Tuesdays 1:30-3:30 Fall 2020 Peter Walmsley [email protected] English/CSCT 743 Reimagining Nature: Science and Empire in the Long Eighteenth Century
This course will consider how British cultural production in the long eighteenth century articulated the entwined projects of natural philosophy and imperial expansion.
The long eighteenth-century saw the emergence of what Mary Louise Pratt has called “planetary consciousness” as European capital and consumerism fuelled an explosion in global trade. Science abetted this process, building, for example, new navigational instruments to permit the mapping of the planet and establishing taxonomic systems to inventory exotic natural kinds. These transformations enabled unprecedented mobilities of plants, people, and other animals. Plant products—in the form of drugs, dyes, cloth, and food—became the most valuable and heavily traded commodities around the globe, a trade that profited from the coerced labour of millions of slaves and indentured servants. The colony—and the plantation in particular—came to serve as the crucible of the Anthropocene, with landscapes remade to mirror the needs of metropolitan capital. In parallel with capital’s abstraction of commodities, objectivity emerged as a scientific practice that sought to isolate natural kinds, disentangling them from traditional and local human understandings and from the environments in which they live. As Carolyn Merchant put it, capital and science worked together to effect “the death of nature.”
We will chart how these ideological developments were variously embraced, negotiated, and resisted; many writers, artists, and craftspeople, both in the metropolis and in the colonial contact zone, sought to sustain older ways of knowing the world and invest their landscapes and the biological beings that inhabit them with meanings and values.
Our primary archive will be British, colonial, and Indigenous cultural production (literary, visual, and material), and it will range widely—including poems, scientific treatises, natural history taxonomies, drawings, prints, paintings, a slave narrative, an ethnography, and a novel. Participants in this seminar will work at the intersections of critical science studies, environmentalism, and anti-capitalist and anti-colonial critique. While we will build together a common framework of influential perspectives on these materials, you are encouraged to bring your own theoretical approaches and social concerns to the table, and to share your critical practices with the group.
Course design: Our weekly meetings over the term will alternate between synchronous videoconferences using Zoom and asynchronous participation on the Avenue discussion board (see the schedule of meetings below). Both kinds of meetings will use your Position Papers as the primary prompts for our discussion, but you should feel free to initiate new threads of conversation as well.
Our Zoom sessions will be held during the course’s assigned time slot (Tuesday 1:30-3:30). Recognizing that video-conferencing can be sometimes tiring and disorienting, let’s aim to make each meeting about 90 minutes with a short break in the middle (though we have two full hours if we need it). I hope that meeting online regularly and synchronously will help us create the sense of community that we so need at this moment. In our first meeting, we can discuss guidelines for constructive, respectful participation, and talk about ways of getting the most out of Zoom for each of us. Note that everyone should feel free to participate with the camera off if they prefer.
Our Avenue discussions will offer the opportunity for collective writing and more extensive responses to one another’s ideas. Your contributions can be responses to that week’s posted Position Papers, independent reflections on the readings, or follow-ups on someone else’s posting. You’ll have the full day on the Tuesday as the time-frame to participate, to give you flexibility, but still to keep the discussion relatively concentrated. Note that those providing Position Papers on these days should not feel obliged to respond to every comment on their work, but should still participate in the discussion in the way they choose.
Office hours: I am always glad to talk with you by phone or Zoom: please email me at [email protected] to set up a virtual meeting at a mutually convenient time. Also glad to handle smaller questions by email if you prefer.
Academic Accommodations: I assume that each of us learns in different ways. Please talk to me as soon as you can about your individual learning needs, including any Student Accessibility Services arrangements, and how we can work together in this course to best accommodate you. Even if you do not have a documented disability, I am always glad to consult about your learning processes and to help you identify resources on campus. Student Accessibility Services can be contacted by phone 905-525-9140 ext. 28652 or e-mail [email protected]. For further information, consult McMaster University’s Academic Accommodation of Students with Disabilities policy.
Texts: One longer work, Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (Penguin), has been ordered through the bookstore; here’s the link: https://campusstore.mcmaster.ca/cgi- mcm/ws/txsub.pl?wsTERMG1=204&wsDEPTG1=CULTRST&wsCOURSEG1=743&wsSECTIONG1=DAY%20C0 1&crit_cnt=1 Copies of the novel are also readily available in bookstores, public libraries, and online. The bulk of the readings for the course will be posted on Avenue under Content or made available through links on this syllabus.
