College Seminar (101-7-21)

Topic

Trees

Instructors

Sarah Dimick

Meeting Info

Harris Hall L04: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

How have trees—their branches, their shade, their rings, their stillness—inspired poets, politicians, scientists, and artists? When we pay sustained attention to the trees around us, how do they imprint on our ideas?

In this seminar, we read widely, moving through environmental history, memoirs, short stories, science writing, and poetry featuring trees. We learn about the women of Kenya's Greenbelt Movement—who have planted more than 51,000 trees—as well as the foresters of Norway's Future Library, a forest that will be harvested to publish literary works sealed until 2114. We consider how trees are entangled in struggles for environmental justice and the project of collective flourishing in the era of climate change. The trees we encounter in this class are living organisms, but they are also metaphors, communicators, and bellwethers.

By each selecting a tree to observe on a regular basis, we will put down roots on Northwestern's campus. Through measurements, sketches, journal entries, and other forms of observation, we will attend to these trees in the kind of detail that can shift into care and attachment.

Teaching Method

Seminar-based discussions.

Class Materials (Required)

Wangari Maathai. Unbowed. 2006.
May Thielgaard Watts. Tree Finder: A Manual for Identification of Trees by their Leaves. 1939.
C.D. Wright. Casting Deep Shade. 2019.

Texts will be available at: Primary texts will be available at the Norris Bookstore and on reserve in the library. Other texts will be available on Canvas.

Class Attributes

WCAS College Seminar

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Weinberg First Year Seminars are only available to first-year students.
Add Consent: Department Consent Required
Drop Consent: Department Consent Required