This seminar is for all members of the human race, regardless of major. Here’s your chance to enjoy a diversity of unique and celebrated environmental essays, books, and films. But be sure, this isn’t your typical environmental literature course, as we’ll explore works frequently overlooked in academia. In our explorations, we’ll examine environmental themes related to three principal subjects: land, water (theme semester for Winter 2010), and denizens. The reading list will include some (though not necessarily all) of the following: The Monkey Wrench Gang (Abbey); The Lorax (Seuss); Last Chance to See (Adams); The Hungry Tide (Ghosh); Encounters with the Archdruid (McPhee); A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons (Sapolsky); Biophilia (Wilson); Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Quinn); There's a Hair In My Dirt (Larson); The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder (Quammen).

Films may include: Into the Wild, Manufactured Landscapes, Chinatown, Up the Yangtze, Wall-E, Baraka, Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance.

Requirements include active participation in class, a journal, quizzes, a take-home midterm, and a research paper.