July 10-13(EVST 495E, CRN 51272)
This 4-day short course introduces participants to environmental issues of concern to Montana's American Indian reservations. Participants develop their understanding and appreciation of successful efforts and challenges faced by Montana tribes to protect their natural resources and environment from a variety of threats, such as coal-bed methane development next to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and acid mine drainage into the Ft. Belknap Reservation. Participants also learn about the efforts of Montana tribes to exercise their traditional hunting, fishing, and treaty rights, and to pursue their traditional spiritual practices, as in the Badger Two Medicine area of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The course includes a one-day field trip to the National Bison Range on the Flathead Reservation.
Cost: $295 for 1 undergraduate or graduate credit/audit credit, or $160 for no-credit option (includes $40 field-trip fee).
Meeting times: July 10, July 11, and July 13 from 9:00 a.m. to noon, and July 12 from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Room location: Gallagher Business Building room 201
Instructor: Dr. Robin Saha, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, The University of Montana
Online June 5-July 7 and in classroom July 17-21(PHIL 495E, CRN 51276; or EVST 495E, CRN 51277)
This course has a special course format (see below*). It offers a survey of some of the main interpretive themes of American environmental history in relation to the classical American environmental tradition. The importance of this tradition is immense, not only for the American strain of environmentalism and American culture, but also for its place and influence in international environmental consciousness. Readings include seminal articles by environmental historians on the conceptual foundations of the American relationship to nature, including examples of primary documents used to generate these interpretive frameworks. Also, sets of primary texts by canonical figures in American environmental thought, such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, are paired with recent monographs on the rise of American wilderness advocacy and the broader environmental health movement. This course provides participants with a solid background in normative environmental thought and raises important philosophical questions regarding the history of environmental issues in America. To understand this historical strain is not simply to understand history for history's sake, but to remind ourselves of who we are, where we want to go, and what our relation to our environment and each other is and could be.
*The special course format is an interesting one. There are largely asynchronous (no set times) online sessions from June 5 -July 7 (about 20 hours of contact time per course) during which participants investigate the course readings, participate in discussion boards, and complete some assignments. Then, when participants arrive in Missoula, face-to-face class time is about 25 hours over 5 days per course. This is a more relaxed short course format, which leaves time to explore and enjoy the Missoula area. If you’ve ever participated in an online course and wanted to meet your classmates in person, then these courses are for you. Conversely, if you’ve never taken an online course, these courses are a good introduction (with excellent technical support for the online portion), and yet they conclude in a traditional face-to-face classroom.
Cost: $545 for 3 undergraduate or graduate credits/audit credits, or $410 for no-credit option (includes $50 online fee).
Meeting times: Online course for 20 hours during the period of June 5 - July 7. Classroom meeting times are July 17-20 from 9:00 a.m. to noon and from 1:30-4:00 p.m., and July 21 from 9:00 a.m. to noon.
Room location: The Center for Ethics.
Instructor: Dr. Andrew Light, Department of Philosophy and Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington
Online June 5-July 7 and in classroom July 24-28(PHIL 495E, CRN 51274; or EVST 495E, CRN 51275)
This course has a special course format (see below*). Aesthetics, in its modern Western formulation, has been dominated by the discussion of issues related to fine arts. Environmental aesthetics is a newly emerging discipline, originally concerned with the aesthetics of natural environment but now extending to include built environment, cultural landscape, and (non-art) artifacts in general that make up our everyday environment. After critically examining the historical and cultural context of the mode of nature appreciation familiar to many of us in the United States, as well as that of the Japanese tradition often characterized as “love of nature,” some of the important issues raised in environmental aesthetics are explored. Participants develop an understanding and appreciation of the historically- and culturally-rooted nature of our aesthetic experience of the natural environment; understand and appreciate why an environmental aesthetic is needed (i.e., why the traditional art-centered aesthetic is inadequate for exploring the aesthetics of environment); and develop an awareness of the complexity and serious ethical ramifications involved in what appears to be simple and straightforward environmental appreciation. Ultimately, participants will apply theoretical and conceptual understanding gained from readings, lectures, discussions, and case studies of environmental issues/controversies to their own experience of the environment.
