Environmental Humanities Minor

Short Title : COM 340

Course Code : COM 340

Course Description : This course addresses the topic generation, topic research, reporting and newswriting process in the context of environmental concerns and issues. The course also addresses newsmedia and reporting business and ethical concerns, including changing readership, print and digital outlets and social responsibility in journalism. Students will engage in a semester-long news reporting and writing workshop guided by content presentations and discussions addressing the theoretical and practical concerns of writing environmental news, journal articles, feature essays and other non-fiction formats. Prerequisites: ENG 101, and (ENG 102 Effective College Writing II, or ENG 103 Hearts and Minds, or ENG 105 Food Writing, or COM 210 Technical Communications, or ENG 200 Advanced Composition, or HST 201 US History I, or HST 202 US History II, or ENG 115 Wilderness in Amer Lit, or ENG 220 Creative Writing), AND (POL 202 Politics of the Environment, or NRS 110 Intro to Environment & Society or EST 200 Nature & Culture or SUS 120 Sustainable Community Agriculture). Completes General Education Requirements:WC-I, LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: POL 202 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or NRS 110 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or EST 200 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : ENG 340

Course Code : ENG 340

Course Description : This advanced literature survey course will study contemporary nonfiction and literary journalism that focuses on issues in nature, natural history, the environment and their related topics. Students in Contemporary Environmental Writing will examine literature that reveals and interprets the environment and its social, philosophical, economic, and cultural contexts and implications. Readings may include works by noted contemporary writers such as E.O. Wilson, Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry, Rick Bass, Annie Dillard, Peter Matthiessen, Stephen Jay Gould, and David Quammen. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisites: ENG 101 Effective College Writing I and ENG 102 Effective College Writing II Completes General Education Requirements:WC-l, RE-l, SC-l LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Advanced Studies Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00 And ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : ENG 400

Course Code : ENG 400

Course Description : This course is designed as an advanced writing workshop, and students will study and practice the writing and editing skills necessary to interpret the environment through its social, philosophical, scientific, economic or cultural aspects. This course will also expose the student to techniques in nonfiction and literary journalism employed by contemporary writers on issues in nature, natural history, the environment and related topics. A student?s final project will include a publishable work - review, feature, essay, study or memoir - to be presented to the College community, as well as submitted for possible publication in a regional or national periodical. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisites: ENG 101 Effective College Writing I, ENG 102 Effective College Writing II and Responsibility & Expression-Reinforcing level course Completes General Education Requirements:WC-I, RE-I, LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Advanced Studies Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00 And ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : EST 300

Course Code : EST 300

Course Description : This course translates, applies and interprets critical concepts from global change science so that the non-scientific community might become better informed in the policy decision- making arena. Students will examine the natural and anthropogenic changes taking place in the totality of the earth's environment across spatial and temporal scales. Students will deepen their understandings of interrelationships and connections between biogeochemical processes in various parts of the earth system, and discuss change mechanisms, tipping points and possible mitigation and adaptation solutions to the tremendous challenges posed by anthropogenic climate change. The course will examine long-term records of global change, as well as focusing on near-past human societies that have successfully or unsuccessfully adapted to changing environmental conditions. We will assess global change models for implications regarding vulnerability of human society and non-human ecosystems to potential change and for insight into strategies for future sustainability. Prerequisite: Social Cultural-Foundation and Analytical Reasoning & Scientific Inquiry-Reinforcing Completes General Education Requirements:SC-I, AR-I, LAS.

• Credit : 3

Short Title : EST 310

Course Code : EST 310

Course Description : This course looks at the historical, cultural and ecological basis for our changing concepts of the environment. The course provides an overview of US environmental history in an effort to understand the interactions, interdependencies and changes implicit in the relationship between human culture and the environment. American history is characterized by the paradox of the bounty of the continent's vast natural resources and subsequent establishment of natural institutions, such as our National Park System, and the sweeping and often catastrophic ecological changes wrought on the landscape by the process of Manifest Destiny and industrialization. Environmental history combines political, social, ecological, artistic and literary forms to clarify how our culture's concept of the environment has changed over time. Prerequisite: Social Cultural Foundation level course Completes General Education Requirements:SC-I, LAS.

