Geography

Introduction to Physical Geography This course explores the dynamics of the earth’s atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere, in relation to the biosphere, or “life-layer.” Through lectures, discussions, and class exercises, we examine how climate, geomorphology (landforms), and biogeography (the geographic characteristics of life forms) interact to form distinctive natural environments and landscapes around the globe. We also discuss the ways in which human activities affect the earth’s surface features, atmosphere, and ecosystems. Topics will include atmosphere and radiation balance, global circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, weather patterns, hydrology and water resources, the lithosphere and plate tectonics, mountain formation and vulcanism, glaciation, rivers, and other landforms shaped by flowing water, coastal landforms, and plant and animal assemblages of the world’s biomes. Several field trips and outdoor exercises introduce students to the geography of Berkshire County and other nearby regions. Field study topics include dendrology (tree identification), river floodplain formation, mountain building events, glacial history, and land-use history. These trips will also be an opportunity to introduce students to GPS (Global Positioning Systems) and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technologies. In addition, these trips give students the opportunity to hike and canoe in some of the most intriguing wild landscapes of the Berkshires and southern Vermont. Please note that this course does fulfill the science requirement.

Cultural Perspectives
Cultural Ecology of Asia This course explores the physical environments, resource management traditions, and environmental transformation of East, Southeast, and South Asia. A survey of the human and physical geography of these regions is integrated with local and regional case studies on the relationship between environmental management traditions, cultural diversity, biological diversity, economic development, and globalization. Topics of concern include indigenous knowledge (ethnoscience), subsistence and commercial land use practices, paradigms for sustainable development, environmental perception, landscapes and identity, discourses on the “other,” and the application of theories from political ecology to processes of globalization.

Cultural Perspectives
Introduction to Cultural Geography: Reading the Cultural Landscape Cultural geography is a branch of human geography that focuses on spatial variations among social and cultural groups, analyzing how humans perceive, define, and shape the environment, place, and nature. The discipline plays an intermediary role between the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. This course will examine how particular culture groups define, delimit, and shape spaces and places through time, and how groups and individuals experience places and impart meaning and value to them. The course will be a field-oriented, “hands on” introduction to the major themes of cultural geography, with regular field exercises. In the classroom, we will discuss the seminal concepts and research approaches of cultural geography as a humanistic social science. Class exercises and regular field excursions in a variety of wild, agricultural, small town, and urban landscapes will provide practice in research techniques including map reading and interpretation; manual and desktop computer cartography; landscape observation and field journal writing; and the use of narratives, oral histories, archives, and literary sources. The field component will include participation in a long-term study of cultural change in the Berkshires. Themes covered in the course include space and spatial relations in social theory; cultural identity and the cultural landscape; the spatialization of race, ethnicity, and gender; critical perspectives on urban and regional development and planning; and geographies of empire.

The Agricultural World: Land, Food, Sustainability Crop cultivation and the rearing of domesticated animals to produce food, fiber, feed, and drink have been humankind’s primary enterprises through most of history. Today, agriculture remains the most important economic activity, occupying 45 percent of the laboring population and covering the greater part of the earth’s land surface. A diverse array of cropping and herding systems have altered terrestrial biomes on a massive scale, and most of the world’s cultural landscapes are still agricultural. While all of us depend upon the food surpluses generated by farmers and herders for our daily sustenance, there is tremendous geographic variation in the political, economic, and cultural significance of agriculture in daily life. In urban-industrial societies like the United States, less than two percent of the population is engaged in agriculture, while in many parts of Asia and Africa, over 80 percent of the population consists of farmers and herders. This course examines the history of agriculture, processes of plant and animal domestication, and the spread of agricultural techniques and products worldwide. We will also focus on a diffusion of agricultural techniques and products worldwide. We will also focus on a wide range of pre-industrial and modern agricultural practices in relation to other aspects of environment and culture, including climate, terrain, demographic conditions, settlement patterns, political systems, social structure, and environmental perception. After comparing how traditional and modern agricultural practices have shaped landscapes and ecosystems through time, we will analyze current issues of agricultural production, including bioengineering, the dominance of agribusiness, new definitions of sustainability, community supported agriculture, and the relationships between agriculture and sense of place.

