Syllabus

Information: MWF 12:30 205 EPB

Instructor--Florence Boos, 319 EPB, florence-boos@uiowa.edu, 338-4383

Office hours WF 1:30-2:30 p. m.

Books at IMU: Carolyn Merchant, ed. Ecology

Robert Finch and John Elder, eds. The Norton Book of Nature Writing

William Wordsworth, Major Works (or any other collection of his poems)

Elizabeth Sewell, Black Beauty

William Morris, News from Nowhere

Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge

Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres

Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place

Linda Hogan, Power

Handouts: selections from John Ruskin, an essay by Morris, poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Charlotte Mew, Robert Frost, Denise Levertov, Simon Ortiz and Gary Snyder; essays by Peter Singer and Thomas Regan

Assignments: You are asked to submit three forms of written work. 1. a journal of reading responses in the form of web discussion--please post one page each week, for a total of 14 mini-essays. These may be informal, and should consist of your thoughts on one or more of our readings. Several of them should also respond (politely) to ideas of your fellow students, or give an overview of your ideas on topics of the course thus far. 2. a 6 + page essay, showing evidence of critical thinking and background reading (please use at least 6 published sources, exclusive of web resources) 3. a final essay, in the form of a take home final, discussing a central theme of the course as embodied in two or more works we have studied

Tentative Syllabus:

January 23 W introduction; some definitions -- ecology, its sub-branches

January 25 F essays on deep ecology by Arne Naess and Bill Devall; also read William Wordsworth’s “Expostulation and Reply,” “The Tables Turned,” “My Heart Leaps Up,” “Tintern Abbey”

January 29 M essay by Murray Bookchin, “The Concept of Social Ecology”; journal entries by Dorothy Wordsworth and Coleridge (handout).

January 31 W Wordsworth, “To a Skylark,” “The World Is Too Much With Us,” “It is a Beateous Evening, Calm and Free,” “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud,” “Ode on Intimations of Immortality”

February 1 F Prelude, book I

February 4 M Prelude, book II

February 6 W readings in Merchant, Marx and Engels; John Ruskin, selections from Norton anthology supplemented by handout from Fors Clavigera

February 8 F -------

February 11 Gerard Manley Hopkins, journal selections and sonnets

February 13 Hopkins, sonnets

February 15 George Caitlin, from “Letters and Notes on the Manners . . . of the North American Indians,” Emerson, “Nature”

February 18 selections from Thoreau, Walden

February 20 Thoreau

February 22 Elizabeth Sewell, Black Beauty

February 25 Black Beauty

February 27 essays on animal rights by Peter Singer and Thomas Regan

March 1 -----

March 4 Morris, selections from essays; begin on News from Nowhere

March 6 News from Nowhere

March 8 News from Nowhere

March 11 Richard Jeffries and W. H. Hudson, selections from Norton Anthology

March 13 Charlotte Mew, poems

March 15 essays by John Muir, John Burroughs, Rachel Carson; essay due spring break

March 25 Robert Frost, poems

March 27 essays from Ecology on socialist ecology and ecofeminism

March 29 Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge

April 1 Refuge

April 3 Refuge April 5 ----

April 8 Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place

April 10 Jackson

April 12 Smiley, A Thousand Acres

April 15 A Thousand Acres

April 17 A Thousand Acres

April 19 essays by Wallace Stegner, N. Scott Momadey, Peter Steinhart, Sue Hubbell

April 22 poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Denise Levertov

April 24 poems by Simon Ortiz, Gary Snyder

April 26 Gary Snyder April 29 Annie Dillard, selections from Norton Anthology

May 1 Linda Hogan, Power

May 3 Hogan

May 6 Hogan

May 8 selections from Ecology on environmental justice

May 10 ----- final meeting during exam week; take-home exams/final paper due.