Pre-Reqs: 12 credits of History at the 1000 and 2000 level or GEOG 1016 or GEOG 1017
Classroom: F305
Class Time: MW 2:00-3:30 pm
I encourage you to come by my office, whether to get help with assignments, ask questions about course material, discuss your progress, or simply to talk history.
Introduction to the Course
This course considers the interaction between humans and the environment in North America. Environmental historians work from two big claims. The first is that the environment has influenced all of human history, from farming to politics, from mining to culture. The second is that there is no pristine nature untouched by human hands. Humans and nature have been intertwined throughout time, a claim that is as true of our highly technological society as it was of peasant or hunting/gathering cultures. Thus the largest goal of this course is to use the story of human/nature interaction in North America to get you to think differently about how you relate to the natural world around you.
Course Outline & Structure
Thematically, the course divides fairly sharply between the two terms. The first term is largely chronological, telling the story of the reshaping of the North American landscape up to the end of the nineteenth century. The second term is much more topical, exploring the various ways in which North Americans simultaneously destroyed and preserved nature in the "environmental era" of the 20th century.
Structurally, the course often pairs lectures with other activities, primarily class and small group discussions aimed at understanding and critiquing the arguments of assigned readings. This format will give history majors a chance to develop analytical skills necessary for 4th year seminars. It will also allow those of you with less background in history to become more comfortable with the skills necessary for writing and thinking about history.
Required Texts
- Merchant, Carolyn. Major Problems in American Environmental History. Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
- Hist 3275 Course Reader, Fall Term.
- Hist 3275 Course Reader, Winter Term [Available late in fall term].
- Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, 4th or 5th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004 or 2006. Note: Required for all courses in history. No work will be assigned from this book but it will be assumed that you have it or can access it. I have placed one copy on reserve at the library.
All required texts are available at the Campus Bookstore.
Website
Lecture outlines and other selected course materials will be available on the instructor's website: http://www.nipissingu.ca/faculty/jamesm/
Marks and Assignments
Weight
Due Date
| Assignment |
|
|
|
|||
| Reading
Questions
5% Each Week |
Short
Writing Assignment
10% Oct 8 |
Primary
Doc Essay
15% Nov 19 |
Mid-year
Exam
10% Dec 3 |
Historiographical
Essay
10% TBA (winter term) |
Research
Paper
25% TBA (winter term) |
Final
Exam
25% TBA |
Students will be required, at regular intervals, to create and hand in a question (or questions) based on the week's readings. We will discuss these questions in class following the lecture and come up with a question (or questions) for the midterm test and final exam (though not all the questions generated in class will necessarily appear on the exams). Questions must be e-mailed to the instructor (at jamesm@nipissingu.ca) at least 24 hours before the start of the second class of the week (iow, by Tuesday at 2:00 pm). Questions will be marked on a pass/fail basis. More details in class.
Short Writing Assignment
There are two options for this assignment. Those on the field trip will be expected to write a short paper discussing the ways in which the environmental conditions of this region shaped the French fur trade, based on your experiences on the trip and backed by the MacDonnell and Podruchny readings. If for some reason you cannot make the field trip you will write a short research paper on the same topic. More details in class.
Primary Document Essay
This assignment will ask you to answer a question about an assigned primary source document. In formulating your answer, you will need to keep in mind the document's purpose, context, bias, approach, style, methodology, as well as its importance and relevance. Key to this assignment will be your ability to justify your critique and thoughts.
Mid-year Exam
This exam will consist of short answer questions and essay questions. At least one question on the exam will be specifically concerned with material from the readings. To be held on the last day of class.
Historiographical Essay
In this assignment you will pick a problem or issue in North American environmental history and compare and contrast the positions taken by historians on the topic. This assignment will then serve as a basis for your final research paper. You may choose the topic from a list supplied by the instructor, or we can work out a topic between us. More details in class.