Cultural Perspectives
Mapping Shangri-La: Geography of Tibet This course traces the evolution of the greater Tibetan culture region from prehistoric times to the present. Topics of study include historical and contemporary cultural ecology, ethnic diversity, the development of Tibetan Buddhism, political history, the Tibetan dispora and communities in exile, and how romantic myths of Shangri-La have configured Western views of Tibet that Donald Lopez calls “immune from history.” Tibet’s position as an “autonomous Region” in western China is examined in light of competing narratives on Tibetan nationalism, human rights, economic development, and environmental protection.

Forests and Human Society From tropical rainforests of the equatorial zone to boreal forests that reach the tundra’s edge, forests span a tremendous range of latitude, climates, and terrain. Matching this physical diversity is a broad range of silvicultural practices, beliefs, perceptions, and cultural patterns that reflect the diversity of human societies that rely on trees, wood, and myriad forest products. This course examines the economic, social, and aesthetic significance of forests in preindustrial, industrialized, and postindustrial contexts. An introduction to the biogeography of the world’s forest regions is followed by case studies on the historical geography of forests around the globe. Subjects of interest include the history of forest exploitation and empire in the Mediterranean; geopiety, sacred groves, and indigenous forest preservation; forests and the social construction of nature and national identity; forest arson and political resistance; the environmental economics of timber and nontimber forest products; and the role of forests in recreation and the experience of wilderness.

Home at the Rock: Mapping the Landscape Ecology of Simon’s Rock This multidisciplinary team-taught course places our campus— your academic home place—at the center of research on ecology and human-environment relations. Field surveys and mapping exercises enable students and faculty to share in developing a base of information on the landscapes and ecosystems of Simon’s Rock and how they have developed through time geologically, biologically, and culturally. Daily exercises and independent studies contribute to ongoing curriculum development and student-faculty publication on the place of our campus and of southern Berkshire County in the development of New England’s ecosystems and cultural landscapes. Training in GPS (Global Positioning Systems) data collection and GI S (Geographic Information Systems) cartographic production and analysis is combined with the study of biogeography, basic plant and animal identification and classification, ecosystem mapping techniques, and historical geography. How have glacial cycles affected both the human and physical geography of this region? How has bedrock geology affected human settlement patterns in Berkshire County? Are there any old New England stone walls on this campus? Can we make a nature reserve on unbuilt campus space? How did successive waves of human settlers, beginning in the Paleolithic and extending through colonial settlement, the industrial revolution, and the Gilded Age perceive, adapt to and shape the landscapes, flora, and fauna of this region? These questions tie into issues of social space (race and class), political economy, the social construction of nature, and larger regional and continental scale historical phenomena that can be further developed in this and other courses using a spatial framework. Independent study projects form parts of an integrated whole, which may be published as reports, articles, books, or web-based materials.

New Orleans/Katrina/New Orleans(?) From its inception as a French colonial settlement in the early 18th century to its post-Katrina period of ruin and rehabilitation, New Orleans has always been uniquely challenged by the threat of hurricanes, floods, and the vagaries of the ever-shifting delta of the Mississippi River. Despite the odds, the city thrived for much of its history, becoming, in the early 19th century, a principal entrepot with a leading role in the slave trade, while simultaneously giving rise to the most prosperous community of free persons of color in the South. By 1840, New Orleans was the third largest city in the United States and the country’s wealthiest, setting the stage for a multicultural metropolitan melange unparalleled in the United States for its exceptional cultural syncretism and political complexity. This course examines the intertwining histories of the people of New Orleans, the river upon whose banks they dwell, and how the wetlands and river channels of southern Louisiana have both given the city its life and now threaten to take it away. Readings on historical geography and environmental history will prepare students to critically engage contemporary planning initiatives and the contentious cultural politics of post-Katrina rebuilding efforts. Having lost half of its population after the storm, New Orleans neighborhoods are evolving in ways that defy the best-laid plans of national and municipal planning agencies alike. The service-learning component of the course provides an opportunity for students to spend the fall break in New Orleans working with community rebuilding efforts in Broadmoor or other areas. Final projects may be based on a combination of semester-long research, on-the-spot work experience, and field observation or data collection.

