History 4120 The Twentieth
Century West Spring
2004 MacKay
Weeks 6-10 The Eagle Bird
Charles Wilkinson: http://www.colorado.edu/Law/Wilkinson/Home.html
you might also be interested in: A review of Alan Berger's Reclaiming the West: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/02.20/03-berger.html
Readings: selected chapters. Also review some of the web sites and present information
excerpts from; Abbey, Stegner, Silko
Academic Journal: write in response to the issues Wilkinson raises in his text. Respond to the assigned essays. Report on information from the Internet sites.
Formal paper: Wilkinson seems to define himself as a Westerner--concerned about issues particular to this place. What is your sense of place? How do you think of yourself as a Westerner?
draft due: March 10
final draft due: March 12
February 20: preface, chapter 1 "Three Places, Time & Humanity"
"It is not always easy to pause and
assess our right to strip away the work of eons in a few short years..."
A sampling of salmon recovery viewpoints: http://www.oregonvos.net/salmon/
Q&As from the Salmon Recovery Center: http://www.salmoninfo.org/faq.htm
A virtual tour of salmon spawning: http://whatcomsalmon.wsu.edu/virtualtour/index.html
February 23: chapter 3 "Shall the Islands be Preserved?"
"If we ever close out the differentness on the islands, we will have closed out something in Indians and in ourselves."
map of Indian Reservations: http://www.uwec.edu/geography/Ivogeler/w188/i3.htm
map with labels and census data: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0778676.html
definition of Indian reservation: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WWinreservations.htm
from the department of Justice, information about Indian Sovereignty: http://www.usdoj.gov/otj/sovtrbtxt.htm
What Executive Orders in recent years has the President signed that significantly addresses tribal governments and interests?
Executive Order 13084 (May 14, 1998), "Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments", restates the unique legal relationship the United States has with Indian Tribal Governments as set forth in the Constitution of the United States, treaties, statutes, Executive Orders and court decisions. The Executive Order also maintains that the United States continues to work with Indian Tribes on a government-to-government basis to address issues concerning Indian Tribal Self-Government, trust resources, and Indian Tribal treaty and other rights. Further, it charges the federal agencies with responsibility to have an effective process to permit elected officials and other representatives of Indian Tribal Governments to provide meaningful and timely input in the development of regulatory policies on matters that significantly or uniquely affect their communities. Each agency is also charged with reviewing the processes under which Indian Tribal Governments apply for waivers of statutory and regulatory requirements and take appropriate steps to streamline those processes to the extent practicable and permitted by law.
February 25: Chapters 4 "Western Water," and 6 "The Wild in the Rivers"
"Our whole community cannot now participate equally on critical issues of western water because the process is closed...."
"So we have built up and altered our watershed with such speed and force that we cannot say with certainty that it is possible to restore riparian habitats...."
A map of the arid region of the United States showing drainage districts, 1890-91.
Credit: Courtesy Dan FloresJohn Wesley Powell suggested a revolutionary way of seeing the American landscape and of adjusting political boundaries to its contours. He calls it "watershed democracy." Although defeated in the 19th century, that idea has been recently reborn in both eastern and western states, with long-term implications that may be vital to environmental politics of the future.
PBS series Water in the West, includes information about John Wesley Powell: http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2003/aug/water/part1.html
An article by Charles F. Hutchinson, "John Wesley Powell and the New West" (arid land management): http://www.cosmos-club.org/journals/2000/hutchinson.html
For information about our watershed--the Lower Weber: http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/huc.cfm?huc_code=16020102
February 27: Chapters 5 "Wild Lands," 8 "Everything is Bound," and 9 "Towards an Ethic of Place."
"The long tomorrows of our wild lands, then, will be marked by a struggle to keep the wilderness ideal intact."
"...there are three separate senses in which everything is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords: ...that all of nature is interrelated; ... that all knowledge is connected; ... those of us inhabiting the earth today are bound fast by invisible cords to people and societies who will come much later."
"...a chance to create a society to match its scenery"
National Park System map: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/national_parks/nps_map99.pdf
10 top National Parks for Wildlife Viewing
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
"Wilderness," said Aldo Leopold, “is the very stuff America is made of.” Worldwide, the ever-expanding growth of civilization has pushed back the natural world, leaving less than a third of the earth’s surface untouched. The loss of wilderness costs us clean water and air, forests, fish and wildlife, and a necessary sanctuary for the human spirit.The U.S. and Canada harbor some of the world’s largest remaining wilderness areas. We should protect them, in order to assure that future generations enjoy the benefits of the modern world, without losing touch with the cradle of nature from whence we came.
The Pew Charitable Trust site for Wilderness Protection: http://www.pewtrusts.com/ideas/index.cfm?issue=24
The National Parks Conservation Association: http://www.npca.org/flash.html
We will use The Eagle Bird and the concerns Wilkinson has for the West to deepen our understanding of the West as both an actual region and as an enduring element of American culture. Today's West is the result of a long and continuous process, a constant reinvention and redefining of place. We will consider: the West and historical geography, the changing role of the ranch and the rancher in Western culture and economy, the role of the West in the development of the National Park System, and the impact of conflicting systems of land tenure and concepts of space on Western development—those of the Native Americans and those of the Anglo-European settlers.
We will consider the role of Mormon theology and culture in shaping settlement patterns and the economy of the Intermountain states, the mainstreaming of Hispanic popular culture, the changing role of Native Americans in regional politics and development, the evolution of gambling in the West, from frontier pastime to economic mainstay, on the ways that Western films both reflect and shape the myth of the region, and the visual power of the West's mythic and perceived spiritual qualities.
California