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Nov 23, 2024
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Goucher College 2016-2017 Undergraduate Catalogue PLEASE NOTE: This is an archived catalog. Programs are subject to change each academic year.
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AMS 210 - American Places with Wilderness Places (3 Cr.)
Almost no one today disputes the importance of preserving wild tracts of land. While there’s disagreement about the size, location and uses of wilderness areas, it’s hard to imagine anyone arguing that we should open every acre in America to development. This shared conviction that there’s something valuable about wilderness is of fairly recent origin. For example, the very mountains that we celebrate for their majestic beauty were once viewed as “ugly protuberances” that defaced the natural landscape. This course will examine America’s changing perceptions of wild landscapes, from the early settlers, who viewed the “howling wilderness” as the devil’s den, to our own view of wilderness areas as places of recreation. This examination of how writers, visual artists, philosophers, and early environmentalists changed America’s attitudes towards wild landscape offers a striking case study in how our relationship to nature is shaped by culture. Variable. Department.
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