The Path: Trails, Pilgrimage, & Place This course combines walking, hiking, backpacking, trail building, or some combination of the above with intellectual excursions into the vast and varied literature on paths, trails, and pilgrimage. Students engage in trail building and maintenance projects on campus and short trips on the Appalachian Trail and other mountain routes in Berkshire County in order to place the history of trails and path-making in historical and cultural context. Readings range from the philosophical to the strictly practical, and include works by Tim Ingold, Bill Bryson, Victor Turner, Aldo Leopold, Martin Heidegger, Henry David Thoreau, Bash, and Laozi. An important component of this course will consist of the building and long-term maintenance of trails on our campus. More than half of the campus is wooded and undeveloped, comprising a diverse array of wetland, streamside, and upland habitats for wild plants and animals. This mosaic of forests, glades, brooks, marshes, and swamps also provides unique opportunities for nature observation, contemplation, and recreation. The woods also hold cultural features suggesting the complexities of human-environment relations through time, including dams, cisterns, stone walls, boundary markers, an active maple sugaring operation, and a large, mysterious rock from which the College gets its name. Students participate in the ongoing conception, design, and construction of the campus trail system, a network of footpaths that facilitate environmentally sustainable educational and recreational activities for all members of the College. Readings, discussion, hikes, and physical labor provide grounding in the art, philosophy, and science of landscape appreciation and nature interpretation, as well as new perspectives on how trails figure in the social construction of nature. An eight-step trail process include deciding the trail’s purpose; making an inventory of the wooded parts of the campus; designing the trail; scouting existing and potential trail corridors; clearing the trails; constructing the trail surface; marking the trail; and writing interpretive materials. This work, along with the maintenance of the trail, the signposts, and the interpretive materials, provides an ongoing opportunity for students to work with staff and faculty in contributing to the general well-being and the sense of place that build community.

Globalization and Community Ecology This course explores the nexus among place, community, and forces of global production. With texts, documentary, and live places as our media, we examine the ways in which local community interactions are actively linked to conceptions of culture, the environment, ecology, hazards, and economic development. Case studies of communities from around the world provide a spectrum across which to gauge the similarities and differences in the ways that global economic, political, and social forces produce, marginalize, or annihilate places and communities, and how local people and international networks maintain active participation. Assessing neo-liberal, socialist, environmentalist, feminist, and other paradigms for community development, we gain critical perspectives on the roles of NGOs (non-governmental organizations), TSMs (transnational social movements), TAN s (transnational action networks), and other links in a shifting network of global, local, and regional power. Beyond the classroom, we engage in local community service in cooperation with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Manos Unidas, thus strengthening the relationship between our college and people who reside in the Berkshires. Guest speakers will provide additional first-hand experience on the challenges of community activism and the multidisciplinary and critical philosophy underlying ecologically and socially sustainable development.

Political Ecology and Globalization Theory Political Ecology, a growing discipline with roots in the field of cultural ecology, is the study of how political and economic forces affect the utilization of natural resources in the world’s most powerful “core” areas and in the geographically and often politically marginalized “peripheries.” After a survey of preindustrial resource management systems (including hunting and gathering, swidden agriculture, and nomadic pastoralism), premodern adaptation to diverse biomes, and theories of local knowledge, we focus on conflicts and accommodations that have developed with the advent of industrialization and global free trade. The scope of the course, like that of the new discipline, also encompasses competing visions of global economic development, environmental stewardship, “sustainable development,” and social justice. With works by: Tom Bassett, Lucy Ford, Madhav Gadgil, David Harvey, Michael Klare, Richard Peet, Diane Rocheleau, James C. Scott, Andrew Vayda, Michael Watts, Charles Zerner, and Karl Zimmerer.