• Credit : 3

Short Title : EST 320

Course Code : EST 320

Course Description : While virtually all the peoples of the earth face important environmental issues, the form and content of these human-nature interactions often differs widely from place to place. Variations in political forms, economic status, cultural contexts, and the natural environment are all significant factors in shaping environmental politics and policy around the world. This course investigates these differences using the framework of political ecology and important recent books on environmental politics at various sites around the globe. Various regions and countries are examined through a critical and intensive reading of texts which focuses on these locations. The exact regions and countries vary from year to year. The other major focus of this course is learning the skills of critical reading and analysis of book-length sources, and communicating these analyses in both oral and written forms. Prerequisites: NRS 110 Introduction to Environment & Society or POL 202 Politics of the Environment. Completes General Education Requirements:WC-I, SC-I, RE-I, LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: NRS 110 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or POL 202 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HST 215

Course Code : HST 215

Course Description : This course will examine the environmental, political, and cultural history of the Adirondack Mountain region and provide students with an analytical framework for interpreting the landscape and history of our regional environment, the natural world and mankind's relationship to it. (3 hours lecture). Please note that there is a $40 fee for the raft trip on the Upper Hudson River. Completes General Education Requirements:SC-F or SC-R, RE-R, LAS

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HUM 300

Course Code : HUM 300

Course Description : This course explores the wide range of ideas about nature that philosophers and other thinkers have developed from ancient times to the present, and examines how such ideas inform (though often invisibly) contemporary debates concerning our relationship to the land, resource use, and other issues. General topic areas include Nature as Empirical Reality, Nature as Synonymous with Reason, Nature as Antithetical to Man, Nature as Moral Lawgiver, Nature as Aesthetic Norm, and Ecological Ideas. Discussion will draw on thinkers ranging from Aristotle, Tertullian, and Descartes to Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Frederick Turner. This philosophical component is complemented by readings and discussions of materials from the current press and recent publications. (3 hours lecture). Completes General Education Requirements:RE-I, LAS

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HUM 310

Course Code : HUM 310

Course Description : This course explores dimensions of identity, power and landscape in some of the most significant novels with Adirondack settings. Class disscussion will address how narrative themes shape actual perceptions of history and contemporary relationships between members of various Adirondack socioeconomic categories, including resident wage earner, seasonal resident, tourist and elite. We will examine the role of landscape and natural resource base in forming Adirondack culture, social interactions and competing Adirondack mythos. The course will emphasize reading and analyzing several full-length novels through interactive discussion and formal and informal written response. Completes General Education Requirements: WC-I, SC-I

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HUM 400

Course Code : HUM 400

Course Description : Students will explore the influence of various theories of nature on visual artists throughout history. In turn, the influence of art on human perception of nature, especially as reflected in the conservationist movement, will be studied. Representative works in painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, film, and video from earliest times to the contemporary period will be discussed. Human expression in landscape design and other manipulations of nature will also form part of the course. Many cultures, particularly Japanese and Native American, will be examined for their contributions to human appreciation of the natural world. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisite: Junior standing. Completes General Education Requirements:RE-I, LAS

• Credit : 3

Short Title : SOC 300

Course Code : SOC 300

Course Description : Anthropology involves the systematic study of humankind and the unique and diverse ways in which humans have successfully adapted to vastly different environmental settings throughout the world. Cultural Anthropology provides students with an opportunity to explore and understand the diversity of human thought and behavior that characterize different cultures. Through the application of theoretical frameworks developed by anthropologists and the use of case studies from five continents, students will learn how we, in the Western world, can understand and appreciate the diversity of cultures and cultural expression found throughout the world today. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisite: Social Cultural Reinforcing and Written Communication Reinforcing level courses Completes General Education Requirements WC-I, SC-I, LAS

