CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
(HIS 201x)
A "ruined forest" in Algeria, c. 1950, from a French forestry manual.
Fall 2013
Wednesdays: 12-3; SS&H 2202
Dr. D. K. Davis; Office: 3225 SS&H ; E-mail: geovet@ucdavis.edu
| This graduate seminar will
introduce students to global environmental
history and overview the foundational works in
the field with a focus on the colonial period
to the present. A major goal of the
class is to demonstrate the direct
contemporary policy relevance of environmental
history to sectors such as environment,
development, agriculture, public health and
many others. That is, it focuses on
environmental history for a sustainable
future. Environmental history is an
inherently interdisciplinary field and we will
draw on the works of historians, geographers,
and other scholars to fully understand the
richness and depth of the environmental
history literature. We will explore
several different approaches to environmental
history and study the strengths and weaknesses
of these various approaches. Some of the
more recent work in environmental history
grapples with very productive critical
approaches that include the consideration of
gender, race/ethnicity and class, political
economy, post-colonial studies, science
studies, the politics of representation, and
social/environmental justice, etc. into the
writing of environmental history. We
will survey many of these recent works as we
focus on student research interests in the
last half of the class. Please note that this seminar does not focus on North America. I assume that if you are interested in American environmental history that you will take Louis Warren’s graduate seminar. |