Research Essay
The research essay is to be a longer (10-15 page) focused, argument-driven paper on some aspect of the environmental history of North America. You are expected to draw on the theoretical concepts developed in this course and on the research from your historiographical essay and to use scholarly, peer-reviewed sources. More details in class.
Final Exam
The final exam will be three hours long and will be written in the April exam period. At least one question on the exam will be specifically concerned with material from the readings.
Late Policy
Assignments are due at the start of class on the due date. Late assignments will be penalized 3% per day, counting weekends. Assignments handed in more than 10 days after the due date will receive a grade of zero.
University Grading Standards (from the Academic Calendar)
"A" - (80-100%)
"B" - (70-79%)
"C" - (60-69%)
"D" - (50-59%)
"F" - (0-49%)
"A" indicates Exceptional Performance: comprehensive in-depth knowledge of the principles and materials treated in the course, fluency in communicating that knowledge and independence in applying material and principles.
"B" indicates Good Performance: thorough understanding of the breadth of materials and principles treated in the course and ability to apply and communicate that understanding effectively.
"C" indicates Satisfactory Performance: basic understanding of the breadth of principles and materials treated in the course and an ability to apply and communicate that understanding competently.
"D" indicates Minimally Competent Performance: adequate understanding of most principles and materials treated in the course, but significant weakness in some areas and in the ability to apply and communicate that understanding.
"F" indicates Failure: inadequate or fragmentary knowledge of the principles and materials treated in the course or failure to complete the work required in the course.
Academic Dishonesty
Academic dishonesty includes cheating and plagiarism. The definition of cheating is fairly straightforward. The following information on plagiarism is offered to clear up any possible confusion. I advise you to read the section of the university calendar dealing with academic dishonesty and come to me if you have any questions or concerns.
The university calendar defines plagiarism as follows:
"Essentially, plagiarism involves submitting or presenting work in a course as if it were the student's own work done expressly for that particular course when, in fact, it is not. Most commonly plagiarism exists when:
a) the work submitted or presented was done, in whole or in part, by an individual other than the one submitting or presenting the work.
b) arts of the work (e.g. phrases, ideas through paraphrase or sentences) are taken from another source without reference to the original author.
c) the whole work (e.g. an essay) is copied from another source and/or
d) a student submits or presents a work in one course which has also been submitted or presented in another course (although it may be completely original with that student) without the knowledge or prior agreement of the instructors involved."
Penalties range from a grade of zero on the assignment concerned to expulsion from the university. Students should be warned that I take a very dim view of plagiarism and will pursue the maximum possible penalty against anyone suspected of it.
Proofing Abbreviations and Grammatical Terms
I will use the following set of abbreviations and grammatical terms when marking your essays. My comments are intended to help you improve your writing. When you review these comments, use the following as a key.
run-on: a sentence where two sentences, which should be separate, are run together (Bill hit the ball he is a good batter.)
cs: comma splice: a run-on sentence where the two sentences are joined by a comma
lc: lower case (change the capital letter to lower case)
uc: upper case (change the lower case letter to a capital)
frag: sentence fragment (the sentence is missing a verb or subject—usually a verb)
sp: incorrect spelling
ds: change to double space
ss: change to single space
ID: identify (who is this person?; what is this organization?; etc)
awk: the sentence sounds awkward—thus, usually, obscuring your point. Re-word it
vag: vague: re-word in order to make the point in a more specific or detailed manner
ww: wrong word (the word doesn't mean what you appear to be using it to mean)
nw: not a word
trans: transition: the point doesn't appear to follow logically from the previous point
ref: what concept, person, etc. does this pronoun refer to?
