HST 223 (16968)/GEG 223 (16241): American Landscapes Saturdays 9a‐12.20p, John Marchi Hall/2N ‐002 Fall 2014, History/Geography The College of Staten Island/CUNY Professor Catherine J. Lavender, PhD [email protected] Office: John Marchi Hall/2N‐203 Office Hours: Th 12‐2pm & by appt. About the Course: This course presents a study of American landscapes through historical geography and history. We will examine the making of American landscapes, including not only the ʺnaturalʺ processes but also the social, cultural, and ideological forces that have shaped them. For History majors and minors, this is designated as a United States history course. For geography majors this is designated as a regional course. This course utilizes the methods and approaches of both geographers and historians as ways to view American landscapes. We will focus on the tensions in both disciplines between explaining landscapes as ecological systems and as spaces shaped by human activities and perceptions. We will examine both how American landscapes have changed over time, and how American thinking about landscapes has changed. Ways of defining the American landscape as regions (both ecological and social) will also be investigated. Special emphasis will be placed on developing studentsʹ abilities to observe, analyze, research, document, and communicate knowledge about the landscapes in which we live. Course Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to: demonstrate knowledge of American landscapes as they have been shaped over time by natural and cultural phenomena; analyze primary sources as the building blocks of our knowledge about the past; and write an essay that makes a historical and geographical argument that is supported with properly cited evidence. Course Policies: Attendance and Assignments: You must attend class and actively participate in discussions; any student with more than two unexcused absences will receive a WU for the course, as per CSI policy. Late work will be accepted only by prior arrangement. Course assignments will be submitted on paper as well as via the Blackboard site; papers cannot be accepted via email. On the day that an assignment is due, you must submit it via Blackboard by 9 a.m., and also turn in a printed version of the paper at the class meeting. Comportment: You are required to comport yourself respectfully and courteously towards other students and towards your professor at all times. In return, you may expect to be treated respectfully and courteously. CSI Policy on Academic Integrity: ʺIntegrity is fundamental to the academic enterprise. It is violated by such acts as borrowing or purchasing assignments (including but not limited to term papers, essays, and reports) and other written assignments, using concealed notes or crib sheets during examinations, copying the work of others and submitting it as one’s own, and misappropriating the knowledge of others. The sources from which one derives one’s ideas, statements, terms, and data, including Internet sources, must be fully and specifically acknowledged in the appropriate form; failure to do so, intentionally or unintentionally, constitutes plagiarism. Violations of academic integrity may result in a lower grade or failure in a course and in disciplinary actions with penalties such as suspension or dismissal from the college.ʺ ‐‐ 2013‐2014 CSI Undergraduate Catalog, accessed via http://www.csi.cuny.edu/catalog/undergraduate/academic‐policies.htm#o3518. Disability Accommodations: Qualified students with disabilities will be provided reasonable academic accommodations if determined eligible by the Center for Student Accessibility (CSA). Prior to granting disability accommodations in this course, the instructor must receive written verification of a studentʹs eligibility from the CSA which is located in the Center for the Arts, Room 101 (1P‐101). It is the studentʹs responsibility to initiate contact with the CSA staff and to follow the established procedures for having the accommodation notice sent to the instructor. The course does involve at least one field trip; if you have physical or mobility issues which may affect your participation, please inform your instructor in advance so that accommodations can be made. Course Readings: All course readings are stored on the Blackboard site, accessible via www.cuny.edu; they are marked ʺBBʺ to remind you that they are there. In some cases, you will need to view a resource online; the URLs are also stored on Blackboard as well as listed in the readings. Course Requirements: Due Sa 9.20 % Grade
10 Sa 10.11 Sa 10.25 Sa 11.22 20 10 20 Sa 12.13 Sa 12.20
