History 219: Planet Earth: Past, Present, and Future

3333Sean Cocco Kathleen Kete Thomas Wickman

M/W/F, 12:00-12:50 Spring 2016 History 219: Planet Earth: Past, Present, and Future

Course Description “Planet Earth” explores the effect of the natural world on human history and of humans on the natural world. Our focus is on the earth as a global system. We begin with a consideration of human and natural histories in deep time, well before the written record, and offer an argument for why those histories matter. We then examine how the historical past can be understood in the context of these planetary themes, reframing familiar events and periods in ancient and modern history by highlighting major natural changes that accompanied them, such as the redistribution of various plants and animals, the

1 fluctuation of climate, and the development of planet-altering technologies. The course culminates in a consideration of the future planetary conditions that past and present actions may cause. Organization  The class is divided into three sections. History 219-01 is taught by Professor Cocco, 219-02 by Professor Kete, and 219-03 by Professor Wickman. Only on Fridays, or as marked on the syllabus, will the class meet as a whole. Please be attentive to the pattern of weekly meetings and be sure to show up in the correct classroom! NB: The first meeting of the year is a Town Meeting in McCook Auditorium on Monday January 25.  Your grades will be awarded by the instructor of the section to which you are assigned.  Ordinarily, Mondays are reserved for an introductory discussion of the week’s reading in sections, Wednesdays for further discussion of the reading in sections, and Fridays for our ‘town meetings.’

Requirements 1. Two essays of 4-5 pp. each. Each essay is worth 20% of your grade (total: 40%) 2. Section participation: 20% of your grade. 3. Town meeting participation: 10% of your grade (timely and satisfactory completion of worksheets) 4. Take home final exam: 30% of your grade. Details about submitting will be handed out with the instructions for the exam. 5. Academic honesty. All acts of academic dishonesty will be prosecuted to the furthest extent possible. While we hope that the course will generate discussion outside the classroom walls, no collaboration is allowed on any project or assignment unless specifically noted in the instructions. All plagiarism is outlawed. Please review the section on “Intellectual Honesty” in the Student Handbook.  ALL requirements must be completed in order to pass the course. This means that you cannot pass the course unless you hand in both essays, participate in all required classroom exercises including worksheets for town meetings, and complete the final exam.

Books to Buy: Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea (2012) Alfred Crosby, Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s Unappeasable Appetite for Energy (2007)

2 John R. Gillis, The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History (2012) Robert Hazen, The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, From Stardust to Living Planet (2013). Elizabeth Kolbert, Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014) E.O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence (2014) All other required readings will be available in PDF form on Moodle, as noted below.

Week 1: Planetary History

M., Jan. 25: (Town Meeting) Our Species and Our Planet

W., Jan. 27: (Section meeting) Creation Stories and Planetary Beginnings

 Robert Hazen, The Story of Earth, 1-30.  E.O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence, 1-52

F., Jan. 29: (Town meeting) Creations

 E.O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence, 102-122  Robert Torrance, ed. Encompassing Nature, A Sourcebook: Nature and Culture from Ancient Times to the Modern World 57-63 ( Maidu Creation Myths), 100-105 (Genesis), 121-128 (Hymns of the Vedas), and 182-187 (Chinese Cosmology). [MOODLE]

Week 2: Origin of the Species

M., Feb. 1: (Section meeting) Cooking

 Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, 1-14 and 105-127 [MOODLE]

W., Feb. 3: (Section meeting) Big Brains

 Daniel Lord Smail, Deep History and the Brain, 1-11 and 112-156 [MOODLE]

F., Feb. 5: (Town Meeting) What is Human?

Week 3: Dominion

M., Feb. 8: (Section meeting) Geographies of Domestication

 Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, 176-192. [MOODLE]  Kristen Gremillion, Ancestral Appetites: Food in Prehistory, 31-47 [MOODLE]

W., Feb. 10: (Section meeting) Agriculture

3  Alfred Crosby, Children of the Sun, xiii-xiv and 25-44

F., Feb. 12: (Town Meeting) Agricultural Revolution: Affordances of Abundance

Week 4: Coevolution

M., Feb. 15: (Section meeting) Coevolution

 Mary C. Stiner and Gillian Feeley-Harnik, “Energy and Ecosystems” in Andrew Shyrock and Daniel Lord Smail, Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present, 78-102 [MOODLE]

W., Feb. 17: (Section meeting) Humans and Canids  Wolfgang Schleidt and Michael Shalter, “Coevolution and Humans and Canids. An Alternative View of Dog Domestication: Homo Homini Lupus?” Evolution and Cognition, Vol.9, No.1 (2003), 57-72 [MOODLE]  James Gorman, “The Big Search to Find Out Where Dogs Come From.” NYT Tuesday, January 19, 2016, D1 (section, Science Times.”)

