Environmental Studies

An introductory course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics in the humanities. See course schedule for any current offerings.

This course asks a series of questions about how we understand human and more-than-human interactions in the field. What are the scales and social science methods of knowing people, plants, animals, rocks, waterways, forests, deserts, flat-lands, and mountains that we encounter when we use social science methods? Depending on the specific year, students will learn about and practice multiple methods, such as ethnography, digital storytelling, oral history, surveys, note taking, field observations, mapping and spatial analysis, and/or interviews. The class will explore the legacies of place-making in the West. Through readings and encounters with community partners, students will both critique and evaluate historical and ongoing processes that have dispossessed, marginalized and excluded cultural, racialized and ethnic groups in the West. Required of and open only to students accepted to Semester in the West.

Students in the Environmental Humanities Field Course will develop habits, perceptions, and skills for attuning to relations between humans and the more-than-human world inspired by the arts and humanities. Depending on the specific year, the course may focus on visual arts, poetry, ethnography, creative nonfiction, sound arts, and/or filmmaking. Regardless of the specific media, the course asks students to cultivate a discipline of regular, careful “field observations” based on their relations and interactions with SITW’s community partners, both human and more-than-human. The goal of these observations—whether they take the form of written words, sculpture, sketches, digital images, or sound—is to learn new ways of seeing, feeling, listening, and engaging with our multiple entanglements with the West. Along the way, students will reflect on the ethics, politics, and aesthetics of their work, and build toward a capstone project, typically a piece of writing or art for a broader, non-academic audience. Required of and open only to students accepted to Semester in the West.

This field-intensive course introduces students to scientific habits of mind and practice through the interdisciplinary field of environmental science. Environmental science helps us understand how humans have impacted Earth systems including interactions between Earth, water, air, and biological organisms, and how we can address the resulting environmental problems. Environmental science draws on knowledge, models, and methods from the natural sciences of geology, biology, physics, and chemistry, but also from other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. The course emphasizes the intrinsic relationships between human societies and Earth and biologic processes, including hazard mitigation, and natural resource management. Students will learn foundational methods for observation and measurement in diverse field settings across the North American West. Required of and open only to students accepted to Semester in the West.

An introduction to interdisciplinary themes in environmental studies, including perspectives from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Emphasis is placed on understanding local and regional environmental problems as well as issues of global environmental concern. Students enrolling in this course also will be required to enroll in Environmental Studies 120L Environmental Studies Excursions. The weekly afternoon excursions cover the length of the Walla Walla drainage basin, from the Umatilla National Forest to the Columbia River. Excursions may include the watershed, the water and wastewater treatment plants, energy producing facilities, a farm, a paper mill, different ecosystems, and the Johnston Wilderness Campus. This course is required of all environmental studies majors. All environmental studies majors must pass this course with a minimum grade of C (2.0). First-year students and sophomores only or consent of instructor.

An introductory course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics in the social sciences. See course schedule for any current offerings.

An introductory course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics in the sciences. See course schedule for any current offerings.

An introductory course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics in the humanities. See course schedule for any current offerings.

An introductory course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics from an interdisciplinary perspective. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors. See course schedule for any current offerings.

As mothers, witches, nymphs, and virgin-huntresses of the wild, women in the ancient world were depicted in roles that denoted a special relationship with nature. Likewise, the natural world was articulated through gendered imagery. In this course, we will explore the association of gender and nature in the ancient Greco-Roman world. We will give particular focus to the status of women as intermediaries to nature. We will examine a range of representations of the feminine in literature and art, as well as in ritual and social practice, studying the female role in negotiating society'92s interactions with nature. Works that we will read and discuss may include the Homeric Hymns, plays by Aeschylus and Euripides, and the novel, The Golden Ass, by Apuleius. May be taken for credit toward the Gender Studies major or minor. May be elected as Classics 205. Formerly Environmental Studies 309 - may not be taken if previously completed 309.