?: I don't understand what this sentence means/what you're trying to say here
pv passive voice. A way of structuring sentences that you should try to avoid as much as possible, although don't be fanatical about it (as some people are): it does have its uses. In the active voice, the subject precedes the verb which precedes the object ("John hit Bill"), whereas in the passive the object precedes the verb ("Bill was hit by John"). The problem (or one problem ) with the passive voice is that it is often used to omit the subject entirely, thus hiding who actually did what ("Bill was hit"). It also makes your writing sound vague and hesitant.
clause: Any group of words containing a subject and verb (ie, a sentence, but can also refer to part of a sentence).
mm: misplaced modifier. Most easily explained using an example: "She served hamburgers to the men on paper plates." The phrase on paper plates appears to refer to men, whereas it should actually refer to hamburgers. Generally phrases should come directly after the words they modify. Corrected: "She served hamburgers, on paper plates, to the men." Or: "She served the men hamburgers on paper plates."
dm: Dangling modifier. A word or phrase that modifies a word not clearly stated in the sentence. For example, "After reading the original study, the article remains unconvincing." The doer of the action has not been stated. A corrected version might read: "After reading the original study, I find the article unconvincing," where the doer of the action is "I."
More information on grammar and writing can be found in the Rampolla guide. A comprehensive online resource is OWL (The Online Writing Lab) at Purdue University: owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/. A good set of basic guides to grammar and referencing can be found at the Queen's University Writing Centre: www.queensu.ca/writingcentre/# (click on Handouts).
Resources
Assignments in this course must be based on scholarly, peer-reviewed sources. Non-scholarly, non-peer reviewed sources (such as most web pages) may only be used for general information and background.
The major scholarly, peer-reviewed journal in environmental history is:
Environmental History .......................................................... emphasis on North America
(available in print at the library or online at: www.historycooperative.org/ehindex.html)
Other environmental history journals:
Environment and History....................................................... emphasis on Britain
Journals in related fields that may publish environmental history:
Agricultural History............................................................... emphasis on North America
Journal of Historical Geography........................................... major journal in this related field
Historical Geography ........................................................... emphasis on North America
Annals of the Association of American Geographers ........... geography generally
The Canadian Geographer ................................................... geography of Canada
BC Studies ............................................................................. interdisciplinary studies of BC
Acadiensis ............................................................................. history of Atlantic Canada
Pacific Historical Review ...................................................... history of the Pacific Northwest
Prairie Forum........................................................................ history of the Canadian Prairies
Major Journals in North American History:
Canadian Historical Review ................................................. Canadian history
American Historical Review .................................................. history generally
Journal of American History ................................................ US history
You will also, of course, find many useful scholarly, peer-reviewed books in the library on environmental history and related areas. For guidance, use the footnotes of assigned articles and the bibliographies in the Merchant reader. Note as well the authors you are assigned to read – these are generally important scholars – and see what other published works they have that may be useful.
Lecture Schedule: Fall Term
Week 1 (Sept 8 & 10): Introduction
Sept 8: Introduction to the Course
Readings: None
Sept 10: What is Environmental History?
Readings: Merchant, Chap. 1
2 (Sept 15 & 17): Native America
Sept 15: The Americas Before 1492
Sept 17: First Nations & the Environment
Readings: Pielou, “The Great Wave of Extinctions,” CR.
Cronon & White, “Ecological Change and Indian-White Relations,” CR.
Merchant, Documents 1 & 2, pp. 29-31
3 (Sept 22 & 24): Colonialism & Resettlement: I
Sept 22: Ecological Imperialism
Sept 24: New France
Readings: Harris, “Acadia & Canada,” CR.
Crosby, “Ecological Imperialism,” CR.
Merchant, Documents 4 & 5, pp. 34-37
4 (Sept 29 & Oct 1): Colonialism & Resettlement: II
Sept 29: New England
Oct 1: The South
Readings: Merchant, Chaps. 3 & 4, Essays by Manning, Stoll, Craven & Carney
Merchant, Chaps. 3 & 4, Selected Documents
Saturday, Oct 4: Field Trip to Mattawa River
Readings: MacDonnell, John. Excerpts from Description of Lake Athabasca and the Chipweans ca. 1805 and Journal of a Voyage from Lachine to Fort River Qu'Appelle. 1793. CR.
Podruchny, Carolyn. “Writing, Ritual, and Folklore: Imagining the Cultural Geography of Voyageurs.” CR.
