RESULTS:College of Arts & Sciences, Easter Semester 2025

English

A study of several plays after 1600.
A study of Milton's poetry and prose in the context of religious and political upheavals in mid-seventeenth-century England. Particular emphasis is on Lycidas and Paradise Lost.
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.
By turns terrifying, melancholy, and bizarre, Gothic literature channels real anxieties in monstrous forms. This course features literature of the mysterious, uncanny, supernatural, and grotesque. The specific focus of the class may vary from year to year (e.g. a special focus on American Gothic fiction, Literature of the Sublime, and so forth).
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.”

Environmental Sciences

Students will gain hands-on experience with the practice of field or laboratory research in the context of a faculty member’s research program. Students will be introduced to research methods, hypothesis-driven research, and/or approaches to long-term environmental monitoring. This course may be repeated for credit at the discretion of the instructor.
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.
Supervised field or laboratory investigation in environmental science. Students will work with a faculty member on a research project. Faculty members may pose scientific questions and design experiments, but students will conduct experiments and collect data. This course may be repeated for credit at the discretion of the instructor.
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.
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.
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.
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.