An introduction to analytic methods and tools utilized to address environmental issues and problems. Building on a basic understanding of elementary concepts in statistics (variables, descriptive and inferential statistics, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, effect sizes, etc.), students will learn to read, interpret, and critically evaluate environmental data and literature. Additionally, students will become familiar with environmental analysis procedures and surveys such as environmental assessment (Environmental Impact Statements); environmental risk assessment; land, soil, water, wildlife, agricultural, and mineral surveys. Lastly, given the inherent spatial nature of environmental data, students will utilize Geographic Information Systems software to assess spatial relationships between variables. Two hours of lecture per week plus one three-hour laboratory.

What is (or are?) the environmental humanities (EH)? Is EH a new field of study, a collection of old ones under a new umbrella, or something else altogether? This course will explore the multivalent and capacious area of study known as “environmental humanities,” ultimately aiming to draw some conclusions about its defining features, methods, and goals. We will explore EH from both historical and thematic perspectives, taking up such topics such as the difference(s) between ecocriticism and environmental humanities, indigenous epistemologies, race and EH, plant- and animal others, environmental grief, and more. Students actively participating in this course can expect to come away with foundational knowledge of the academic discipline now known as “environmental humanities” and will be able to explain its contours to others.

The renowned author Barry Lopez is often described as a “nature writer,” yet he resisted that label himself, instead arguing, “I’m not writing about nature. I’m writing about humanity. And if I have a subject, it is justice. And the rediscovery of the manifold ways in which our lives can be shaped by the recovery of a sense of reverence for life.” The course starts from this question: what constitutes “nature writing”? What does this genre assume, contain, or foreclose—and what might it generate, open up, or create? What does it mean to label someone a “nature writer”? We will read poetry, nonfiction, and fiction writing in English, mostly from North America, to explore these questions and others. We will also write our own examples, using the space of our class community to shape our collective understanding of what this writing can do. About half of our time will be spent exploring our readings, and half writing and workshopping our writing. Students in this course can expect to write a lot: we will produce writing weekly, and we will also give feedback to one another. Students will compile a final portfolio of revised works. We will also spend some time outside on the Whitman campus.

The Western nature writing tradition is deeply rooted in models from classical antiquity. In order to appreciate more fully the tradition we will explore the relationship between ancient literature and the natural environment. In our literary analysis of ancient works, we will examine approaches to natural description in several literary genres, which may include the poetic genres of epic, lyric, pastoral, and elegiac, as well as the prose genres of ethnographic history, natural history, and travel-writing. Authors may include Homer, Herodotus, Theocritus, Vergil, Ovid, and Pliny. We will consider how these ancient approaches influenced the development of natural description in the modern period and may read works by later authors such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Thoreau. May be elected as Classics 217.

Engage in an internship with a college, local, regional, national, or international environmental organization. Prior to the beginning of the semester, students must present an internship proposal outlining specific goals, responsibilities, and time commitment. From this proposal, the internship coordinator, along with input from the student’s internship supervisor, will determine the appropriate number of credit hours. In addition to the internship proposal, students are required to maintain an internship journal, submit a midterm and final internship report, and present their intern experience in a poster or oral presentation. May be repeated for a maximum of four credits.

The Greek term “physis” and the Latin word “natura” refer to what has come to be, as well as to the process of coming into being. This course will consider a broad range of texts which develop important concepts of Nature. Philosophic texts may include the pre-Socratics, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Lucretius. Literary texts may include Theocritus, Virgil, and the early-modern European pastoral tradition. In addition, we will encounter other texts in various genres that contribute some of the ideas, which inform the complex and changing concepts of Nature. May be elected as Classics 226.

This course explores a variety of philosophical conceptions of nature and the natural world in Modern European philosophy, from Francis Bacon to 20th century thinkers such as Heidegger. May be elected as Philosophy 227.

