GEOGRAPHY 411 Environment
and Empire
| Term 2: 3 credits |
Instructor: G. Wynn
GEOG ROOM 221
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This course will be taught in seminar format and will be limited to 21
students.
PREREQUISITE: Third or fourth year standing and (6) credits of
physical geography.
This course explores human use and abuse of the earth in the last 200 years, and
considers how these developments have been understood. Its focus is,
predominantly, upon areas beyond Europe, which are explored in a series of case
studies drawing upon the perspectives of geography, environmental history, and
the ecological sciences.
Weekly list of topics
- Week 1 Geography and Environmental History
- Week 2 Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action
- Week 3 Environmental History
- Week 4 Ecological Imperialism
- Week 5 Colonialism and Conservation
- Week 6 The Deforestation of North America
- Week 7 The Invasion of New Zealand
Five topics for weeks 8 through 12 will be selected in consultation with
students from the following list of possibilities; no more than two of (a) to
(d) will be considered in any seminar section.
- Week 8-12(a) Taming the Great South Land (Australia)
- Week 8-12(b) Environmental Destruction in Southern Africa
- Week 8-12(c) Desertification
- Week 8-12(d) Hold this Land: Grappling with Soil Erosion
- Week 8-12(e) Tropical Forests: the Amazon and Africa
- Week 8-12(f) The Fissured Land, India
- Week 8-12(g) Sheep and Sugar: environmental impacts in Central America and
the Caribbean
- Week 8-12(h) Environmental Change in China
- Week 8-12(i) Wilderness and Limitation: an Environmental History of Canada
- Week 8-12(j) The Empire strikes back
- Week 13 Empires and Ecologies
Course requirements:
Regular attendance and participation on the basis of appropriate preparation. On
one occasion between week 5 and week 12 inclusive each student will be required
to prepare material for presentation to, and discussion and critique by, the
seminar. A WebCT site is utilized to provide a course Bulletin Board, and to
allow students access to written material relating to student presentations. The
written assignment associated with this presentation will be graded by the
instructor. All students will be required to write an essay of 3000 words on a
topic chosen from a list provided by the instructor, due at the end of lectures.
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