Meeting 20 • 14 March 2013 • Thursday
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pictures of the week
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thought-bite of the week: "Gold dug out from the ground has, in the people's eyes, a special lure unrelated to the diligent farmer harvesting a fertile land under a gentle climate."(Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, p. 24) |
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mini-text of the week (start): "…What an odd experience it was to find ourselves in these vast solitudes with a man who believed he was European, with all the vain pretensions, hereditary prejudices and mistakes of civilization, but whose only roof was a tree."Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, pp. 70-71 (read more) |
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(10') Thought-bite of the week: How far are we from being "farmer[s] harvesting a fertile land"? How close to "gold dug from the ground"? Mini-text of the week: what does "civilization" mean to you? what did it mean to Humboldt? Did he "go native"? More about H and his Prussian aristocratic society. |
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(10') Contact of cultures, "clash of civilizations": Are human beings (individuals / groups) "hardwired" to be hostile or friendly to new groups they encounter? |
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(30') Group project presentations |
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(10') a reading selection as preparation for the final exam - shorter, but of the same kind |
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(01') Species description assignment: chief virtue – you went out and got the science (and social science); chief flaw – many of you didn't "process" it, but rather just delivered it without considering your audience |
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(15') The past interprets the further past: John Wesley Powell tries to apply Humboldt's research methods and "everything is connected" to the American West - and fails. Basic concepts and sources: John Wesley Powell, "beyond the 100th meridian", settlement of the American West, Oregon, and water/land use. Policies of resource allocation, agriculture, mining: Jefferson, Powell, corporate/federal. The three E's of sustainability. What does "interconnectedness" mean to you now? See Stegner, Wallace, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, 1953; rpt. Penguin, 1992, and Worster, Donald, A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell, Oxford UP, 2001. Basic biographical sources: Wikipedia; PBS "American Experience" (Powell & Bureau of Ethnology); Powell Museum at Lake Powell ("Explore with Us") |
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(10') Today is "Pi Day": 1) hands-on demonstration about why the area of a circle is indeed pi-r-squared; 2) commemoration of those most important Humboldtian geometric/mathematical figures: the triangle, the cube, and the sphere |
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(05') Still more advice about "educated citizen" reading; example (with free samples: New York Review of Books and Atlantic Monthly) |
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(05') Humboldt's later life and legacy ("Going [back] Home") - a good way to wrap up this course and prepare for the final: 1) Cosmos & Cosmos - more than half a century at the center of European intellectual life; 2) Humboldt the political activist: from the French Revolution (was it worth it?? what would be its modern American equivalent and cost??) through the 1848 European rebellions to the lead-up to the American Civil War; the German '48ers in the US. |
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(5') Announcements, Checkups & Previews: 1) Directions about final exam; article to read for it. Final exam (Thursday, 21 March, 1530-1720 in our classroom). Parts: group project scoring guide; factual writing about Humboldt and his work (practice today in groups: construct a fast FAQ); reflection(s) - how have you thought about what you've encountered in the course; response to reading about exploration and sustainable environmentalism in our time - how well can you interpret the present by interpreting the past? How to prepare before the exam: read the article you were have been given; (re!)read the Helferich biography and Jaguars and Electric Eels; REVIEW THE COURSE MEETING PAGES linked from the SCHEDULE page. |