Sources of life-giving water, protectors of borders, images of change and oneness, rivers hold deep symbolic and cultural significance.  In this course, we will explore the life of the river in the mythological, religious and literary traditions of several ancient and modern cultures. Using comparative approaches, we will examine the meaning and value major rivers hold for the people that live around them and their role in shaping cultural identity and religious practice.  We will also read several major literary works that make rivers a central aspect of their narrative and will consider how the author writes about the river and its landscape in order to explore wider issues of the human experience.

As Aldo Leopold plainly stated in A Sand County Almanac, Western societies, from antiquity to the present, have grappled with human-land relations.  Recently, the American conservation and environmental movements have intensified these struggles in various efforts to designate public lands, conserve green space, protect family agriculture, and preserve wilderness, wildlife and scenic areas.  In this course, we will examine various texts that bring life to life three concepts that lie at the foundations of most conservationist and preservationist action: the pastoral, the wild, and the commons.  Theoretical texts by Leo Marx, Rousseau, Lewis Hyde, Roderick Nash, William Cronon and Kathryn Newfont will form cornerstones of the course.  Literary readings may include works by Theocritus, Virgil, Gilbert White, Wordsworth, Frost, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Hurston, Marilynne Robinson, Fitzgerald, and Wendell Berry.

Students will examine the tradition of nature-writing and literary natural history. Readings will be drawn from classics in the field (Gilbert White, Darwin, Emerson and Thoreau, Burroughs and Muir, Leopold, Rachel Carson, Loren Eiseley, Mary Hunter Austin), and from the best contemporary nature-writers (Terry Tempest Williams, Ed Abbey, Annie Dillard, Ellen Meloy, Wendell Berry, David Quammen). Lectures and discussions will trace how nature-writing has mirrored the evolution of social, cultural, political, and scientific perspectives on nature.

A study of a specific geographical region using a multidisciplinary approach. Regions covered may include Alaska, western Canada, the northwest or southwest U.S., Hawaii, or Latin America. Lectures, readings, and discussions in various disciplines, concentrating mainly in the natural and social sciences, will precede a one- to three-week field trip. One or more examinations or papers will be required. May be repeated for credit with focus on a different region. See course schedule for any current offerings.

An upper-level course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics in the social sciences. See course schedule for any current offerings.

An upper level course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics in the sciences. See course schedule for any current offerings.

An upper level course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics in the humanities. See course schedule for any current offerings.

Unstoppable climate change and its related injustices dominate-some might say rightly so!-our stories about the environment. Consequently, many of us feel despair, grief, and anxiety about the future of our planet. But what might it mean to instead shift our attention to hope? Rather than take an approach some might label "toxic positivity" to thinking about our very real problems, this course considers how we might deliberately, effectively, and politically think through and with environmental problems to find joy and possibility in the face of these challenges. We will examine art works, popular media, and literature as we work to imagine a future together. Student assignments may include creative and critical writing, presentations individually or in groups, and production of a final project (creative or critical).

An upper level course designed to investigate environmentally significant topics from an interdisciplinary perspective. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors. See course schedule for any current offerings.

"Intelligent Systems for Sustainable Development Goals" is an interactive course that brings together machine learning, software engineering, and human-computer interaction to promote global sustainability efforts. We will study the exciting world where intelligent systems meet the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the first of which are No poverty (SDG 1), Zero hunger (SDG 2), Good health and well-being (SDG 3), Quality education (SDG 4), Gender equality (SDG 5), Clean water and sanitation  (SDG 6). We will read, present, and discuss several research scientific papers and technical demonstrations to consider the societal, environmental, and economic implications of intelligent systems to facilitate or prevent the targets from the SDGs. Students will work on a multidisciplinary semester-long group project based on one of the SDGs chosen, where students elaborate on a research paper and evaluate/create a technical prototype to present at the end of the semester. This course assumes no prior experience in machine learning, human-computer interaction,  software engineering, or computing research, but does assume prior experience reading and writing programs as well as scholarly texts. May be elected as Computer Science 302, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 303 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Despite concern about climate change and urgent calls to reduce carbon emissions, we continue to see increasing emissions and accelerating warming. How did we get here and how do we successfully transition to a low carbon economy? Through current and historical examples, students will gain insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with energy transitions.
Students will analyze how scientific discoveries, market forces, policy interventions and regulatory frameworks shape energy production and consumption. Topics will include: (1) the science of climate change and technological solutions including carbon capture, (2) trends in energy use and the supply and demand drivers of both fossil fuels and renewable energy sources, (3) the role of energy market structures including the deregulation of electricity markets in the United States and the challenges of integrating renewable energy into existing grids, and (4) the the role of government policies in propelling energy transitions and combating climate change. Distributional consequences of energy transitions will also be discussed. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

