COML 6000

Landscape and Technology

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024.

The myth of landscape as a natural, external space for human contemplation, gradually ruined by technology, stubbornly refuses to die. How should we read works from a preindustrial past? Is there a precise moment in history when technology comes into what soil scientist Peter Haff calls the postcard picture of landscape? Reading in the original languages where possible, we will begin with foundational pastoral and bucolic texts from the classical, early modern, and Romantic periods before moving to contemporary science/speculative fictions. we will also read recent critical works on the "botanic turn," terraforming, posthuman ruins, and infrastructure.

When Offered Fall.

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