History/Geography 932
Topics in American Environmental History

The seminar is a one-semester introduction to some of the most interesting recent literature of American environmental history, read principally for the theories and methodologies it can offer scholars and scientists as well as its implications for contemporary environmental politics and management. The seminar assumes no previous coursework in the field, and students with a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines are encouraged to participate. We will read a number of the most important works that have been produced in the field during the past twenty years, with an eye to exploring the different themes and methods that have shaped this body of scholarship. We will concentrate on what might be called the "second generation" of writing in environmental history, trying to assess how the field has evolved and where it might be headed in the future. Our goal will be to evaluate these texts with a critical but sympathetic eye, trying to discover ways in which their approaches might be helpful to our own work. At the same time, we'll use this literature to think about the more general process of conceiving, conducting, and writing research about the past (whether within the disciplines of history, geography, ecology, environmental studies, natural resource management, or what have you) trying to gain as much practical wisdom as we can about how to do theses and dissertations. We will also talk about strategies for teaching this material in the undergraduate classroom.

During the fall semester of 2008, the seminar will meet from 9:00am-12:00pm on Tuesdays in 202-204 Bradley Memorial Hall, home of UW-Madison's Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE).

I'm considering focusing the readings and written assignments for the Fall 2010 version of the course on the history of food and agriculture, but have not yet made a final decision about this. Students should be aware that food and agriculture may constitute a central theme of the seminar in its next iteration.

IMPORTANT: This seminar will in all likelihood next be offered during Fall 2012, since I'll be teaching the new CHE environmental history methods seminar in Spring 2011. From now on, History/Geography 932 will likely rotate with the CHE Methods Seminar on a two-year cycle.

Application form for Fall 2010 (due 4/2/10): or

2008 Syllabus (likely to be substantially revised in Fall 2010):

HTML (optimized for viewing on screen, with active links; updated to reflect changing assignments):

PDF: (optimized for printing):

Endgame Summary for Remainder of Semester:

Learning to Do Historical Research: A Primer for Environmental Historians and Others

This large new website was the final product of our seminar's work together during Fall 2008. Please take the time to peruse it. The Fall 2010 version of the seminar will likely work to create a comparable product on a different theme, the most likely of which will be the history of food and agriculture in the United States from colonial times to the present.

Additional Readings:

Cronon, "Kennecott Journey" -

Examples of Online Resources for Helping Students Learn to Do Historical Research:

Bowdoin College Guide to Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: http://academic.bowdoin.edu/WritingGuides/

Yale University Senior Essay Handbook: http://www.yale.edu/history/senior_essay.html

Zachary Schrag's Guidelines for History Students: http://www.schrag.info/ (look under Guidelines for History Students)

Historian's Whole Earth Catalogs for Environmental History (from 1990s)

In the 1990s, students in my graduate environmental history seminars worked together in teams on a class assignment requiring them to visit major research libraries on the UW-Madison campus and produce written guides to those collections. These guides sought to identify key sources of interest to environmental historians while also providing an overview of how each library was organized with tips for how best to navigate it.

Although these reports are now significantly out of date, especially since they largely predate the digital revolution, and although the documents undoubtedly include a few errors, they still contain valuable information and are worth perusing. These PDF files have been scanned from hard-copy originals and OCRed, so should be searchable, but don't count on the accuracy of the OCR text.

Historian's Whole Earth Catalog for 1993 (1.8MB)
Historian's Whole Earth Catalog for 1994 (1.65MB)