Ongoing 10 20 10 100 Analysis of the everyday landscape around your home, using D. W. Meinigʹs conceptual model of ʺTen Versions of the Same Scene.ʺ Midterm Examination Paper Proposal Term Research Paper: Define and analyze the formal, functional, and vernacular identity of a single American region. Group Presentation Final Examination Participation and spontaneous writing TOTAL Class Meeting and Reading Schedule: 1. Introduction to the Course (Sa 8.30) Watch on your own: a. Gina M. Angelone, dir., Preserving Americaʹs Landscape Legacy, (American Society of Landscape Architects, 1996) (53:25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgABVAJIGIo b. Clip from Figure in a Landscape: A Conversation with J.B. Jackson (2008) (2:39) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCzH98m21OY Reading: a. Abby Wiltse, ʺJ. B. Jackson,ʺ in Environmental Readings 2012 (Austin: Center for Sustainable Development, 2013): 41‐46. BB b. J. B. Jackson, ʺThe Word Itself,ʺ from Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (1984): 3‐8. BB Question to think about: What definition of landscape does each film put forward? How does Jacksonʹs definition differ from Angeloneʹs? 2. Overview of American Physical Landscapes (Physical Geography) (Sa 9.6) Reading: a. Donald Meinig, ʺIntroductionʺ to Donald Meinig, ed., The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays (1979): 1‐7. BB b. John C. Hudson, ʺPreface,ʺ in Across This Land: xiii‐xxi. BB c. Colin Woodard, ʺIntroduction,ʺ in American Nations: 1‐19. BB d. Donald G. Holtgrieve and Susan W. Hardwick, ʺNorth Americaʹs Environmental Setting,ʺ from The Geography of North America: Environment, Culture, Economy (27pp.) BB Question to Think About: What are the regions of the U.S., and what are the environmental characteristics of each? 3. Reading Landscapes (Sa 9.13) Hike in High Rock Park, Staten Island Greenbelt (start at parking lot at 200 Nevada Street; directions for public transit and driving here: http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/high‐rock‐park) Reading: a. Peirce K. Lewis, ʺAxioms for Reading the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene,ʺ in Donald Meinig, ed., The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays (1979): 11‐32. BB a. Donald Meinig, ʺThe Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene,ʺ in Donald Meinig, ed., The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays (1979): 33‐48. BB b. NYC Parks, ʺHigh Rock Park Preserveʺ ‐‐ http://www.nycgovparks.org/greening/nature‐
preserves/site?FWID=20 c. NYC Parks, Greenbelt Trail Map BB d. NYC Parks, High Rock Conceptual Plan Preliminary Design Draft (June 2014) (skim) BB Question to Think About: Is High Rock Park (and the Greenbelt) a ʺnaturalʺ landscape? Why and why not? 4. Conceptual Bases of Landscape Study / American Regions (Formal, Functional, and Vernacular) (Sa 9.20) Reading: a. Denis Cosgrove, “America as Landscape,” from Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape (1998): 161‐88. BB b. Ethan Seltzer and Armando Carbonell, ʺPlanning Regions,ʺ in Regional Planning in America: Practice and Prospect, Ethan Seltzer and Armando Carbonell, eds. (Lincoln NE: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2011): 1‐16 (read pp. 1‐6, skim rest). BB c. Samuel Arbesman, ʺThe Invisible Borders That Define American Culture,ʺ Citylab, The Atlantic Monthly (26 April 2012), accessed via http://www.citylab.com/politics/2012/04/invisible‐borders‐
define‐american‐culture/1839/. BB d. Library of Congress, American Memory Project, ʺRegions of the United States: Regions Defined,ʺ http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/regdef.html (check out the links to historical maps!) Question to Think About: What are the various formal, functional and vernacular definitions of regions of American landscapes? How did these definitions develop and what causes them to change? Due: Analysis of the everyday landscape around your home, using D. W. Meinigʹs conceptual model of ʺTen Versions of the Same Scene.ʺ 5. Landscapes of Contact (Sa 9.27) Reading: a. Thomas R. Vale , ʺThe Pre‐European Landscape of the United States: Pristine or Humanized?ʺ in Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape, Thomas R. Vale, ed. (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002). BB b. David K. Eliades, “Two Worlds Collide: The European Advance into North America” from A Cultural Geography of North American Indians, edited by Thomas E. Ross and Tyrel G. Moore (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987): 33‐46. BB c. Alfred W. Crosby, ʺEcological Imperialism: The Overseas Migration of Western Europeans as a Biological Phenomenon,ʺ Texas Quarterly 21 (Spring 1978): 10‐22. BB d. Louis de Vorsey, “European Encounters: Discovery and Exploration,” in North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent, Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001): 25‐46. BB e. Donald J. Ballas, “Historical Geography and American Indian Development,” from A Cultural Geography of North American Indians, edited by Thomas E. Ross and Tyrel G. Moore (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987): 15‐32. BB Recommended but not required: a. Karl W. Butzer, ʺThe Americas Before and After 1492: An Introdution to Current Geographical Research,ʺ Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82/3 (September 1992): 345‐68. BB Question to Think About: How did the landscapes on which native peoples and Europeans made contact shape the kind of contact that resulted from the meetings? Sa 10.4 NO CLASSES 6. Midterm Examination (Sa 10.11) 7. Sa 10.18 NO CLASS MEETING; PROFESSOR AT CONFERENCE (WHA) Reading: a. William Cronon, ʺThe Ecological Transformation of Colonial New England,ʺ in Changes on the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983): 19‐53. BB b. James T. Lemon, ʺColonial America in the Eighteenth Century,ʺ in North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent, Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001): 119‐43. BB Question to Think About: What were the expectations that Europeans brought with them to New England, and how did these shape their interactions with the landscape? 