A central narrative to the history of western North America is the pursuit of water. The climate is dry and droughts are common, yet some of the most productive agricultural lands in world reside here. Many of the defining features of the West: snowy mountains, raging rivers, large multiuse reservoirs, livestock grazing, potatoes, avocadoes, fine wine, and growing metropolises depend upon a continual supply of fresh water and cheap power. Technological innovations in the 20^th century have brought more and more water to the people, which have allowed large population increases and expansion into formerly inhospitable terrain. Recent extreme droughts, however, are forcing a reevaluation of the western growth model, which is rooted in the 19^th century concept of Manifest Destiny.  Furthermore, the prospect of perpetual drought, driven by global climatic change, further questions capability of the West to sustain permanent growth. This course will cover the West’s tangled history with water, climate, landscapes, and people. We will use a diverse suite of case studies to highlight western water issues including water resource management, power generation, water law, water economics, and climate change. Ultimately, this course will foster the exploration of human-landscape interactions and contemplate strategies for a sustainable path forward. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Many people think that history has to be focused on humans. Furthermore, the modern era can seem like a period of minimal cohabitation with animals. However, many of the dramatic changes in the nineteenth-century world in the transition to modernity were irrevocably linked to the ways that humans interacted with, used, and thought about other animals. By investigating human history around the globe with an eye to the nonhuman actors within it, you will learn more about the different ways that humans relate to other animals and the importance of other living beings in human lives in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. This course considers the factors that shaped some of the most important trends in modern history, including: more extensive and faster transportation networks, modern urban design, scientific research, how nature is used as a resource, and the global increase in mass extinctions and invasive species. Class will be discussion-based, including in-class debates and a presentation of your final research paper. May be elected as History 307, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 307 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Pairing post-nature, abstract, and non-traditional theories of space and place with pieces of literature that push the boundaries of our understanding of environment, this advanced course encourages students to reconsider environment beyond the natural. The course will engage at a high level with post-natural, toxic, post-industrial and gendered environments alongside a variety of human habitats including the urban, domestic, and transient. Authors may include Sloterdijk, Augé, Buell, Tuan, Jackson, Boym, Sebald, Döblin, Goethe, Handke, and others. Regular readings in both theory and literature will be accompanied by substantial analytical writing assignments and in-class discussion.

Environmental problems are defined by their unique, specific, and complex nature. The complexity of both problems and solutions requires an interdisciplinary intellectual framework. Additionally, many environmental problems have a tangled web of interested parties that include private individuals, corporate interests, community organizations, private foundations, and tribal, local, state, and federal governments. This field-based course examines a variety of environmental issues through various knowledge frameworks in the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences. Topics will be selected from a diverse suite of case studies to highlight Western environmental issues such as land and water resource management, fisheries management, tribal sovereignty, environmental racism, and climate change. Each student will produce a final project that explores an environmental issue introduced on Semester in the West. Required of, and open only to, students accepted into Semester in the West. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

