HIST 304
Environmental History (EU, GL) (WI)
1. Catalog Entry
HIST 304
Environmental History (EU, GL) (WI)
Credit hours (3)
Prerequisite: Three hours of History at the 100 level.
This course explores the history of the world through the lens of environmental history. Students will learn the basic methodologies of environmental history and then put these approaches to work investigating how a focus on the physical environment can help us understand the major historical processes of human history. This course deals with physical and social environments around the world, including the United States.
Note(s): Humanistic or Artistic Expression designated course.
2. Detailed Description of Course
This course will ask students to consider a number of questions designed to help them
understand the role that the environment and/or natural world has played in processes
of human history and vice-versa. To that end, we will ask (as examples): How does
our new understanding of environmental history (and historical geography) change our
view of the way that history has unfolded throughout the world? Does a focus on the
physical environment produce a different history of, say, colonial expansion in the
modern period than if we focused on economic or political events? What was “revolutionary”
about the industrial revolution and what are its ongoing legacies? How did the relationship
between the exploitation of natural resources and climatic events contribute to famine,
disaster, and the “making of the third world”? How has the need to shape the environment
to the needs of societies changed the physical world, and to what effect? Moving both
thematically and chronologically, the course will expand student understanding of
the role played by the environment in the development of human societies and how those
societies have shaped the environment to their ends.
3. Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
The course will consist of a combination of lectures and discussions, some of which
will be student-led. Students may be asked to give formal presentations on select
topics.
4. Goals and Objectives of the Course
1) Students will practice thinking critically and analytically about historical
issues, acquire a broader knowledge and deeper
understanding of pertinent historical events and processes, and cultivate
a familiarity with the concepts of historical argument
and interpretation.
2) Students will develop disciplinary research skills by designing strategies
to locate and analyze primary and secondary source
evidence, processing and organizing the resultant data, and composing proper
citation and bibliographical entries.
3) Students will apply their critical thinking, research, and compositional skills
to the creation and presentation of thesis driven essays
that discuss, for example, historical social, economic, political, and/or
cultural developments and that address issues such as the
causes and consequences of historical change and continuity.
5. Assessment Measures
Course assessment will consist of tests and paper assignments, some of which may require
significant student research.
6. Other Course Information
None
Review and Approval
June 20, 2015
March 01, 2021