HIST 242 - The Love and Destruction of Nature: Romanticism in the Time of Settler Colonialism

This course studies the history of the idea of nature in American thought, from the rise of Romanticism in the nineteenth century to the development of environmentalist thought and organizations in the twentieth century. The course will contextualize that history in two ways: in relationship to the formation of the United States through settler colonialism and the death and displacement of Indigenous peoples, land, and culture; and in relationship to the capitalist exploitation of nature that has fundamentally reshaped the ecological communities that live in and across U.S. political space. The course will ask what it means-politically, ethically, and philosophically-to love nature in the wake of environmental and cultural destruction.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.