This course takes as its subject the tangled web of relations--aesthetic, ecologic, and political--at the center of the concept of the Anthropocene. An idea first pronounced by geologists but now embraced more broadly, the Anthropocene articulates the ways in which human activity (economic, material and behavioral), has achieved planetary scale and effect, resulting in changes to the earth and its climate. This course examines the methods, practices and discourses employed by artists to address this broad theme, and within it the following subjects: how climate change takes shape visually; how landscapes are culturally produced and ideologically situated; how representation of the natural world is situated vis-a-vis power relations. This is an advanced, studio art, practice-based seminar; all projects will be realized in various visual media, aligned with faculty areas of specialization and interest. This course is, at its heart, an interdisciplinary inquiry, using scientific understanding and cultural criticism to fuel artistic production.  May be elected as Art 314, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 314 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Despite Rome being one of the greatest cities in the ancient world, its identity was fundamentally rooted in its natural landscape. In this intensive 4-week course in Italy, we will study the ancient city of Rome and its supporting landscape, both through the lens of ancient literary accounts and directly through field trips to major archeological sites and museums. We will explore how the realms of urban, rural, and wild were articulated in Roman culture, conceptually and materially. We will investigate both how the Romans conceived of the relationship between the built environment of urban space and the natural environment that supported and surrounded it and how they dealt with the real ecological problems of urban life. Students will also actively participate in archeological excavation at a Roman coastal settlement. May be elected as Art History 226 or Classics 319.

This interdisciplinary and interdivisional course will provide an integrative exploration into the environmental history and ethnobiology of peoples along various branches of the trading routes across Asia known as the silk roads, with an emphasis on China prior to 1400. Topics focus on how local environments shaped how people lived, including: how, where and why people moved; what goods and technologies were traded; how trade impacted agricultural, social and religious practices; what key biological features underlay the movement along the silk road of items such as foods, beverages, fibers, animals, and diseases. May be elected as History 321, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 321 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

This course is a discussion seminar on the implications of climate change for human societies, natural communities, and hybrid human/natures in the Anthropocene, the age of man. Discussions will focus on controversies surrounding the relatively new concept of the Anthropocene itself and how this concept unsettles understandings of nature, wildness, sustainability, democracy, citizenship, global capitalism, environmental justice, and environmental governance. Our approach will be interdisciplinary, drawing on readings in climate politics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and critical climate studies. Although our focus will be on theoretical and conceptual debates, we will also explore proposed climate mitigation and adaptation strategies such as low carbon social and economic systems, geo-engineering, carbon sequestration, and landscape-scale conservation efforts. A field trip and a longer research paper may be required. May be elected as Politics 322, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 322 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Biodiversity conservation has been a pillar of the American environmental movement for decades. This course will critically evaluate the biodiversity conservation movement through examination of scientific and ethical debates as well as debates about conservation practices. The scientific debates start with the very definition of the term '91biodiversity'92 and extend through the measurement of biodiversity, the ecological factors that drive differences in biodiversity around the world, and whether we are actually entering the '93sixth mass extinction'94 in the history of Earth. The ethical debates involve the value of biodiversity and our obligations for its conservation in the context of competing ethical obligations. Our debates about conservation practices will focus especially on the problems created when conservation policy promotes the interests of wealthy conservationists at the expense of impoverished and disenfranchised peoples living in biodiverse regions. We will explore these debates and conflicts as well as innovative ideas to understand biodiversity and promote ethical and effective conservation through reading and discussion of texts from science, philosophy, and social science. This is a discussion-based course in which students prepare for most class meetings with readings from the academic literature. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Environmental health issues are inherently interdisciplinary. This seminar-style course will examine how the natural, built, and social environments impact human and environmental health outcomes. The course will draw on research articles, theoretical discussions, and empirical examples from fields including toxicology, exposure science, environmental chemistry, epidemiology, sociology, history, policy studies, and fiction. Particular attention will be paid to the use of science to develop regulation, the role of social movements in identifying environmental health problems, and inequalities associated with environmental exposures. This course will be reading, discussion, and writing intensive. May be elected as Sociology 329, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 329 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Why does nature inspire us? Where did our understanding of nature come from? We have inherited our interactions with nature from a variety of sources: The Enlightenment was marked by political, intellectual, and scientific revolution and attempted to explain the world through science. The Romantics, on the other hand, reacted by trying to restore some mystery to Nature and to acknowledge its sublime power. This Nature ideal spread throughout Europe and then on to America, where European Romanticism inspired writers like Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and their contemporaries'92 nature writing, which continues to exert influence on the American understanding of the natural world. This course will look at where American Transcendentalists and Romantics found inspiration. Students will read key literary and philosophical texts of the Romantic period, focusing on Germany, England, and America and explore echoes of these movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: How do the Romantics continue to influence the discourse of environmentalism in America and around the world? Is the Romantic impulse at work in the establishment of the national parks system? Can we see echoes of the Romantic Nature ideal in narratives of toxic, post-industrial landscapes? Course taught in English. May be elected as German Studies 335 for students with advanced German language skills. Students electing to take the German Studies section will complete some reading in the original German and may complete some writing, and discussion assignments in German.

From natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, storms) to man-made ecological catastrophe (nuclear accidents, oil spills, the thinning ozone layer), environmental disaster inspires fear, rage, and action. This course will focus on fiction and non-fiction that meditates on these events and our reactions to them. We will examine the ways in which literature and the other arts depict disaster, how natural disaster descriptions differ from those of man-made environmental crisis, whether humans can coexist peacefully with nature or are continually pitted against it, and how literature'92s depiction of nature changes with the advent of the toxic, post-industrial environment. Authors discussed may include Kleist, Goethe, Atwood, Ozeki, Carson, Sebald, and others. Course taught in English. May be elected as German Studies 339 for students with advanced German language skills. Students electing to take the German Studies section will complete some reading in the original German and may complete some writing, and discussion assignments in German.

Much contemporary environmental thought provides a radical critique of industrial and postindustrial society, but in earlier times, the first true environmental thinkers challenged systems of agriculture, market economics, land ownership, and urbanism. What was once radical moved toward the center. In this course, students will examine the radical tradition of environmental thought as it has been expressed in literary and other texts. Bioregionalism, ecofeminism, agrarian communalism, Luddism, Deep Ecology, eco-centrism, and other radical environmental expressions will be examined critically. Works by Hawthorne, Thoreau, Ed Abbey, Kirk Sale, Gary Snyder, Susan Griffin, Paul Shepard, David Abram, and others may be included. Offered in alternate years.

"What are men to rocks and mountains?" asks Jane Austen'92s heroine Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. This class takes up this question and extends it to address a variety of cross-cultural, historical, and comparative entanglements between mountains and humans. Beginning with the comparative study of mountain ecologies, we'92ll look at similarities in deep time adaptation to mountainscapes (e.g., the Andes and Himalayas) focusing on ways the environment shapes biological and cultural formations. Additionally, the impact of various contemporary environmental concerns (including climate change, deglaciation, and mining) will be understood in the context of adaptation, resistance and activism. We'92ll supplement work in anthropology and related fields with the meanings of mountains found in literature, poetry, film, and philosophy. From definitions of the sublime to endless pursuits to reach ever higher and more elusive summits, this course will explore the many ways mountains have shaped and been shaped by human imagination. The class will be run as a reading seminar and writing workshop. In addition to short analytic papers, over the course of the semester students will craft their own "mountain essay" using ethnographic and creative nonfiction writing approaches. May be elected as Anthropology 345, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 345 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

The class will be conducted as a nonfiction prose writing workshop in which students read and comment on each other’s writing. After examining published works chosen as models, students will write essays in the nature-writing tradition, selecting approaches from a broad menu. Nature-writing includes literary natural history; “science translation writing”; essays on current environmental issues; personal essays based on engagement with land, water, wildlife, wilderness; travel or excursion writing with a focus on nature; “the ramble”; and other approaches. Students will learn how contemporary nature-writers combine elements of fiction, scientific descriptions, personal experience, reporting, and exposition into satisfying compositions.

