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The course reading is chosen from materials that are not at the professional "academic" level, but rather that of the college-educated citizen. There is some range: the "Eels and Jaguars" book would not be inappropriate for a smart elementary-school child. The Helferich book is well written and solidly research, but it would not be acceptable in a 400-level history course. The Stegner book is more ambitious than the Helferich book, but like the Helferich book it contains a good deal of adventure narrative, and Stegner writes about places and times more familiar to contemporary Americans, including Oregonians. The scientific and cultural issues that Stegner presents are also more familiar to us. An impartial poll of post-college citizens in ordinary occupations (non-MD health professionals, airport baggage handler, businessman, members of a woman's reading club) confirms that a booklike the Helferich can be read comfortably in 5-6 hours (around 2 minutes a page). Here are some tips about reading our materials: 1) Prioritize your reading: Yes, the adventure tales are entertaining and helpus feel what it would be like to be there, but you mayu want to zip through them (but look for extreme situations). Our course emphasizes sustainable environmentalism, particularly about climate change and biology, so read those parts in more detail. Same thing for when you encounter the social and political factors, and how data was gathered and evaluated. Go somewhat light on the geology and chemistry than biology and meteorology, even lighter on the ethnology and archaeology (but remember that real people are involved, and that there is an academic field of cultural sustainability). 2) If you feel you have a handle on a topic, and that the passage you are reading is just more of the same, move on to new kinds of knowledge. 3) Look for parts where major topics are integrated: acquisition of scientific information, attempts to apply it to natural and social problems, and disputes about evidence, method, and consequences. 4) Look for parts where the work which Humboldt helped to conduct has remote but clear effects on later times and other places, particularly the US west of the 100th meridian, and the present time, whether in the West, the larger US, or the entire world. 5) Look for examples of what was regarded as solid science then turns out to be in need of revision or rejection by later science, and how that later science argues its case. 6) As you consider the information from the past and from other places, remember that Then and There are/were different from our Here and Now. Recognize the huge differences, and remind yourself not to force the world-view of the Here and Now onto the Then and There. 7) Every now and then write yourself a little note about something you've learned, maybe with an eye to brining it up in class. 8) Assume that the course meeting handouts contain useful information, including the supplementary materials like news and magazine articles. 9) Don't get obsessive about details of knowledge. Most activities, including the major projects, are open-book/internet. While the tests aren't, succes son them does not depend on (to quote an old TV quiz show) "detailed recall of specific facts". You won't be asked to give the precise altitude of Mount Chimborazo, or the Latin names of 10 Humboldt-related species. But you will be expected to understand why Chimborazo and similar places are important to the Origins of Sustainable Environmentalism, and to explain that you will need to have learned some bits of specific knowledge and be able to organize them to support the case you are making. |