HW for Feb 3: Peter Coates, "The Human and Natural Environment" (anthology, pp. 21-32)

 

Explain and give examples illustrating one or more of the following sentences:

"Appreciating the character of colonialism in North America . . . requires a biological perspective." (23)

"Clearing the forest for cultivation was partly a redemptive spiritual act" (25)

"The countryside has been a key ingredient in the construction of English and French national identities, but nature in its wilder forms has been a particular potent force in shaping the United States' sense of itself." (27)

"What has been saved has also been changed. The nature on display has been sanitized." (28)

"[E]nvironmentalists had succeeded in persuading the majority of Americans of the value of protecting the environment. They had not resolved the fundamental tension between the cultural and individual restraint that this ethic of protection requires and the acquisitiveness and individualism that has been the hallmark of the nation during most of its first two hundred years." (quote from Hal Rothman, p. 31)

Intersectionality

 

Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, Keywords for American Cultural Studies (3rd edition, 2020)

 

 

HW: American Studies intro (anthology p. 15-17, 22)

 - Definitions: After reading Temperley and Bigsby's article, do you have a clear ideia of what are American Studies? If not, try to find a definition somewhere else (suggestion: see supplementary article sent by the teacher).

- Contradictions: discuss two possibly contradictory American values.

HW "Cultural Geography" (anthology pages 5-14) - for class january 27

 Please find and try to define at least two keywords in the text. Try not to repeat yourselves,

WELCOME

 Would you please share in the comments section the definitions of culture and nature that you have come across in your schooling years?