulated in the paper, (3) consistency in following the rules of the Chicago Manual of Style worksheet, and (4) content of work completed. Part of the exercise of writing a research paper requires one to choose and conceptualize one’s own topic. Students may pursue any topic that is related to the subject (and chronology) of the course, and research papers (approximately 5,000 words, separate of notes and bibliography) must represent original work. Please ensure that you read, consult, memorize, and otherwise obey the "Research Paper" handout provided on my web site.

Other Business:

UF Grading Scale

Please note UF’s new grading scale with the addition of minuses.

A = 4.0

A- = 3.67

B+ = 3.33

B = 3.0

B- = 2.67

C+ = 2.33

C = 2.0

C- = 1.67

D+ = 1.33

D = 1.0

D- = 0.67

E = 0.0

E1 = 0.0 Stopped attending or participating prior to end of class

I (incomplete) = 0.0

Plagiarism:

Keep in mind that your written assignments must represent original work. You cannot copy the words, phrases, arguments, ideas, and conclusions of someone else or of another source (including Internet sources) without giving proper credit to the person or source by using quotation marks and a foot note. Do not cobble together paragraphs or passages of separate texts and then try to claim that you have done original and legitimate work. You must write with your own ideas and in your own words. If you copy the words of someone else without putting those words in quotation marks, REGARDLESS OF CITING THE SOURCE, you are plagiarizing. Plagiarism is theft, and it is academic dishonesty. Plagiarism is grounds for an automatic failing grade in the course, a grade that is final and that cannot be made up. If you have any questions about how you are citing or using sources, come to me for the answers. Please also review the university’s honesty policy at: {http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/academic.htm}

Classroom Assistance:

Please do not hesitate to contact the instructor during the semester if you have any individual concerns or issues that need to be discussed. Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office {http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drp/}. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide that documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation.

Alpata: A Journal of History

Keep in mind that the undergraduate- and graduate-student members of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society at the University of Florida publish an academic journal each spring. In the fall, the journal editors will be sending out a call for submissions (articles and book reviews) to the journal.