• Credit : 3

Short Title : COM 340

Course Code : COM 340

Course Description : This course addresses the topic generation, topic research, reporting and newswriting process in the context of environmental concerns and issues. The course also addresses newsmedia and reporting business and ethical concerns, including changing readership, print and digital outlets and social responsibility in journalism. Students will engage in a semester-long news reporting and writing workshop guided by content presentations and discussions addressing the theoretical and practical concerns of writing environmental news, journal articles, feature essays and other non-fiction formats. Prerequisites: ENG 101, and (ENG 102 Effective College Writing II, or ENG 103 Hearts and Minds, or ENG 105 Food Writing, or COM 210 Technical Communications, or ENG 200 Advanced Composition, or HST 201 US History I, or HST 202 US History II, or ENG 115 Wilderness in Amer Lit, or ENG 220 Creative Writing), AND (POL 202 Politics of the Environment, or NRS 110 Intro to Environment & Society or EST 200 Nature & Culture or SUS 120 Sustainable Community Agriculture). Completes General Education Requirements:WC-I, LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: POL 202 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or NRS 110 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or EST 200 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : ENG 340

Course Code : ENG 340

Course Description : This advanced literature survey course will study contemporary nonfiction and literary journalism that focuses on issues in nature, natural history, the environment and their related topics. Students in Contemporary Environmental Writing will examine literature that reveals and interprets the environment and its social, philosophical, economic, and cultural contexts and implications. Readings may include works by noted contemporary writers such as E.O. Wilson, Barry Lopez, Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, Wendell Berry, Rick Bass, Annie Dillard, Peter Matthiessen, Stephen Jay Gould, and David Quammen. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisites: ENG 101 Effective College Writing I and ENG 102 Effective College Writing II Completes General Education Requirements:WC-l, RE-l, SC-l LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Advanced Studies Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00 And ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : ENG 400

Course Code : ENG 400

Course Description : This course is designed as an advanced writing workshop, and students will study and practice the writing and editing skills necessary to interpret the environment through its social, philosophical, scientific, economic or cultural aspects. This course will also expose the student to techniques in nonfiction and literary journalism employed by contemporary writers on issues in nature, natural history, the environment and related topics. A student?s final project will include a publishable work - review, feature, essay, study or memoir - to be presented to the College community, as well as submitted for possible publication in a regional or national periodical. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisites: ENG 101 Effective College Writing I, ENG 102 Effective College Writing II and Responsibility & Expression-Reinforcing level course Completes General Education Requirements:WC-I, RE-I, LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Advanced Studies Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 101 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00 And ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or ENG 102 Lecture Min Grade: TR Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : EST 300

Course Code : EST 300

Course Description : This course translates, applies and interprets critical concepts from global change science so that the non-scientific community might become better informed in the policy decision- making arena. Students will examine the natural and anthropogenic changes taking place in the totality of the earth's environment across spatial and temporal scales. Students will deepen their understandings of interrelationships and connections between biogeochemical processes in various parts of the earth system, and discuss change mechanisms, tipping points and possible mitigation and adaptation solutions to the tremendous challenges posed by anthropogenic climate change. The course will examine long-term records of global change, as well as focusing on near-past human societies that have successfully or unsuccessfully adapted to changing environmental conditions. We will assess global change models for implications regarding vulnerability of human society and non-human ecosystems to potential change and for insight into strategies for future sustainability. Prerequisite: Social Cultural-Foundation and Analytical Reasoning & Scientific Inquiry-Reinforcing Completes General Education Requirements:SC-I, AR-I, LAS.

• Credit : 3

Short Title : EST 310

Course Code : EST 310

Course Description : This course looks at the historical, cultural and ecological basis for our changing concepts of the environment. The course provides an overview of US environmental history in an effort to understand the interactions, interdependencies and changes implicit in the relationship between human culture and the environment. American history is characterized by the paradox of the bounty of the continent's vast natural resources and subsequent establishment of natural institutions, such as our National Park System, and the sweeping and often catastrophic ecological changes wrought on the landscape by the process of Manifest Destiny and industrialization. Environmental history combines political, social, ecological, artistic and literary forms to clarify how our culture's concept of the environment has changed over time. Prerequisite: Social Cultural Foundation level course Completes General Education Requirements:SC-I, LAS.

