The Three Brothers rock formation is a popular tourist attraction at Yosemite National Park. This course focuses on writings about American landscapes and students will examine the symbolism and environmental issues surrounding these landscapes. (Image courtesy of Mitchell Cipriano on flickr. License CC BY-NC-SA.)
Instructor(s)
Cynthia B. Taft
MIT Course Number
21W.775
As Taught In
Spring 2017
Level
Undergraduate
Course Description
Course Features
Educator Features
Course Description
In this course we will read and write about works that explore symbolic encounters in the American landscape. Some of the assigned works look at uneasy encounters between ordinary individuals and animals—wolves, eagles, sandhill cranes—that Americans have invested with symbolic significance; others explore conflicts between the pragmatic American impulse to impose order on unruly nature and the equally American inclination to enshrine the unaltered landscape.
Other Versions
Other OCW Versions
OCW has published multiple versions of this subject. 