Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Susan Kollin

Greetings from a wet Tuesday,

First of all, thanks for a fun and lively discussion last night. We worked through some of the central ideas of the class (and conference) and set the stage to delve further into a few more of them.

In addition to completing your anti-tourist tourism assignment before next Monday (bringing a hard copy of your web-ready text and e-mailing me the same at kevin.maier@uas.alaska.edu), you should read the remainder of Kollin's book, Nature's State, and then post your reading question here and attempt to answer it in twenty minutes of writing. We're focusing in on the "rapidly changing north" aspect of the conference theme, obviously, but as you've probably already deduced, the related themes of environment, culture, and place are never far from Kollin's view.

As you're reading, you might think about finding traces of the key tensions and issues we got on board last night; similarly, you might attempt to identify further tensions, or, alternatively, you can ask and write about whatever's interesting to you. As I mentioned in class, don't feel compelled to sum up each chapter; instead, try to do some synthesis work with your questions and answers.

Right now, I'm wondering when (or where?) this postcard was produced (a top hit on a google image search for Juneau Alaska Wilderness)... any ideas?

As always, e-mail with questions, comments, concerns.

Until Monday, stay dry.

Kevin

PS in case you're looking for a writing style for your tourism assignment, here's what we've got out there on the web so far: http://www.uas.alaska.edu/asle/ The plan is to put your text up in a category called "Things to do in Juneau" or some such...

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Getting oriented....

This week, you have read one article that asks "why environmental studies?," which considers interdisciplinarity as a method for understanding environmental problems, two articles introducing you to the field of ecocriticism and some of its concerns, and the introduction to a text about the imagined space of Alaska by Susan Kollin.  Our aim in assigning these texts is to orient you to the themes of the course and the impetus for the symposium.  So, this first post asks the questions: wherefore "environment, culture, and place in a rapidly changing North"?  What would environmental studies scholars--particularly ecocritics--find compelling about this event?  How do the readings orient you to the field, or not (remember, you are posing and responding to a question, so you certainly may discuss how the readings fail to orient you as well)?