OBJECTIVE

This course will be an in-depth exploration of the seminal environmental philosophy of Aldo Leopold.

TEXTS

Purchase:

Curt Meine, Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988) [Listed below as “Meine”]

Susan Flader and J. Baird Callicott, eds., The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold (University of Wisconsin Press, 1991) [Listed below as “RMG”]

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949) [Listed below as “ASCA”]

Aldo Leopold (A.Starker Leopold, ed.), Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold (Oxford University Press, 1953/1993) [Listed below as “RR”]

Other texts to be used in part, for optional reading, or for research purposes (copies of sections will be distributed by instructor):

Aldo Leopold, Game Management (University of Wisconsin Press, 1933/1986) [Listed below as “GM”]

J. Baird Callicott, Companion to A Sand County Almanac: Interpretive and Critical Essays (University of Wisconsin Press, 1987) [Listed below as “Companion”]

J. Baird Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) [Listed below as “IDLE”]

J. Baird Callicott, Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy (SUNY Press, 1999) [Listed below as “Beyond”]

Susan Flader, Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude Toward Deer, Wolves, and Forests (University of Wisconsin Press, 1974/1994) [Listed below as “Flader”]

Thomas Tanner, Aldo Leopold: The Man and His Legacy (Soil Conservation Society of America, 1987)

Other readings will be distributed by your instructor or placed on reserve in the library.

REQUIREMENTS

Students will be expected to participate and take an active role in classroom discussions.  Students will also be responsible for presenting more formal presentations in class and leading classroom discussions.

Students will be expected to prepare writing assignments on a regular basis.  The majority of the grade will be determined by a substantial term paper (i.e., roughly 15-20 pages).

Students will be expected to do all of the reading and attend all of the classes.  Failure here will result in failure in the requirements above (any student missing more than 3 sessions of the class will automatically receive a failing grade for the class).

Attendance and Participation = Approx. 25%

Small Writing Assignments = Approx. 25%

Term Paper = Approx. 50%

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

January 24:  Introduction to course and texts.

January 29:  The Making of a Naturalist and Conservationist.

Reading:  Meine, Chapters 1-5; RMG, pp.33-39.

Optional: RMG, “Introduction.”

February 7:  The Southwest, part 1.

Reading:  Meine, Chapters 6-8; RMG, pp.40-48.

February 14:  The Southwest, part 2. 

Reading:  Meine, Chapters 9-11; RMG, pp.53-77, 82-85, 98-113.

Optional:  Flader, Chapters 2 & 3.

[Paper topics due]

February 21:  The Earth Ethic.

Reading:  RMG, pp.86-97, 114-22; Bryan Norton, “The Constancy of Leopold’s Land Ethic.”

February 28:  The Game Manager.

Reading:  Meine, Chapters 12-15; RMG, pp.128-133, 143-211.

Optional: GM, xxxi-45, 391-423.

March 6:  Beyond Game Management and Wilderness.

Reading:  Meine, Chapters 16-18; RMG, pp.212-86, 49-52, 78-81, 134-142, 226-229, 287-294.

Optional: Flader, Chapters 4 &5.

March 13 – No class – Spring Break

March 20:  The Masterpiece., part 1.

Reading:  ASCA, part I (pp.vii-ix, 3-92); Companion, chapter 2 (“Aldo Leopold’s Sand Country” by Susan Flader), Appendix.

March 27:  The Masterpiece, part 2.

Reading:  ASCA, part II (pp.95-162); Companion, chapters 4 (“The Making of A Sand County Almanac” by Dennis Ribbens and 5 (“Anatomy of a Classic” by John Tallmadge).

[7 page draft of paper due]

April 3:  The Masterpiece, part 3.

Reading:  ASCA, part III (pp.165-226); Companion, chapter 9 (“The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic” by Baird Callicott); David Hume “Of Virtue and Vice in General” Vol. III, Bk. III, Part I of A Treatise of Human Nature; Adam Smith “Of Sympathy” Part I, Sec. I, Chapt. I of A Theory of the Moral Sentiments.

Optional: Charles Darwin “Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals, continued”, of The Decent of Man; Companion, chapter 8 (“Building the ‘Land Ethic’” by Curt Meine).

April 10:  Round River.

Reading:  RR, the whole thing.

April 17:  The end.

Reading:  Meine, Chapters 19-21, Epilogue; RMG, 295-346; Companion, chapters 10 (“A Pilgrim’s Progress from Group A to Group B” by Phil Pister) and 11 (“Legacy of Aldo Leopold” by Wallace Stegner).

April 24:  Some Critics.

Reading:  James Heffernan “The Land Ethic: A Critical Appraisal”; John Moline “Aldo Leopold and the Moral Community”; Boris Zeide “Another Look at Leopold’s Land Ethic”; J. Baird Callicott “A Critical Examination of ‘Another Look at Leopold’s Land Ethic”; Various “The Legacy of Leopold”.

May 1: Beyond the Land Ethic.

Reading:  IDLE, chapter 7, “Hume’s Is/Ought Dichotomy and the Relation of Ecology to Leopold’s Land Ethic”; Donald Worster “The Ecology of Order and Chaos”; Pickett and Ostfeld “The Shifting Paradigm in Ecology”; Beyond, “Do Deconstructive Ecology and Sociobiology Undermine Leopold’s Land Ethic?”.

May 8:  Final papers due in my office (416 CCC) by 5 PM.

I also plan on having an invited speaker or two during the semester outside of class time.  And I am trying to arrange a field trip to the Shack and perhaps the UW-Arboretum.  Details will be forthcoming as available.

Grading Scale

Conversion from numerical to letter grade: 95-100=A; 90-94=A-; 87-89=B+; 84-86=B; 80-83=B-; 77-79=C+; 74-76=C; 70-73=C-; 67-69=D+; 63-66=D; 0-62=F.