SMITH COLLEGE Spring 2015 AMS 351 / ENG 290-02 Writing About American Society: “The Climate of the Country”

Class meets Tuesdays 1:00 - 2:50 p.m. in 310 Seelye.

Dava Sobel Office Hours: 205 Pierce 1 - 2 p.m. Monday 585-3108 3 - 5 p.m. Tuesday [email protected] Also by appointment.

This course invites you to combine your interest in writing with your concerns about climate change. Class discussions will explore the attitudes of American society toward the weather and humanity’s role in changing it.

In addition to the required and suggested texts listed on the next page, I will provide handouts of articles, poems, and other relevant readings. You will be asked to monitor several news sources on your own for a weekly exchange of ideas and information. Writing assignments will include three essays, a profile of a personality in the climate dialogue, and daily entries in a personal weather log.

Your grade will depend on your contributions to class discussions, completion of assignments in a timely manner, and willingness to rewrite as needed. Respect for deadlines will assure ample time for frequent individual conferences.

I have invited three authors to visit the class as guest speakers. Outside events planned by various campus groups for this semester will no doubt further augment the course content as we contemplate the current and long- term effects of climate change.

The following outline is necessarily incomplete, as I will shape the course assignments partly in response to your interests, needs, and aspirations. Readings Please keep up on your reading so that you finish the required texts before their authors come to visit. As you read, select several paragraphs that you judge excellent or terrible. Copy out a few from each book, and note what you liked (or didn’t like) about them.

Required texts Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization (by Feb. 10) Jonathan Mingle Fire and Ice (by March 10) Diane Ackerman, The Human Age (by April 7) Brian Adams, Love in the Time of Climate Change (by April 21)

Suggested texts (read at least one of these by March 24) Rachel Carson Silent Spring Michael Crichton State of Fear Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Laurie Garrett The Coming Plague Sheri Fink Five Days at Memorial Al Gore An Inconvenient Truth James Hansen Storms of My Grandchildren Sebastian Junger The Perfect Storm Naomi Klein This Changes Everything Elizabeth Kolbert The Sixth Extinction, Notes from a Catastrophe Jon Krakauer Into the Wild Erik Larson Isaac’s Storm Aldo Leopold A Sand County Almanac John McPhee The Control of Nature David Michaels Doubt Is Their Product John Muir My First Summer in the Sierra, The Yosemite Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway Merchants of Doubt Richard Preston The Hot Zone Carl Sagan The Demon-Haunted World George R. Stewart Storm Carol Tavris Mistakes Were Made But Not by Me Henry David Thoreau Walden Gabrielle Walker An Ocean of Air Spencer Weart The Discovery of Global Warming E. O. Wilson Naturalist Paddy Woodworth Our Once and Future Planet Gavin Pretor-Pinney The Cloudspotter’s Guide

N.B. I have copies of several of these books in my office, and am happy to lend them. 27 January (#1) CLASSES CANCELED IN ANTICIPATION OF WINTER STORM JUNO.

3 February (#2) THE PERSONAL WEATHER LOG Talking about the weather, identifying reliable sources of information, following the stories, taking time to write...

10 February (#3) GLOBAL WARMING V. CLIMATE CHANGE Gauging societal attitudes about weather and climate change, weather words, story ideas and approaches...

17 February (#4) THE WEATHERMAN, THE SCIENTIST, AND THE STORM CHASER Personalities in the climate debate, framing interview questions, effective use of statistics and quotations...

24 February (#5) RECORD HIGHS AND LOWS Assessing climate trends in history, organizing research materials...

3 March (#6) LOCAL FLOODING Setting the scene of the story, describing local color...

10 March (#7) THE GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE Visit from Jonathan Mingle, author of Fire and Ice.

17 March – No class (Spring Break) 24 March (#8) A CHANGE OF SEASON Observable effects of climate change, using structure to interweave story lines...

31 March (#9) BETWEEN GROUNDHOG DAY AND EARTH DAY Coopting observances, reporting events...

7 April (#10) SUSTAINABILITY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE: A POET’S PERSPECTIVE Visit from Diane Ackerman, author of The Human Age.

14 April (#11) ACTION AND INACTION Government and individual response to climate change, peer editing exercises...

21 April (#12) FINDING THE HUMOR IN GLOOM Visit from Brian Adams, author of Love in the Time of Cholera.

28 April (#13) OUTLOOK Forecasting future directions, discovering your own voice...