• Credit : 3

Short Title : EST 320

Course Code : EST 320

Course Description : While virtually all the peoples of the earth face important environmental issues, the form and content of these human-nature interactions often differs widely from place to place. Variations in political forms, economic status, cultural contexts, and the natural environment are all significant factors in shaping environmental politics and policy around the world. This course investigates these differences using the framework of political ecology and important recent books on environmental politics at various sites around the globe. Various regions and countries are examined through a critical and intensive reading of texts which focuses on these locations. The exact regions and countries vary from year to year. The other major focus of this course is learning the skills of critical reading and analysis of book-length sources, and communicating these analyses in both oral and written forms. Prerequisites: NRS 110 Introduction to Environment & Society or POL 202 Politics of the Environment. Completes General Education Requirements:WC-I, SC-I, RE-I, LAS.

Prerequisites : Prereq: NRS 110 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00 Or POL 202 Lecture Min Grade: D Min Credits: 3.00

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HST 215

Course Code : HST 215

Course Description : This course will examine the environmental, political, and cultural history of the Adirondack Mountain region and provide students with an analytical framework for interpreting the landscape and history of our regional environment, the natural world and mankind's relationship to it. (3 hours lecture). Please note that there is a $40 fee for the raft trip on the Upper Hudson River. Completes General Education Requirements:SC-F or SC-R, RE-R, LAS

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HUM 300

Course Code : HUM 300

Course Description : This course explores the wide range of ideas about nature that philosophers and other thinkers have developed from ancient times to the present, and examines how such ideas inform (though often invisibly) contemporary debates concerning our relationship to the land, resource use, and other issues. General topic areas include Nature as Empirical Reality, Nature as Synonymous with Reason, Nature as Antithetical to Man, Nature as Moral Lawgiver, Nature as Aesthetic Norm, and Ecological Ideas. Discussion will draw on thinkers ranging from Aristotle, Tertullian, and Descartes to Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Frederick Turner. This philosophical component is complemented by readings and discussions of materials from the current press and recent publications. (3 hours lecture). Completes General Education Requirements:RE-I, LAS

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HUM 310

Course Code : HUM 310

Course Description : This course explores dimensions of identity, power and landscape in some of the most significant novels with Adirondack settings. Class disscussion will address how narrative themes shape actual perceptions of history and contemporary relationships between members of various Adirondack socioeconomic categories, including resident wage earner, seasonal resident, tourist and elite. We will examine the role of landscape and natural resource base in forming Adirondack culture, social interactions and competing Adirondack mythos. The course will emphasize reading and analyzing several full-length novels through interactive discussion and formal and informal written response. Completes General Education Requirements: WC-I, SC-I

• Credit : 3

Short Title : HUM 400

Course Code : HUM 400

Course Description : Students will explore the influence of various theories of nature on visual artists throughout history. In turn, the influence of art on human perception of nature, especially as reflected in the conservationist movement, will be studied. Representative works in painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, film, and video from earliest times to the contemporary period will be discussed. Human expression in landscape design and other manipulations of nature will also form part of the course. Many cultures, particularly Japanese and Native American, will be examined for their contributions to human appreciation of the natural world. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisite: Junior standing. Completes General Education Requirements:RE-I, LAS

• Credit : 3

Short Title : SOC 300

Course Code : SOC 300

Course Description : Anthropology involves the systematic study of humankind and the unique and diverse ways in which humans have successfully adapted to vastly different environmental settings throughout the world. Cultural Anthropology provides students with an opportunity to explore and understand the diversity of human thought and behavior that characterize different cultures. Through the application of theoretical frameworks developed by anthropologists and the use of case studies from five continents, students will learn how we, in the Western world, can understand and appreciate the diversity of cultures and cultural expression found throughout the world today. (3 hours lecture). Prerequisite: Social Cultural Reinforcing and Written Communication Reinforcing level courses Completes General Education Requirements WC-I, SC-I, LAS

• Credit : 3