A survey of British poetry and non-fiction prose of the Victorian era (1837 to 1901). Texts include poetry by Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Arnold, Swinburne, D.G. Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, Hopkins, and Hardy, as well as prose by Carlyle, Darwin, Arnold, Ruskin, Morris, and Wilde.
Many people know one sentence from early American literature: Puritan leader John Winthrop’s 1630 claim that “we shall be as a City on a Hill.” Often misinterpreted as a promise of inevitable national success, these words were actually a warning that America’s redemptive promises carried the risk of disastrous and conspicuous failure. This course traces the efforts of English-language writers to respond to both the promises and the failures of the tiny colonial settlements that became the United States. Authors studied include Anne Bradstreet, Mary Rowlandson, Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman.
A study of the American environmental imagination. Readings include both literary fiction and nonfiction.
A study of twentieth-century literature written in English from Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean, concentrating on colonial and post-colonial themes, as well as issues of gender, politics, and nationalism. Possible authors include Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, J. M. Coetzee, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, V. S. Naipaul, and Derek Walcott.
This course supports students in conceiving and writing an honors thesis. Students explore the research and writing methods required by a thesis, such as creating a project bibliography, reading scholarship critically, identifying a compelling research question, drafting sections, and bringing multiple pieces of writing together into an extended work of scholarship. The writing for this course will culminate in a polished draft of the thesis.
Environmental Sciences
Landscape ecology is the study of how spatial patterns in landscapes impact ecological processes. This course will explore how human and natural factors combine to produce landscape patterns. Students will learn to quantify spatial patterns, including the composition of habitat types, the configuration of habitat patches, and their connectivity to each-other. This course will investigate how these spatial characteristics influence ecological processes including species occurrences, extinctions, and ecological function. Finally, students will explore applications in spatial planning, conservation biology, and ecosystem management.
Landscape ecology is the study of how spatial patterns in landscapes impact ecological processes. This course will explore how human and natural factors combine to produce landscape patterns. Students will learn to quantify spatial patterns, including the composition of habitat types, the configuration of habitat patches, and their connectivity to each-other. This course will investigate how these spatial characteristics influence ecological processes including species occurrences, extinctions, and ecological function. Finally, students will explore applications in spatial planning, conservation biology, and ecosystem management.
Environmental Studies
An interdisciplinary introduction to Environmental Studies through the examination of the scientific and social aspects of environmental issues. Field components of the course focus on the University Domain and the surrounding area. This course is required for all students who major or minor in environmental studies and should be taken before the junior year.
Students conduct experiments in nonfiction writing and critique, informed by study of the local environment and notable contemporary essays that discuss how "nature" is understood and represented. Class activities focus on literary craft, peer critique, and revision of written work. Field study provides both substance and inspiration for student writing.
An introduction to Environmental Arts and Humanities, this course acquaints students with the diverse perspectives offered by environmental approaches in the fields of literature, history, art, art history, classical studies, music, philosophy, anthropology, and religion. Students are expected to integrate three of these perspectives in a transdisciplinary research project.
This seminar-style course exposes students to literature on a variety of issues related to climate change and other examples of our dynamic global environment including natural resource use and natural hazards.
An introduction to the basic concepts and applications of geographic information systems (GIS). Topics include geographic data acquisition, data management, cartography, and methods of geospatial analysis. Laboratory exercises and projects focus on applications of GIS in understanding and managing the environment. Laboratory course.
An introduction to the basic concepts and applications of geographic information systems (GIS). Topics include geographic data acquisition, data management, cartography, and methods of geospatial analysis. Laboratory exercises and projects focus on applications of GIS in understanding and managing the environment. Laboratory course.
An introduction to the basic concepts and applications of geographic information systems (GIS). Topics include geographic data acquisition, data management, cartography, and methods of geospatial analysis. Laboratory exercises and projects focus on applications of GIS in understanding and managing the environment. Laboratory course.
This course combines the study of public policy with the study of major environmental problems. Students will explore public policy concepts and the instruments used in environmental regulation. Topics will include air and water quality issues hazardous waste and risk management, natural resources and biological diversity. The course will also discuss the impact of environmental groups and citizen activism on this highly complex area of public policy. Not open for credit to students who have completed POLS 208 or POLS 313.
This course examines the complex systems and values influencing land-use decision-making in both rural and urban settings throughout the U.S. and abroad. Students learn how government agencies and local citizens often conflict in their attitudes and values regarding the costs and benefits of growth and development. Particular attention is paid to forest conversion issues on the South Cumberland Plateau. Students attend local planning sessions and meetings with local officials.
A seminar on a topic related to environmental studies. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
A seminar on a topic related to environmental studies. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic differs.
Film Studies
An introduction to processes dependent on the lens as an imaging device, including wet-lab photography, digital photography. The course incorporates the fundamental theoretical, technical and aesthetic principles of working with photography as an expressive medium.Assignments include darkroom laboratory work, studio projects, discussions, written analyses, and class presentations.
An introduction to sculptural media involving spatial dimensions, including sculpture, installation, computer-aided design, and Computer Numerical Control (CNC) fabrication. The course incorporates the fundamental theoretical, technical and aesthetic principles of composition in form and space. Assignments involve design of the production of objects; computer modeling; traditional and non-traditional sculpture techniques.