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The Putah-Cache Bioregion Project:Spring 2000 Classes at UC DavisWho | What | Where | Publications |
Bioregional Graduate Seminar:Life-Place: Bioregional Theory and Principles
Literature of the Wilderness
Bioregion Writing Adjunct
Putah Creek Explorations: Developing Educational Activities for Youth
The Putah-Cache Creek Archive Project
Life-Place: Bioregional Theory and Principles
Landscape Architecture 250, 4 units, CRN 75773
Tue. 9:00 - 11:50 AM, 140 Robbins
Robert L. Thayer, Jr., rlthayer@ucdavis.edu
This cross-disciplinary graduate seminar addresses the emerging notion of bioregion and related "natural re-localization movements" as a set of nested axioms or hypotheses about environmental quality. Focus will be on the theoretical structures and practical methods by which individuals and groups can identify with naturally bounded "life-places" or "bioregions" and live respectfully and reciprocally within them. Topics include: definitions & origins of bioregional thought; physiographic, biotic, cultural/political, spiritual, artistic/literary, economic, technical, and practical aspects of the bioregional hypothesis; critiques of bioregionalism; bioregional practice; and student presentations.
Open to all graduate students.
In this course, we will deal with some of the literary responses to wilderness over the past 2,000 years from historical and thematic points of view. Almost all of the literature we will read comes from the Occident, and the majority of that from North America. The reading and lectures will treat the following themes: history of the idea of wilderness, mountains, women and landscape, the soundness of nature, Native Americans and landscape, practice of the wild, and wilderness in the work of one author.
Grading: Students will write a 10-page paper in the style of the personal essay, reflecting on their own experiences in the wilderness in relation to the readings and class lectures. Ten-page paper, 50%; midterm and final exams, 25% each.
Texts: Housekeeping, M. Robinson
Selected Poems, R. Jeffers
Stories from the Country of Lost Borders, M. Austin
Ceremony, L.M. Silko
Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
Practice of the Wild, Gary Snyder
Ring of Bone, L. Welch
Course reader
Meet your upper division writing requirement while learning about our Putah Creek/Cache Creek bioregion.
Readings for the course will take an interdisciplinary approach to the region, considering its inhabitants and resources scientifically, politically, socially, historically, and aesthetically. Essays written for the course may become part of a sourcebook on the region. Open to majors in LAWR, WFCB, EST, and NAC, as well as students enrolled in ANT 133; ATM 121B, 158; ESP 133, 171; EVE 101; GEL 134, 135; WFC 100. Other majors who have an interest in the region are also encouraged to enroll.
Completion of this course fulfills the upper division writing requirement in L & S and counts as part of the written and oral expression requirement for those in A & E.
See syllabus (Winter 1998).
See what really happens in class.
Learn about the ecology and culture of Putah Creek! Help create an outreach program for kids! Learn valuable career and communication skills! Gain outreach and teaching experience! Share your knowledge with regional youth and the general public! Sign up for two quarters!
PUTAH CREEK EXPLORATIONS is an interactive education project focused on the natural and cultural issues of Putah Creek. In this internship you will learn about the plants, animals, habitats, and people of the Putah Creek Bioregion and, working in teams with other students, turn that knowledge into hands-on science, art, and bioregional activities and adventures that stimulate active learning. Next, you will implement your activities with young people in and out of school and at the creek. Your project will directly contribute to an university outreach program for our region's youth.
A two quarter option is offered for students to continue and present activities created by various teams to area youth and school groups. Become a part of an ongoing environmental education program.
Transcript notation available. Grad students welcome. (Units available for past interns to implement activities).
This class will serve the goals of the Bioregion Project by working to create a documented history of humans, plants, and/or animals, local and exotic to the bioregion, from photographs, maps, journals, letters, oral histories, newpapers, cemeteries, tourist guides, home movies, artwork, and/or public records. As this is an ongoing process, the class is offered every quarter.
The grade for the class will be based on the student's completion of a project "contract" formulated with the instructor in the first weeks of the quarter. Students may select from a list of topics or choose their own; each final project project will include a report on the student's activities, a bibliography of sources used and found, and an essay that interprets the significance of the materials discovered.
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Who | What | Where | Publications
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