The literatures of both the American West and the American South often reflect political struggles. Issues of federalism and states’ rights, economic dependency on the land, the rapid and radical transformation of an indigenous economy and ecology, and the stain of history stand in the foreground. This seminar will examine literary regionalism by focusing on southern and western writers whose works emanate from and reinforce the ethic and spirit of place. Several of the “Southern Agrarians” may be included along with William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor. Western writers may include Bernard DeVoto, Wallace Stegner, Cormac McCarthy, and James Welch. In addition, films may be used to illustrate the peculiar burden of the contemporary western writer. Offered in alternate years.

In the Pacific Northwest, salmon are political. The history and current politics of Indigenous peoples, settler colonial infrastructure, law, commerce, hydropower, agriculture, recreation, dam-building and dam removal, treaty rights, environmentalism, science, activism, and sovereignty in the Northwest—and particularly in the Columbia River Basin, or Nch'i-Wana—can be told through the story, and politics, of salmon. For better or worse, the lives of salmon are bound up with the lives of humans, and their future is largely up to our actions. Whitman College, located on the eastern edge of the Columbia River Basin, with the concrete-choked and salmon-bereft Mill Creek flowing through it, is a perfect place to engage the politics of salmon—politics which, whether we realize it or not, we are already a part of. The course will involve regular Friday afternoon excursions and a multi-day field trip in the Columbia River Watershed. May be elected as Politics 350, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 350 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

How are environmental problems experienced differently according to race, gender, class and nationality? What do we learn about the meaning of gender, race, class, and nationality by studying the patterns of environmental exposure of different groups? Environmental justice is one of the most important and active sites of environmental scholarship and activism in our country today. This course integrates perspectives and questions from sciences, humanities, and social sciences through the examination of a series of case studies of environmental injustice in the United States and worldwide. Biology and chemistry figure centrally in links between environmental contaminants and human health. Systematic inequalities in exposure and access to resources and decision-making raise moral and ethical questions. Legal and policy lessons emerge as we examine the mechanisms social actors employ in contesting their circumstances. This course will be reading, discussion, and research intensive. May be elected as Sociology 353, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 353 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

This course explores the emergence of ecocriticism in the 1990s and its subsequent evolution as a recognizable school of literary and social criticism. Students will analyze foundational texts underpinning ecocritical theory, beginning with Joseph Meeker’s The Comedy of Survival, then move on to more recent texts that seek to expand ecocriticism beyond the boundaries of nature-writing. Students will discuss, present, and write ecocritical analyses of various literary works. Offered in alternate years.

This course explores how writers and others conceptualize and portray various aspects of the American West. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of a variety of genres, including nature writing, political journalism, creative writing, poetry, and writing for interdisciplinary journals in environmental studies. We will write daily, and we will often read aloud to one another from our work. Goals include developing a voice adaptable to multiple audiences and objectives, understanding modes of argument and effectiveness of style, learning to meet deadlines, sending dispatches, reading aloud, and moving writing from the classroom to public venues. The course will be sequentially team-taught in the eastern Sierra Nevada region of California and southeastern Utah. Required of, and open only to, students accepted to Semester in the West. This course can be used by environmental studies majors to satisfy environmental studies-humanities credits within the major. 

Eating is a relational act linking people and environments in complex webs of power. Across time and geography, food has united and divided, underpinned political systems, provided the material and symbolic basis for conceptions of society, and played key roles in forging gender, race, class, and status. This interdisciplinary class draws on texts from history, anthropology, political theory, literature, art, religion, and political economy to explore the cultural politics of food, diet, and eating. It focuses primarily on the development and dynamics of capitalist global food systems from the 18th Century to the present. May be elected as Politics 362, but must be elected as Environmental Studies 362 to satisfy the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

As scientists in the recently-christened Anthropocene contemplate solutions to the crises of climate change, growing energy needs, species extinction, and population growth, the language of science grows ever closer to that of science fiction. In literary and artistic representations of these crises, some find conventional, non-speculative fictions lacking, focusing primarily on the present and the past. Speculative fiction, however, provides us with a language to think about the future. This course will engage seriously with works of science fiction ranging from H. G. Wells and Kurt Vonnegut to Ursula K. Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson, exploring ways in which these works use the language of science and speculative futures to explore that which is most human. We will study literary representations of climate change and its possible solutions, non-humans and post-humans, future Earths and other worlds in order to understand how it is that we as humans interpret, react to, and struggle against the emergent conditions which challenge our very survival. Students will practice a variety of approaches to literary analysis. This course will also explore the role of artistic representations of the environment in shaping our understanding of the environment and of environmental crisis.

