HIST 450 - Climate and Culture in America

The course will look at significant episodes of what the historian Raymond Williams calls the ‘human history’ of nature and will explain that different communities and groups in American society have considered climate and weather differently at different times. These cultural articulations have reflected very real differences in relations with the physical environment, but also differences in social and political relations – some of which do more to obscure – and certainly to complicate – than illuminate what is actually happening with the climate and the weather. A history of the relationship between climate, ideas about climate, and larger cultural developments in American culture will provide students an opportunity to do the kind of comparative and historical analysis that will contribute to an understanding of contemporary preoccupations with climate and climate change.

Prerequisites & Notes: Junior status and one from: HIST 103, HIST 104, HIST 113, or instructor permission.
Credits: 5
Grade Mode: Letter