*The special course format is an interesting one. There are largely asynchronous (no set times) online sessions from June 5 -July 7 (about 20 hours of contact time per course) during which participants investigate the course readings, participate in discussion boards, and complete some assignments. Then, when participants arrive in Missoula, face-to-face class time is about 25 hours over 5 days per course. This is a more relaxed short course format, which leaves time to explore and enjoy the Missoula area. If you’ve ever participated in an online course and wanted to meet your classmates in person, then these courses are for you. Conversely, if you’ve never taken an online course, these courses are a good introduction (with excellent technical support for the online portion), and yet they conclude in a traditional face-to-face classroom.
Cost: $545 for 3 undergraduate or graduate credits/audit credits, or $410 for no-credit option (includes $50 online fee).
Meeting times: Online course for 20 hours during the period of June 5 - July 7. Classroom meeting times are July 24-27 from 9:00 a.m. to noon and from 1:30-4:00 p.m., and July 28 from 9:00 a.m. to noon.
Room location: The Center for Ethics.
Instructor: Dr. Yuriko Saito, Professor of Philosophy, Rhode Island School of Design.
with Andrew Light, Department of Philosophy and Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington
To many, the goal of ecological restoration is to recreate a functioning ecosystem as close as possible to the original state of the area before it was disturbed by humans. This presentation offers reasons to believe that we have moral obligations to both past and future human communities to retain elements of industrial or agricultural legacies, or "disturbance memories," in our restorations.
Video (click here), professionally produced by MCAT
Andrew Light, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Washington; William Chaloupka, Chair, Department of Political Science, Colorado State University; Daniel Kemmis, Senior Fellow in Public Policy, Center for the Rocky Mountain West; and Tracy Stone-Manning, Executive Director, Clark Fork Coalition, will discuss the controversial essay, "The Death of Environmentalism." The authors of that essay write: "We have become convinced that modern environmentalism, with all of its unexamined assumptions, outdated concepts and exhausted strategies, must die so that something new can live." This panel promises to be a lively discussion about the future of environmentalism in the age of global warming, and will focus on issues of importance to the western states.
Video (click here), professionally produced by MCAT
with Ned Hettinger, Professor of Philosophy, College of Charleston in South Carolina
Many think the beauty of nature is important for environmental protection. But how can it be, if "beauty is in the eye of the beholder?" An appreciation for ridge-top trophy homes, the roar of snowmobiles, clearcut forests, and sprawl development would just be an alternative aesthetic, no better or worse than an environmental aesthetic that finds these appalling. This talk explores the possibility of distinguishing between better and worse types of environmental aesthetic appreciation and uses such distinctions to justify an aesthetic defense of environmentalism.
Video (click here), professionally produced by MCAT
with Yuriko Saito, Professor of Philosophy, Rhode Island School of Design
The Japanese garden is often praised for its natural appearance, despite the extreme degree of manipulation and care involved in its creation and maintenance. How can we explain this seeming paradox? What kind of attitude toward nature and humans is embodied in the Japanese garden design? This presentation, accompanied by ample visual images, will explore these questions.
Video (click here), professionally produced by MCAT
This symposium focuses on the tensions that exist between religious and scientific approaches to environmentalism. Four leading scholars of culture, religion, and environment will square off in a moderated exploration of this territory. In the second half of the evening session, the audience will be brought into the conversation. Holmes Rolston III, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University, will begin the conversation. The panel of speakers that will respond to Rolston's remarks includes: Albert Borgmann, Regents Professor of Philosophy at The University of Montana, Ned Hettinger, Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and John Hart, professor of Christian Ethics at Boston University. Christopher Preston, visiting assistant professor at the University of Montana, currently preparing an intellectual biography of Rolston, will moderate.
Video (click here), professionally produced by MCAT
with Holmes Rolston III, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Colorado State University
Cosmologists find a primordial big bang, producing matter and energy. Biologists find on Earth another big bang: a genetic information explosion. In one species, Homo sapiens, there is a third, a mental big bang: a cultural explosion producing religion, ethics, science. Evolutionary biology can supply only incomplete explanations of such Earth history. Evaluation of an evolutionary history that generates intelligent persons leaves biology with looming questions.
* You can also purchase a DVD from The Center for Ethics by sending a note specifying which program and $15 to "The Center for Ethics"
July 12, field trip to the National Bison Range with Robin Saha, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, The University of Montana. $40, open to the public (non-course registrants).
July 19, field trip, Ethical Issues in Ecological Restoration after Wildfire, in the Bitterroot Valley with Dan Spencer, Environmental Studies, Liberal Studies, and Philosophy, UM-Missoula. $20, open to the public (non-course registrants)