As scientists in the recently-christened Anthropocene contemplate solutions to the crises of climate change, growing energy needs, species extinction, and population growth, the language of science grows ever closer to that of science fiction. In literary and artistic representations of these crises, some find conventional, non-speculative fictions lacking, focusing primarily on the present and the past. Speculative fiction, however, provides us with a language to think about the future. This course will engage seriously with works of science fiction ranging from H. G. Wells and Kurt Vonnegut to Ursula K. Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson, exploring ways in which these works use the language of science and speculative futures to explore that which is most human. We will study literary representations of climate change and its possible solutions, non-humans and post-humans, future Earths and other worlds in order to understand how it is that we as humans interpret, react to, and struggle against the emergent conditions which challenge our very survival. Students will practice a variety of approaches to literary analysis. This course will also explore the role of artistic representations of the environment in shaping our understanding of the environment and of environmental crisis. 

An investigation of environmentally significant issues centered on a common theme. The course may include lectures by off-campus professionals, discussions, student presentations, and field trips. See course schedule for any current offerings.

A series of readings or a program of individual research of approved environmental topics.

In this course students will be responsible for developing a final project based on Semester in the West experiences with the objective of integrating knowledge from courses in politics, ecology, and writing. Each student will produce a final project that sheds light on a substantive issue addressed on Semester in the West. Students must also present their project in a public forum and publish it as an audiovisual podcast on the Semester in the West website. Required of, and open only to students accepted to Semester in the West. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.

Students may earn credit for interdisciplinary fieldwork conducted on programs approved by the Environmental Studies Committee. Fieldwork must integrate knowledge from at least two areas of liberal learning, including the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors. See course schedule for any current offerings.

An intensive course in environmental problem-solving, with an emphasis on developing skills necessary for effective environmental citizenship and leadership. Students will first engage in readings and discussions to enhance their understanding of environmental decision-making processes and institutions. Then they will work individually and in teams to study active environmental disputes, with the ultimate aim of recommending formal solutions. This course is required of, and open only to, environmental studies majors in their senior year. Field trips and guest presentations may be included.

This course develops students’ research, project design, and research management skills while providing them with ongoing support in developing their independent senior thesis projects. Students will engage with questions like: What can Environmental Humanities thesis projects look like? What core questions should my thesis project address? What form(s) are best suited to my central questions? What kind of research is necessary to achieve my thesis goals? Students will workshop and receive direct feedback on their thesis proposals, develop their library research skills, and plan for the successful execution of their thesis project under the guidance of Environmental Humanities faculty. This course is highly recommended for Environmental Humanities majors. Graded credit/no credit.

The student will investigate an environmental issue of his or her own choice and prepare a major paper. The topic shall be related to the student’s major field of study and must be approved by both major advisors.

This student-designed project provides the opportunity for Environmental Humanities majors to explore deeply a topic of their own choice. Environmental Humanities thesis projects take on a variety of forms–including creative, scholarly, and blended modes–but all apply a humanities lens developed over the course of the major to pressing environmental issues. This course provides support for the execution of the thesis project, including research, writing, revising, and preparation for the oral defense and exam. This course is required for Environmental Humanities majors.

An opportunity for qualified environmental studies senior majors to complete a senior project of honors quality. Requires the student to adhere to application procedures following the guidelines for honors in major study. Students enrolled in this course must also participate in and meet all requirements of Environmental Studies 488 or Environmental Studies 490, as appropriate.