Evaluation: Two Position Papers (each 3 pages, double-spaced) – 30% Participation in Avenue Discussions (Pass/Fail) – 5% Natural Histories Project (2 PowerPoint Slides due Oct. 22 and a 5 to 10-minute oral presentation on Oct. 27 or Nov. 3) – 25% Essay proposal (500 words) plus bibliography (min. 5 sources), due Dec. 4 – 5% Essay (12-15 pages double spaced plus bibliography), due Dec. 21 – 35%
Assignment Details:
Position Papers You will each write two position papers (3 pages double spaced). These papers should be focused, argumentative interventions that take an analytical stand on a course reading or introduce us to a relevant critical/theoretical text, testing its assumptions and framework against a course reading. Your position papers should, above all, be designed to generate lively, high-level discussion. Please email me by Thursday Sept. 17 with a list of your top six position paper choices in order of preference, and I will make an assignment with an eye to balancing papers across the term. Please submit your position papers to Avenue using the Discussions tool (under “Communication”). You must submit your position paper by noon on the Monday prior to the relevant Tuesday. We will use Position Papers to generate some of the discussion in our videoconferences and Avenue postings, so while you will not be asked to formally present your papers to the class, be ready to respond to questions and elaborate upon your ideas. And please make sure to read and reflect upon your colleagues’ position papers before each Tuesday.
Participation in Avenue Discussions For the weeks when we are meeting on Avenue, each member of the class should post at a minimum one 150-word comment, whether a response to a position paper, a new thread of your own, or a reflection on someone else's posting. This is a pass/fail assignment; those making at least one posting on each of the Avenue weeks will receive full marks.
Natural Histories Project This is an opportunity to complement the primarily textual archive of the course with a personal project dedicated to a material object produced between 1660 and 1850 that offers an insight into understandings, uses, and representations of nature. You could choose an object that speaks to the course’s preoccupations with the intersection of science and empire in relation to the natural world, but should not feel constrained and should follow your interests. Objects that speak to colonial contact and/or to non-metropolitan perspectives on nature or science are welcome. You could, for example, choose a scientific or medical instrument (microscope, forceps, Algonquian tobacco pipe), a globally traded commodity (beaver pelts, sugar, indigo), or an objet d’art that represents the natural world (a floral china set, a still life painting). Given the pandemic, you should find and study your object online rather than in person: many museums globally have outstanding images of their artefacts and rich archives of contexualizing information about them. If you are looking for ideas, check out the British Museum https://www.britishmuseum.org/, the National Museum in New Delhi http://nationalmuseumindia.gov.in/, or the Royal Ontario Museum https://www.rom.on.ca/en. Having found your object, spend a good amount of time studying its appearance, contemplating its messages, and speculating on its uses. Follow up with research on its manufacture, provenance, collection, cultural functions, and meanings. Finally, please post on Avenue (under Discussions) 2 PowerPoint slides with images of your object and some key observations in point form by Thursday Oct. 22. I will organize you into relevant panels, and on Oct. 27 or Nov. 3 you will give a 5 to 10-minute presentation to the group working from your two slides.
Essays and Proposals You major analytical research essay (12-15 pages double spaced plus bibliography) is due on Dec. 21. You may choose to work on a text from the syllabus, or you may also choose another text or primary source produced between 1660 and 1840 and relevant to the concerns of the course. I would be glad to offer suggestions if you have particular research interests you would like to pursue. In preparation for this essay, we will workshop proposals on Dec. 8 using Zoom’s breakout rooms. The proposals are due on Avenue on Dec. 4 and should be 500 words long, with a bibliography of 5 to 8 critical/theoretical sources, each briefly annotated to identify its argument and relevance to your thesis. The week prior to the workshop I will read your proposals and organize the class into workshop groups with shared concerns.
English/CSCT 743: Reimagining Nature Schedule of Classes and Readings
Readings are either posted on Avenue under Content or available by links on this syllabus (below).
