Research paper and Presentation. There are three possible components to this project: (See ECLEARN for further details.)
- Written project proposal
- Final written research paper
- Class presentation (if selected to do one), the particulars of which will be explained below.
Students are required to write a five to seven-page research paper on an environmental history topic. Topics include but are not limited to the following list:
- Comparative Frontier Attitudes
- Slash and burn practices in the Amazon and subtropics.
- Critical analysis: the writings of Edward Abbey.
- Critical analysis: the writings of Barry Lopez.
- Critical analysis: the life and writings of John Wesley Powell.
- Critical analysis: the life and writings of Farley Mowat.
- Critical analysis: the writings of John James Audubon.
- Critical Analysis: the life and work of Dorothy Stang.
- Water and urban growth in the Americas.
- Climate change, projected consequences, and possible solutions.
- Indigeneity and environmental activism.
- The logic and origins behind the creation of national parks and wilderness areas.
- Rain forest depletion in a global capitalist economy (need to focus on a particular stretch of rainforest).
- Nature and African religious traditions.
- Nature and Native American religious traditions (North, Central, or South America)
- Explore the relative absence of people of color in many outdoor, recreational activities.
- Boom & Bust: silver mining in the colonial Andes and Mexico
- Boom & Bust: gold mining in Colombia and California.
- Boom & Bust: mineral extraction in Minas Gerais.
- Critical analysis of political advocacy organizations such as the Green Party in the US.
- National footpaths: The Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail.
- The role of wilderness in pop culture.
- Critical analysis: the writings of Rachel Carson
- Eco-Tourism as sustainable environmental policy.
- Artistic representations of the sublime in nature.
- Gender, underdevelopment, and ecological degradation.
- Critical analysis: compare and contrast Bill Byson’s A Walk in the Woods with Cheryl Strayed’s Wild.
- Invasive species and projected consequences.
- Explore the relationship between poverty, public health, and ecological degradation.
- Explore the challenges facing your home watershed: ecological degradation, dams, redirecting of flow.
- Analyze the causes and proposed solutions associated with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
- Examine the legal battles between Native American communities and Petroleum projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) response paper
Students will go to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston and analyze the evolution of art styles and aesthetics during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
- Admission is free for students with a valid Emmanuel College ID card along with proof of COVID-19 vaccination (see further details)
- Students will then write a 3-page response paper from questions that I will pose to them on the course conference.
Selected Reference books
- Grove Art Online This link opens in a new windowSearchable online version of the 34-volume Grove Dictionary of Art covering the visual arts from prehistory to the 1990s. Also includes The Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowOver 700 reference books covering a variety of disciplines and including foreign language dictionaries. Includes a concept map, which provides related subjects and noted personalities to assist beginning research.
Article Databases
- Art Full Text This link opens in a new windowArt Full-Text provides articles from over 300 journals from 1995 to present and abstracts and indexing of more than 600 periodicals back to 1984, many of them peer-reviewed. Expanded coverage of Latin American, Canadian, Asian and non-Western art, new artists, contemporary art, exhibition reviews, and feminist criticism.
Art Index Retrospective indexes almost 600 titles published between 1929 and 1984.
- Use Academic Search Premier to search across multiple databases.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowA total of more than 900 full-text scholarly journal titles in an online archive beginning with the first issue of each title. The archive includes nine JSTOR Arts and Sciences Collections.
- In JSTOR, there is usually a time lag in full-text content. Use JSTOR in conjunction with our current online databases and print holdings.
- Since results may contain articles that are not peer reviewed, search for the journal title using the A-Z Journals by Title list to verify the journal's peer-reviewed status.
Also explore the Art/Art History Research Guide.
Students will locate watersheds that flow through their home communities and identify the various challenges that they face. Challenges include sewage runoff, trash, chemicals, oils, dams etc…
- Students will also locate the various clean water advocacy groups that serve their respective watershed(s).
- Specific parameters for this brief assignment will be posted to ECLearn. This project is due on April 13th. It is worth 5% of your final grade.
Selected Web Sites