Dear ENVS Community,
As you are registering for Spring courses, please consider “Art 451: Art and the Environment.” It is a four credit 400-level special topics course with no pre-requisites taught by Professor Dawn Odell. It has three main subjects. First, it will look at representation of landscape, particularly in the context of human transformation of the land, for example 11th century deforestation in China and the impact this had on the “birth” of landscape panting in East Asia, and 17th century Dutch water management/land reclamation and the role this played in generating the European genre of landscape painting. Second, it will look at land art, work by artists who deliberately situate their art in or form their art out of the land, with examples of artists working in contemporary China, Italy, and the U.S. And finally, it will consider post-humanist eco-critical approaches to the study of history, with selected case studies ranging from analysis of films about Hurricane Katrina to the impetus behind a recent exhibition on mahogany.
Best,
Nate