American Nature Writers

Professor: Dan Noland
Institution: UNC-Wilmington
Course Number: n/a

Syllabus
UNC-Wilmington

A recognizable genre of belles-lettres whose remoter history seems
hardly to go back beyond the end of the seventeenth century and much of
that writing does define attitudes to some extent novel- in their emphases
at least.  There is in it some feeling for nature which is not quite that
of the ancients nor that of the Romantics.
— Joseph Wood Krutch

August

23      Introduction
26      Gary Snyder: “The Etiquette of Freedom”
28      Joyce Carol Oates: “Against Nature”
30      Stephen Jay Gould: “The Iconography of an Expectation”

Sept

2       Labor Day
4       Barry Lopez: “Stone Horse” “Children of the Woods”
6        “Landscape and Narrative” “Yukon-Charley”
9        “Searching/Ancestors” “The Passing Wisdom/Birds”
11      David Quammen: “Yin and Yang/Tularosa” “The Widow Knows” “The Big Goodbye”
13      Gretel Ehrlich: “The Solace of Open Spaces” “About Men”
16      Ann Zwinger: “Of Dead Men and Mesquite” “Of Old Seas and New Seas” “Of Lakes and Rattlesnakes”
18      Annie Dillard:  *”Nightwatch” “Teaching a Stone to Talk”
20      Wendell Berry: “Argument/Diversity” “The Work/Local Culture”
23      Wes Jackson:  “Altars/Unhewn Stone” “Biotechnology/Thinking”
25      Open
27      Edward Abbey: *”Great American Desert” “40 Years/Canyoneer”
30              “A Writer’s Credo” “Theory of Anarchy”

Oct

2               “Lake Powell by Houseboat” “River Solitaire”
4       Rachel Carson: *”Wind and Water”
7       Henry Beston:  *”Night on the Great Beach”
9       Joseph Wood Krutch: *”The Meaning of Awareness”
11      Fall Break
14      Aldo Leopold: “A Land Ethic”
16      “Wisconsin”
18      “October” “November”
21      Open
23      Liberty Hyde Bailey: *”The Habit of Destruction”
25      John Burroughs:         “Adirondacks”
28      “Birch Browsings”
30      “Snow Walkers”

Nov

1       Open
4       John Muir: *”Water-Ouzel” “Wild Wool”
6        “The Discovery of Glacier Bay”
8        “The Alaska Trip”
11       “A Near View of the High Sierra”
13      Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Nature”
15              ”                       ”
18      Henry David Thoreau:  *”Walking”
20              ”                       ”
22      Open
25      *Wilson/Godman/Audubon
27      Thanksgiving
29              ”

Dec

2       John Bartram: *”Introduction” and a selction on the Cape Fear
4       Gary Snyder:  “Ancient Forests of the Northwest”
6       “Survival and Sacrament”

Note: Those readings marked by an asterix (*) are in Lyons’ This
Incomperable Lande on reserve.

Another version, from last year:

American Nature Writers
Syllabus
Spring, 1994

        A recognizable genre of belles-lettres whose remoter history seems
hardly to go back beyond the end of the seventeenth century and much of
that writing does define attitudes to some extent novel– in their emphases
at least.  There is in it some feeling for nature which is not quite that
of the ancients nor that of the Romantics.
Joseph Wood Krutch

Jan 10  Introduction
Jan 12  Begin Sand County; read Snyder’s “The Etiquette of Freedom.”
Jan 21  Finish Sand County.
Jan 24  Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
Feb 4
Feb 7    One Life at a Time, Please.
Feb 18
Feb 21   Crossing Open Ground.
Mar 4
Mar 5      Spring Break.
Nar 13
Mar 14     What are People For?
Mar 25
Mar 28    The Practice of the Wild.
April 8
April 11    Refuge.
April 22
April 25    Conclusion.
April 27    Last day

Copyright © 1996. This document may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form, without written permission from its author(s). This document has been edited for electronic publication and does not appear in its original form.