First-Year Writing Seminar: Wilderness and Civilization

Catalog description

In this seminar we will study a sampling of texts from various fields that deal with the tension between wilderness and civilization and the identities it enables. We will consider how the concept of wilderness sometimes doubles for that of nature in shaping a dynamic identity we call “civilized.” Our studies will draw on insights from biology, ecology, anthropology, postcolonial studies, political theory, and literature. We will also engage in experiential learning to ground our studies in practice. We will attempt to respond to such questions as: If wilderness is nature without humans, why are we so irresistibly drawn to it? What function does wilderness serve in our civilized lives? How has it become necessary to our imaginative, spiritual, and political lives? What does an investigation of “wilderness,” “nature,” and “civilization” allow us to express about the world we inhabit? What are the limits of these concepts—what possibilities do they disallow? We will examine these concepts in terms of how they work to create identity for humans, what ways of life they offer, what they obscure. And we’ll look closely at related concepts that structure our sense of ourselves, sometimes without our being wholly conscious of it: What does it mean to be natural, or live a natural lifestyle? Should social organizations follow nature, be “organic,” or go in a different direction? How natural is sex? gender? class? race and ethnicity? How does what we consider “natural” and “unnatural” affect the lifestyle options available to us? Our goal in this seminar is to think through these and related issues and to develop language that enables us to imagine viable alternative futures.