Lights Out! Facts & Narratives on Post Fossil-Fuel Age Fossil fuels are the primary source of the cheap energy that sustains modern industrial society and makes “globalization” possible. They have provided the physical foundations and social conditions underwriting modern thought and its corollary “postmodern” styles and “poststructural” hopes. Over 85 percent of U.S. energy demands are met by the combustion of the fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, which are non-renewable. Fossil fuels are extracted from deposits beneath the earth, and burned to release chemical energy for goods, services, and cultural practices. While just 200 years ago there was no gasoline, and no electrical power derived from oil and gas, today these fuels are widespread globally. Some 70,000 products are manufactured using petroleum as a raw feedstock, including plastics, acrylics, cosmetics, paints, varnishes, asphalts, fertilizers, medications, and much more. All print or digital information is produced by means of fossil fuels; some clothing has petrochemical products in it; most food comes from agriculture and food processing systems that depend on cheap supplies of oil. A growing number of analysts deploy compelling data to show that the end of the fossil fuel age is fast approaching. Some foresee geopolitical conflicts over shrinking reserves that threaten to radically destabilize diplomacy and economic cooperation. Commentators herald the death of suburbia and the “American way of life.” Christian fundamentalists hawk the hellfire and brimstone of Armageddon. Readings will examine evidence for and against rapid political, social, and economic decline as fuel reserves are diminished, and critique a wide range of narratives and truth claims on social organization and “civilization” in a Post Fossil-Fuel Age. We will consider relationships between resource discourse, ideology, and action, and initiate an analysis of the production and consumption of materials and ideas in the everyday lives of the “developed” and “developing” worlds.

Projects in Political Ecology This series of courses is an introduction to the theory and practice of political ecology through applied work that focuses on particular topics. Political ecology, a growing discipline with roots in the fields of cultural ecology and political economy, is the study of how political and economic forces affect the utilization of natural resources in the world’s most powerful “core” areas and in the geographically and often politically marginalized “peripheries.” In this course the instructor and the students engage in collaborative research and writing. All participate in a group field research program composed of individual projects. Students design the program and its constitutive projects, gather and analyze data, and write individual chapters or essays that are compiled and edited to take the final form of a book, monograph, report, or weblog. The topic for the first project focuses on the theme of fossil fuel depletion, how it is represented through facts and narratives by state and non-state actors, and how it is emerging as an issue within a variety of communities and social networks. After a series of introductory readings, documentaries, lectures, and discussions, students will design and carry out interviews with specialists in the field of fossil fuel depletion and with nonspecialists as well. The final product should be exemplary of the goals of collaborative social science. Since this course focuses on a different topic each time it is offered, students may take the class more than once.

Modern China from the Margins: Class, Gender, Ethnicity, and the Nation State This course examines the making of Chinese modernity through the construction and contestation of spaces delineating class, gender, ethnicity, and nationhood. Our project is to explore relationships between space and time in narratives on identity dating from the Opium War of the mid-19th century to the era of globalization in the early 21st. Materials for study include scholarly works, political tracts, fiction, essays, documentaries, administrative maps, landscapes, technologies, and more. Our dialogue revolves around the following questions: First, is the concept of the modern nation-state applicable to China? Is the Chinese nation-state strictly a modern phenomenon? Second, how have cultural others—the non-Han peoples—contributed to the idea of “Zhongguo,” the “Central Kingdom,” as opposed to “waiguo,” outside ethno-political entities, through time? What justifications and social controls have been used to facilitate the incorporation of non-Han territories into the Chinese realm and how is this process continuing in the 21st century? Third, how has the concept of socio-economic class been conceived by modern political theorists, and upon which varieties of pre-modern social networks and cultural relations were these ideologies cast? How have class-relations developed over the course of the 20th century and into the present day? Fourth, how have gender relations and sexuality served as catalysts for political revolution and social change since the early 20th century? How have they informed Chinese Communist Party policy since 1949 and how are they changing in the post-reform period of economic liberalization and the hollowing out of the state? Fifth, how has space been defined in regard to the nation, the individual, the body, labor, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, the urban, the rural, and national boundaries in a “globalizing world?” Sixth, how have Chinese intellectuals engaged with these issues and the question of China’s position in the global community in the post-Mao period, particularly within the engagement between “patriotic worrying,” post-modern theory, and the prospect of an end to the country’s geopolitical marginalization?