American Wilderness and Its Discontents (An MLA-Style Course)

ABOUT THIS MLA-STYLE COURSE: This course is open to students who have not previously enrolled in an MLA-style course through Stanford Continuing Studies.

The course aims to introduce those interested in pursuing a degree in the Stanford Master of Liberal Arts Program to the kind of seminar they would likely encounter in the program.

Students will face the same kind of intellectual challenges, opportunities to engage in weekly discussion, and stimulus to write persuasive research essays.

Students are required to take this course for credit, submit written work, and contribute to class discussions, as happens in all MLA seminars.

However, this course may not be taken for a letter grade, though students’ written work will receive extensive feedback from the instructor.

For more information on the MLA Program, visit mla.stanford.edu .

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Wilderness.

The word conjures spectacular scenery, solitude, adventure, and a refuge for the earth's threatened biodiversity.

Few ideas run deeper in American culture, where the national park was born.

Wilderness values shape how we hike, how we vote, and even how ecologists think about conservation.

But critics argue that the ideal has promoted social injustice and made it harder to see, let alone solve, the environmental problems of our own century.

Why does an empty landscape stir such strong feeling? And can we protect wild places today without repeating the mistakes of the past? This course explores the deep roots of the wilderness ideal in American history through writers from John Muir to Robin Wall Kimmerer.

We'll also look at how conservation agencies and biologists, from the National Park Service to Stanford's own Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve, are grappling with this legacy today.

And we'll ask how cultural values inform our ideas about nature, and how even the wildest-looking landscapes are shaped by human choices.