Sept. 15: Welcome and Organizational (Zoom)
Sept. 22: Imagining Natural Worlds (Zoom) Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi), from Braiding Sweetgrass (Avenue) Vanessa Watts (Bear Clan, Mohawk and Anishnaabe), “Indigenous Place-Thought and Agency” (Avenue) Genesis 1-3 (Avenue) Francis Bacon, from New Atlantis (Avenue) Margaret Cavendish, from Blazing World (Avenue) Robert Hooke, from Micrographia (Avenue) Carolyn Merchant, from The Death of Nature (Avenue)
Sept. 29: Biological Beings: Plants (Avenue Discussion Board) Mary Louise Pratt, from Imperial Eyes, Chapters 1 (Introduction) and 2 (“Science, Planetary Consciousness, Interiors”); available as an ebook through McMaster Library (n.b.: Pratt’s work on science and imperialism is foundational, but she is not speaking directly to issues of plant life) Elizabeth Blackwell, from A Curious Herbal https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/blackwells/accessible/introduction.html#content https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/10361#page/1/mode/1up Cut-paper mosaics by Mary Delany https://blog.britishmuseum.org/late-bloomer-the-exquisite-craft-of-mary-delany/ https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?sear chText=mary+delany Anna Tsing, “Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species” https://tsingmushrooms.blogspot.com/2010/11/anna-tsing-anthropology- university-of.html Excerpts from Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, and Ann Radcliffe, Mysteries of Udolpho (Avenue)
Oct. 6: Biological Beings: Animals (Zoom) Animal paintings by George Stubbs https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/9850 http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/573621.html https://manchesterartgallery.org/collections/title/?mag-object-7398 https://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=216195 William Hogarth, Four Stages of Cruelty https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/hogarth/hogarth- hogarths-modern-moral-series/hogarth-hogarths-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Stages_of_Cruelty Thomas Bewick, from A History of British Birds (sample a few species entries; get a sense of Bewick’s style of illustration, including the little vignettes he uses as tail-pieces) https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/82314#page/54/mode/1up Anna Letitia Barbauld, “Mouse’s Petition” https://romantic- circles.org/editions/contemps/barbauld/poems1773/mouses_petition.html Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1817) (Avenue) (To check out the original printing of the 1817 Rime in Coleridge’s collection Sibylline Leaves, see https://archive.org/details/sibyllineleaves00colegoog/page/n24/mode/2up)
Mid-term Recess
Oct. 20: Human Bodyminds and Race (Avenue Discussion Board) Thomas De Quincy, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821 edn) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2040; plenty of paper and e-copies available through Mills, but look for the 1821 (periodical) 1822-23 (book) editions; not the much expanded 1856 edition Mel Chen, “Introduction: Animating Animacy” and “Chapter 5: Lead’s Racial Matters,” from Animacies https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2019-03- 29_5c9db1426fe14_mel-y-chen-animacies-biopolitics-racial-mattering-and- queer-affect-1.pdf
Oct. 27: Natural Histories Presentations 1 (Zoom)
Nov. 3: Natural Histories Presentations 2 (Zoom)
Nov. 10: Land and Landscape (Avenue Discussion Board) Leanne Simpson, “Land as Pedagogy” https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22170/17985 Joseph Addison, Spectator No. 412 http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/addison412.htm Edmund Burke, from Philosophical Enquiry (Avenue) J.M.W. Turner, “The Fall of an Avalanche” (painting) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-fall-of-an-avalanche-in-the- grisons-n00489 P.-J. De Loutherbourg, “Colebrookdale at Night” (painting) https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co65204/coalbrookdale- by-night-oil-painting William Gilpin, from Observations on the River Wye (Avenue) William Gilpin, Six Landscapes (print/watercolours) https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/landscape-2 William Wordsworth, “Tintern Abbey” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45527/lines-composed-a-few-miles- above-tintern-abbey-on-revisiting-the-banks-of-the-wye-during-a-tour-july-13- 1798
Nov. 17 The Pacific (Zoom) John Hawkesworth, from An Account of the Voyages in the Southern Hemisphere, ethnography of Tahiti (Avenue) Tupaia (Ra'iatea), drawings and map, https://www.bl.uk/people/tupaia Keith Smith, “Tupaia’s Sketchbook,”https://www.bl.uk/eblj/2005articles/pdf/article10.pdf Lisa Reihana (Māori), In Pursuit of Venus [Infected] https://ago.ca/exhibitions/lisa-reihana-pursuit-venus-infected Brandy Nālani McDougall (Kanaka ʻŌiwi), “On Cooking Captain Cook” (Avenue)
Nov. 24: The Caribbean (Avenue Discussion Board) Mary Prince, History, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17851/17851-h/17851-h.htm Joscelyn Gardner, Black Mary https://www.bermudanationalgallery.com/an-ode-to-mary- prince/?fbclid=IwAR2nYmNhX_GJlFlPWVnq8TgyoQ0yfKoe3UNcZjP8FCDy-6dRgA- 4lOPkeZg John Stedman, from Narrative of a Five-Year Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (Avenue) Dread Scott, Slave Rebellion Re-enactment, www.slave-revolt.com Katherine McKittrick, “Plantation Futures,” https://muse.jhu.edu/article/532740/pdf
Dec. 1: The English Country Estate and Port City (Zoom) Jane Austen, Mansfield Park Raymond Williams, from The Country and the City (Avenue)
Dec. 8: Essay Proposal Workshop (Zoom)