5 (Oct 6 & 8): Classes cancelled this week in lieu of field trip.
6 (Oct 13 & 15): Study Week
7 (Oct 20 & 22): Industry & Agriculture in Europe and North America
Readings: Merchant, Chap. 5
8 (Oct 27 & 29): Capitalism, Slavery & the Soils of the South
Oct 27: The Cotton South
Oct: 29: The Nature of Slavery & Race
Readings: Merchant, Chap. 7
9 (Nov 3 & 5): Industry & Nature
Readings: Merchant, chap. 6
10 (Nov 10 & 12): Ontario
Readings: Wood, “Changing the Face of the Earth,” CR.
Campbell, “A Region of Importance,” CR.
11 (Nov 17 & 19): Fire
Readings: Wynn, “Mon pays, c’est le feu,” CR.
Pyne, “Fire Rings of Indigenous Canada,” CR.
Pyne, “The Burned-Over Districts: A Fire History of the Northeast,” CR.
12 (Nov 24 & 26): The West
Readings: Merchant, Chaps. 8 & 9, Essays by White, Webb, Worster & Cronon
Merchant, Chaps. 8 & 9, Selected Documents
13 (Dec 1 & 3): Review & Exam
Dec. 1: Concluding Lecture on the West & Review
Dec. 3: Mid-Year Exam
Readings: None
Lecture Schedule: Winter Term
Week 14 (Jan 5 & 7): Conservation
Merchant, Chap. 10
15 (Jan 12 & 14): Parks, Preservation & Wilderness
Merchant, Chap. 11
16 (Jan 19 & 21): Cities, Industry & Pollution
Merchant, Chap. 12
17 (Jan 26 & 28): Industrial Agriculture, Industrial Food
Donald Worster, “The Black Blizzards Roll In,” and “What Holds the Earth Together,” in Dust Bowl: the Southern Plains in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). Available from the Instructor.
Friedmann, “Remaking Traditions,” CR.
18 (Feb 2 &4): Irrigation, Power & Rivers
Reisner, “First Causes,” and “An American Nile (I),” CR.
Evenden, Matthew. “Precarious Foundations: Irrigation, Environment, and Social Change in the Canadian Pacific Railway's Eastern Section, 1900-1930.” Journal of Historical Geography 32(1) (2006), 74-95. Available online.
19 (Feb 9 & 11): Fish
Cadigan, S. “The Moral Economy of the Commons: Ecology and Equity in the Newfoundland Cod Fishery, 1815-1855.” Labour/Le Travail 43(Spring) (1999), 9-42. Available online.
Holm, P. “Fisheries Management and the Domestication of Nature.” Sociologia Ruralis 36(2) (1996), 177-188. Available online.
“How to Think about Science, Episode 13: Dean Bavington [on the Cod Fishery],” Ideas, CBC Radio, online at http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/index.html (Episode #13). Available online.
20 (Feb 16 & 18): Study Week
21 (Feb 23 & 25): The Emergence of Ecology
Merchant, Chap. 13
22 (Mar 2 &4): Dystopia/Utopia: The ‘60s and Nature
MacEachern, “Energy (Potential): 1973-76,” CR.
Brunner, excerpts from The Sheep Look Up, CR.
23 (Mar 9 & 11): The Search for Solutions
Zelko, Frank. “Making Greenpeace: The Development of Direct Action Environmentalism in British Columbia.” BC Studies 142-143 (2004), 197-239. Available online.
Merchant, Selected Essays and Documents.
24 (Mar 16 & 18): Invasions & Disasters
Davis, “The Dialectic of Ordinary Disaster,” CR.
Ashworth, “Fish,” CR.
Suzuki, David. “How the Mountain Pine Beetle Devastated B.C.’s Forests.” The Georgia Straight, May 6, 2008, http://www.straight.com/article-144643/david-suzuki-little-bug-big-problem, retrieved Nov 26, 2008. Available online.
