A study of the major seventeenth-century poets, concentrating on such poets' redefinitions of genre, mode, and source. Readings emphasize works by Donne, Herbert, Jonson, Herrick, Milton, and Marvell.
A study of the poetry and poetic theory of British romanticism. Included is an examination of such writers as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
A study of several major Victorian authors, including Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Oscar Wilde.
Like Abraham Lincoln’s announcement of “a new birth of freedom” in the Gettysburg Address, the American literature covered in English 378 struggles to articulate, then problematize, American freedom in the era surrounding the Civil War and emancipation. What is freedom? To whom does it extend? What are its blessings and its costs? Nobody has ever thought more profoundly about these issues than the American writers who emerged before, during, and after the war America fought with itself: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Harriet Jacobs, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Charles Chesnutt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others.
This seminar ranges across the diverse, innovative, playful, and provocative works of British modernist author Virginia Woolf. Readings include a selection of Woolf’s short fiction, novels, and nonfiction writing, as well as secondary scholarly works that situate Woolf in her historical and cultural milieu and illuminate the threads of aesthetics, feminism, and what we now call “modernism” in her work. Woolf’s writing opens up timely and important questions about the role of form and voice in writing, the conventions of both literary and academic writing, and how and when to play at the edges of those conventions.
The most innovative American novelist of the twentieth century is also the writer we need to make sense of the twenty-first. “The past is never dead,” Faulkner said. “It isn’t even past.” But why isn’t it? Why can’t we, as so many Americans ask, “just move on”? Faulkner’s novels keep asking this plaintive question, his characters yearning for the freedom of the fresh start but caught by a tragic past that doesn’t want to let go. This class focuses on the major novels Faulkner wrote, in blindingly quick succession, between 1929 and 1942, what he later called his “matchless time.”
A study of the major traditions of African-American writing from the nineteenth century to the present, including Frederick Douglass, Linda Brent, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Ernest Gaines, Toni Morrison, and Rita Dove.
A study of criticism from classical times to post-structuralism and contemporary approaches to literary and cultural analysis, students will read closely and discuss major critical documents in the literary tradition of the West. Emphasis is placed on practical application of critical theory as well as on its history and development.
Environmental Sciences
In this course, students learn to carry out their own independent research on important issues in environmental management and sustainability. Meetings are focused upon hands-on practice in experimental design, field data collection, data management, basic coding, project management, grant proposal writing, and public speaking. Throughout those experiences, students gain foundational knowledge in the sciences of climate change, carbon sequestration, pollution, and environmental justice.
Data science plays a critically important role in guiding and monitoring sustainable development goals that seek to align environmental, social, and economic progress. This course explores the intersection of data science and sustainable development, with a practical focus on several core skills: managing real-world datasets, data visualization design, reproducible workflows, complex project management, and impactful data-driven storytelling. Students learn tools such as interactive data dashboards, data storyboards and blogs, automated report generation, data cleaning, data repositories, version control, and data entry software design. They then apply these skills to investigate and communicate emerging issues in sustainable development.
Capstone course for students pursuing the watershed science certificate. A multidisciplinary, project-oriented course in which students address issues related to two or more of the following topic areas: the interaction of biological processes and watershed function, chemical processes in streams and watershed, the relation between forested landscapes and hydrologic systems, or geological processes in terrestrial aquatic systems.
A course exploring and integrating themes in current and historical literature in archaeology, earth sciences, forestry, geography, spatial analysis, and watershed sciences. Open only to seniors pursuing majors in forestry, geology, or natural resources and the environment.
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.
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.
Supervised readings and discussion in geology, hydrology, invertebrate zoology, marine zoology, maritime plant communities, and wildlife behavior as preparation for participation in the interdisciplinary summer Island Ecology program.
Integrating local, regional, and global perspectives, this course outlines the history of agriculture, introduces the development of food systems and policy, and reviews the environmental impact of food production. Among topics addressed are the history of agricultural expansion in the US, the development of agriculture and food policies, interaction among agricultural markets at home as well as abroad, and sustainable agriculture. Classroom activities emphasize the involvement of multiple constituencies in identifying and articulating agricultural issues. Field opportunities include garden activities and local trips aimed at relating broader issues to how livelihoods are pursued on the Cumberland Plateau.
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.