RST 242: Nature and American Culture

Course Description

Designed to aid in students' understanding, appreciation, and critique of cultural meanings associated with American natural landscapes. To do so, traditional perspectives including colonial American, romantic, and science-based conservation are characterized, as well as revisionist themes aligned with gender, cultural pluralism, and societal meanings of parks and protected areas. Implications of diversity including gender and multicultural meanings toward nature are developed and provide the basis for assessing tenets of contemporary environmental policy and supporting concepts associated with community-based conservation. Same as LA 242 and NRES 242.