25 (Mar 23 & 25): Climate Change
Piper, “Backward Seasons and Remarkable Cold,” CR.
Lamb, “Climate, History, and the Modern World,” CR.
Flannery, “The Gaseous Greenhouse,” CR.
26 (Mar 30 & April 1): Living in Nature
White, “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?,” CR.
Price, Jenny. “Remaking American Environmentalism: On the Banks of the L.A. River.” Environmental History 13(3) (July 2008), 536-55. Available online.
Hist 3275
Winter Term Assignments
Winter term assignments require you to apply the skills developed in fall term assignments and reading (particularly, working with primary documents and analyzing the arguments of historians) to a topic of your own choosing.
To find resources, start with the resources section of the syllabus and the reader.
Historiographical Essay
In this assignment you will pick a problem or issue in North American environmental history and compare and contrast the positions taken by historians on the topic. This assignment will then serve as a basis for your final research paper. You may choose the topic from a list supplied by the instructor, or we can work out a topic between us.
This topic should be chosen with some sense of how it can be boiled down to a more focused topic suitable for your research paper. For example, you might choose to consider the environmental history of rivers for this paper, with the idea that you will consider the environmental history of the Fraser River for your research paper.
You must consult at least 4 articles or books.
As always, you must use scholarly, peer-reviewed sources.
Length: 4-5 pages
Due: Jan 28
Research Essay
The research essay is to be a longer (12-15 page) focused, argument-driven paper on some aspect of the environmental history of North America. You are expected to draw on the theoretical concepts developed in this course and on the research from your historiographical essay. You are also expected to draw on one or two primary documents.
This paper is the major assignment for this course and students should plan for enough time to think carefully about topic and approach, to do research, to organize the paper and determine its thesis, and to do writing and editing – in general, to produce a major piece of work.
You must consult a substantial and appropriate amount of scholarly, peer-reviewed secondary sources, and one or two primary sources.
Length: 12-15 pages
Due: Mar 18
Examples of Topics
You will want to choose a topic that concerns some aspect of the history of humans and nature in North America. I encourage you to develop a topic out of your own interests and experiences. Think as well about issues that have come up in class that you found interesting.
Some possible topics:
Consider the history of a river and the changes made to it as a result of fishing or irrigation or power developments. The largest literature is on the Colorado. The Columbia is another possibility, or there is a smaller literature on the Fraser and some recent work on the Bow River (in Alberta).
Histories of particular commodities have been recently popular, showing the various environmental, economic, and cultural issues surrounding its exploitation and sale. Examples with a solid academic literature include grains, lumber, and meat.
The history of chemical/industrial pollution.
There is a small but substantial literature on the environmental history of cities.
There is a small literature on issues of gender and the environment. The main author is Carolyn Merchant (see the reader for a start).
The history of environmentalism and environmental politics.
Farming and food have undergone massive changes in the 20th century. What has been the effect on the environment of the distribution of food over long distances? Of changes to farming brought on by science and industry? Of the centralization and industrialization of food processing (such as meat packing)? For a paper with contemporary resonance, you could consider the history of bad or poisoned food (milk is a particularly horrific example). There is also a recent, interesting literature in the development of ideas and standards of nutrition.
Environmental disasters. The Dust Bowl, the burning of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Hamilton Harbour, the collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery, fires in California, floods along the Mississippi, Love Canal, the “death” of Lake Erie…
The environmental effects of colonialism. New England is your best here, as it has the largest and best literature. There is not much on Canada, unfortunately.
Logging and the forest industry.
The effects of science on our understanding of, and treatment of, nature. There is a lot of writing on the science of ecology.
Do the history of a park. Algonquin is a possibility. There is a fair bit on the large American parks.
Humans and wildlife. The wolf is a popular topic of authors.
Fish. Salmon on the west coast, cod on the east.
The relationship between humans and climate is a popular recent topic, for obvious reasons.
There may be enough to do something on the history of glaciers, which people have become interested in recently largely due to climate change. Come and see me if you want to do this one.