8. Colonial Marks on the Land: Empires Compared (Sa 10.25) Reading: a. Martin D. Gallivan, ʺPowhatan’s Werowocomoco: Constructing Place, Polity, and Personhood in the Chesapeake, C.E. 1200 – C.E. 1609,ʺ American Anthropologist 109/1 (2007): 85‐100. BB b. Richard L. Nostrand, ʺThe Spanish Borderlands,ʺ in North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent, Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001): 47‐64. BB c. Cole Harris, ʺFrance in North America,ʺ in North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent, Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001): 65‐88. BB d. Thomas F. McIlwraith, ʺBritish North America, 1763‐1867,ʺ in North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent, Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001): 207‐36. BB Question to Think About: How did the various empires operating in early America vary in their interactions with the landscape? 9. Slavery, Expansion and Industrialization (Sa 11.1) Reading: a. Dell Upton, ʺBlack and White Landscapes in 18th Century,ʺ Places: A Quarterly Journal of Environmental Design 2/2 (1985): 59‐72. BB b. Rebecca Ginsburg, “Freedom and the Slave Landscape,” Landscape Journal 26:1 (2007): 36‐44. BB c. J.B. Jackson, ʺThe Westward‐Moving House: Three American Houses and the People Who Lived in Them,ʺ Landscape 2/3 (1953): 8‐21; reprinted: Places (July 2011), accessed via http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the‐westward‐moving‐house/27938/. BB d. Richard Walker and Robert D. Lewis, ʺBeyond the Crabgrass Frontier: Industry and the Spread of North American Cities, 1850‐1950,ʺ Journal of Historical Geography 27/1 (2001): 3‐19. BB Question to Think About: How did the landscape shape slavery as an institution, westward expansion, and the long process of industrialization? How did those activities shape the landscape? 10. Urban Landscapes (Sa 11.8) Reading: a. J. B. Jackson, ʺThe Almost Perfect Town,ʺ in Landscape (1952). BB b. David Ward, ʺPopulation Growth, Migration, and Urbanization, 1860‐1920,ʺ in North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent, Thomas F. McIlwraith and Edward K. Muller, eds., (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001): 285‐306. BB c. Billy Fleming, ʺFrederick Law Olmsted and Shlomo Aronson,ʺ in Environmental Readings 2012 (Austin: Center for Sustainable Development, 2013): 7‐18. Question to Think About: How was urbanization shaped by the landscapes on which American cities grew up? How did the process shape the American landscape? 11. The Visual History of Landscape (Sa 11.15) Reading: a. Leo Marx, ʺThe American Ideology of Space,ʺ Paper delivered at Landscape and Architecture in the Twentieth Century, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1988. a. Deborah Bright, ʺOf Mother Nature and Marlboro Men: An Inquiry Into the Cultural Meanings of Landscape Photography,ʺ in Richard Bolton, ed., The Contest of Meaning: Alternative Histories of Photography (Cambridge: MIT Press), 1987: 303‐42. c. Don Mitchell, “California: The Beautiful and the Damned,” from The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape (1996), reprinted in The Cultural Geography Reader, eds. Timothy S. Oakes and Patricia L. Price (New York: Routledge, 2008): 159‐64. Question to Think About: How have Americans represented American landscapes? What is the significance of the changing ways (both the discourses about landscapes and the representational technologies employed) in which they have done so? 12. Preservation and Conservation of American Landscapes (Sa 11.22) Reading: a. John Ringdon, ʺGifford Pinchot: Father of Conservation and Sustainability in the United States,ʺ in Environmental Readings 2012 (Austin: Center for Sustainable Development, 2013): 19‐26. b. Travis Glenn, ʺAldo Leopold: A New Land Ethic,ʺ in Environmental Readings 2012 (Austin: Center for Sustainable Development, 2013): 26‐32. c. Eliza Bober, ʺRachel Carson: Writer, Scientist, Activist,ʺ in Environmental Readings 2012 (Austin: Center for Sustainable Development, 2013): 33‐40. d. John R. Stilgoe, ʺTreasured Wastes: Spaces and Memory,ʺ in Places 4/2 (November 1987): 64‐74. Question to Think About: What was being ʺpreservedʺ and ʺconservedʺ by preservationists and conservationists? How did this reflect their views of nature and landscapes, and how was it shaped by the landscapes on which they lived? Sa 11.29 NO CLASS MEETING (THANKSGIVING BREAK) 13. Final Presentations (Sa 12.6) 14. Post‐Industrial Americaʹs (ʺUnlovableʺ) Landscapes (Sa 12.13) Reading: a. Lizabeth Cohen, “From Town Center to Shopping Center: The Reconfiguration of Community Marketplaces in Postwar America,ʺ American Historical Review 101 (October 1996): 1050‐81. BB b. Heather Ann Thompson, ʺWhy Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History,ʺ Journal of American History 97/3 (December 2010): 703‐34. BB c. Leo Marx, ʺThe American Landscape in the Era of Postmodernity,ʺ Revista de estudios norteamericanos 4 (1996): 13‐28. BB d. David Heymann, ʺThe Eastward‐Moving House,ʺ Places (July 2011), accessed via http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the‐eastward‐moving‐house/28288/. BB Question to Think About: What is the American landscape now? Is what is a ʺlandscapeʺ a regionally‐determined concept? 15. FINAL EXAMINATION (Sa 12.20)