F., Feb. 19: (Town Meeting) Biophilia

Week 5: Humans and the Sea

M., Feb. 22: Trinity Days

**First Essay Due.** Submit as a Word file to your section leader by email attachment by 11:59 p.m.

W., Feb. 24: (Section meeting) Edge Species

 John Gillis, The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History, 1-67.

F., Feb. 26: (Section Meeting) A Species in Movement

Week 6: Transoceanic Exchanges

M., Feb. 29: Ocean Navigators

 Gillis, Human Shore, 68-98.  John Edward Huth, The Lost Art of Finding Your Way, 53-80 and 291-317 [MOODLE]

W., Mar. 2: (Section meeting) Across Oceans

 Alfred Crosby, Children of the Sun, 45-58

4  Joyce Chaplin, Round about the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit, xiii-xxi. [MOODLE]

F., Mar. 4: (Town Meeting) Homo Oceanicus?

Week 7: Harvesting the Ocean

M., Mar. 7: (Section meeting) Bounty

 Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail, 1-48

W., Mar. 9: (Section meeting) Depletion

 Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail, 121-168

F., Mar. 11: (Town Meeting) Ethics of Human Expansion into the Ocean

****************************Spring Break: March 12-20****************************

Week 8: Second Discovery of Sea

M., Mar. 21: (Section Meeting) Working Read: Gillis, Human Shore, 99-127

W., Mar. 23: (Section meeting) Playing Read: Gillis, Human Shore, 128-197

F., Mar. 25: Class Cancelled

Week 9: Underwater

M., Mar. 28: (Section Meeting) Silent World  Read: Jacques Cousteau, The Silent World [MOODLE]

W., Mar. 30: (Town Meeting) Save the Whales  Read: James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves, 157-197[MOODLE]

Th. March. 31: **Second Essay Due.** Submit as a Word file to your section leader by email attachment by 11:59 p.m.

F., Apr. 1: (Town Meeting) Guest lecture and discussion with Jeffrey Bolster

5 Week 10: Extracting Energy from the Earth

M., April 4: (Section meeting) Coal and Oil

 Alfred Crosby, Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s Unappeasable Appetite for Energy, 59-100.  Image Assignment: Each student should post to Moodle a digital photograph of early coal or oil extraction and be prepared to comment on its historical context and visual form [uploaded by 11:59pm]

W., April 6: (Section meeting) Extraction

F., April 8: (Town Meeting) Depictions of Coal and Oil Extraction  Selected teams of students will present their images – two teams from each section.

Week 11: Nuclear Energy

M., Apr. 11: (Section meeting) From Nuclear Promise to Chernobyl  Crosby, Children of the Sun, 117-158.

W. Apr. 13: (Section meeting, Panel discussions) Un-Natural Disasters in the Global System  Image Database Assignment: Each student should post to Moodle an image of nuclear disaster

F., Apr. 15: (Town Meeting) Representing Energy

Week 12: The Sixth Extinction

M., Apr. 18: (Section meeting): Dying Frogs and Acid Oceans

 Elizabeth Kolbert, Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, 1-22, 92-147, 259-269.

W., Apr. 20: (Section meeting): Endgame

Trinflix: Racing Extinction (2015)

F., Apr. 22: (Town Meeting): Racing Extinction

Week 13: The Near Future

M., Apr. 25: (Section meeting) COP 21

 Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism Versus the Planet, 1-28

6 W., Apr. 27: (Section meeting): Retrieving other Languages

 Pope Francis Laudato si [MOODLE]

F., Apr. 29: (Town Meeting) Changing Everything?

Week 14: The Distant Future

M., May 2: (Town Meeting) Pondering Humanity’s Future

 Robert Hazen, Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, 257-280.

**Take-home final due electronically on the day of the scheduled final exam for this course. Details about submitting will be handed out with the instructions for the exam.

Section Meeting Locations:

Professor Cocco: McCook Auditorium

Professor Kete: McCook 303

Professor Wickman: McCook 106

Office Hours of Instructors:

Professor Cocco: Seabury Hall N-040 [email protected] Office Hours: Friday 1-3pm

Professor Kete: Seabury Hall N-041 [email protected] Office Hours: Fridays 1-3 pm

Professor Wickman: Seabury Hall N-044 [email protected] Office Hours: Wednesdays 3-5 pm