Writing Seminar , Seeking Nature WRI 106/107
For Sarah Case's course :
Activities like “forest bathing” have taken off among adults seeking to escape from the pressures of modern life. Yet people of color in New York State today are 10x more likely to live in nature-deprived communities. And at a time when human impacts on the environment are driving extinctions, Netflix and Disney are spending billions on new wildlife shows for their subscribers. What determines the value of nature and who can access it? How is that perspective shaped by its experience or loss? This Writing Seminar investigates the relationship between humans and the natural world. We begin by exploring Princeton’s manicured lawns and shaded groves through the lens of biophilia, analyzing the connections between campus life and overlapping ecologies. We turn next to Manhattan’s High Line, a public park built on the site of an abandoned elevated train line, as students examine urban redevelopment in terms of equity and access to green spaces. For the research paper, students choose a natural site, real or imagined, and develop an original argument about the relationship between humanity and that environment. Possible topics include the Galapagos Islands as a destination for ecotourism, projects reintroducing leopards in Mozambique’s Zinave National Park, or landscapes invented by sci-fi authors like Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood.
