Preregister for EVST Seminars

August 12, 2019

The Environmental Studies major is offering preregistration for five EVST courses this fall for EVST majors. This gives EVST majors favorable consideration for enrollment in limited enrollment courses and allows instructors to anticipate and manage the demand for course enrollment. Preregistration closes on August 19th. Students will be notified if they are admitted to the class by August 23rd. If you are admitted to a class and choose not to take it, please let the instructor know. If you wish to enroll in one or more of the following courses for the fall semester, please click the preregistration link below.

EVST 224 Writing About the Environment

W 9:25am-11:15am  

Instructor: Alan Burdick. Exploration of ways in which the environment and the natural world can be channeled for literary expression. Reading and discussion of essays, reportage, and book-length works, by scientists and non-scientists alike. Students learn how to create narrative tension while also conveying complex—sometimes highly technical—information; the role of the first person in this type of writing; and where the human environment ends and the non-human one begins.

This course is highly recommended for seniors as a complement to EVST 496a, the fall Senior Colloquium within which seniors draft their senior essays.  It could also be used by juniors to explore a potential senior essay topic, helping focus planned research for the summer of 2020.  

Alan Burdick is a Senior Editor at The New York Times, and was formerly Senior Editor at the New Yorker Magazine.  

 

EVST 422 Climate and Society from Past to Present

Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

Instructor: Michael Dove. Discussion of the major currents of thought—both historic and contemporary—regarding climate, climate change, and society; focusing on the politics of knowledge and belief vs disbelief; and drawing on the social sciences and anthropology in particular. New: Social Science or Humanities Core Course. 

Professor Dove is a world renowned environmental anthropologist, having played a prominent role in defining the field.

F&ES 750 Writing the World

T 2:30pm-5:20pm

Instructor: Verlyn Klinkenborg. This is a practical writing course meant to develop the student’s skills as a writer. But its real subject is perception and the writer’s authority—the relationship between what you notice in the world around you and what, culturally speaking, you are allowed to notice. What you write during the term is driven entirely by your own interest and attention. How you write is the question at hand. We explore the overlapping habitats of language—present and past—and the natural environment. And, to a lesser extent, we explore the character of persuasion in environmental themes. Every member of the class writes every week, and we all read what everyone writes every week. It makes no difference whether you are a would-be journalist, scientist, environmental advocate, or policy maker. The goal is to rework your writing and sharpen your perceptions, both sensory and intellectual.

This course is recommended especially for junior EVST majors and provides an opportunity to refine the focus of your concentration and to consider how to structure research for your senior essay during the summer of 2020.  

Verlyn Klinkenborg is a well known creative non-fiction writer who has published essays and articles in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and National Geographic. He was a member of the New York Times Editorial Board from 1997 to 2013.  He writes about public land use, especially in the American West, rural life and species protection and extinction. 

EVST 231 Temperate Woody Plant Taxonomy and Dendrology

T 1pm-5pm

Instructor: Marlyse Duguid. Identification of the major temperate plant families, with a focus on North American forest species; integration of morphology, phenology, ecology, biogeography, and the natural history of tree species. Course work includes field identification of woody plants, and phylogenetic systematics as the structure for understanding the evolutionary history and relationships between species.

Professor Duguid is an outstanding field scientist with a deep understanding of ecological function of New England forest plant species.  

EVST 212 Democracy and Sustainability

Th 9:25am-11:15am   

Instructor: Michael Fotos. Concepts include institutional analysis, democratic consent, property rights, market failure, and common pool resources. Topics of policy substance are related to human use of the environment and to U.S. and global political institutions.

Professor Fotos is the DUS for Environmental Studies. His recent publications seek greater understanding of the relationship between political theory and policy analysis.  His earlier work focused on coal mining regulation, voter turnout, and ecosystem services.  Present projects include working papers relating American constitutional fundamentals to political development and policy choice.