Westminster Expedition

This course will examine the link between the landscapes of the West and the cultural meanings attached to them. The natural landscapes that surround us contain a world of meaning. The earth is home, habitat, playground, resources, and waste-sink. It is seen as dangerous and peaceful, bountiful and depleted, crowded and open. How do we reconcile these contradictions? What do they mean in terms of the cultural and political ecologies of particular places? How do the cultural values we attach to natural landscapes challenge our understanding of their history and our own involvement in the natural world? By looking at the cultural geography of the environment we can analyze how the meanings of nature are actively created and why it is contested by different people in different places. And, perhaps most importantly, why it matters.

Native peoples inhabited all of the American West; today’s Native nations exercise sovereignty over fragments of their former territory. This course investigates the Native history of some of the West, based upon the expedition itinerary. We will visit contemporary Native nations and investigate their roles in land-use issues; meeting with Native peoples, public lands managers, scholars, and activists on our route.

In 1872, the US Congress declared the Yellowstone region the world’s first national park. In 1916, Congress created the National Park Service, which works to conserve the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wildlife found in our national parks. Today, the Park Service manages over 400 units with more than 20 different designations — including national parks, monuments, historical parks, military parks, preserves, recreation areas, seashores, parkways, lakeshores, and reserves — and nations around the world have created their own versions of national parks. In this course, we will investigate the implications of national parks on natural and human history.

Wars, ambushes, evictions, occupations, political and personal arguments, murders, and feuds. The environmental history of the West is full of conflict, but it is also full cooperation, agreement, help, love, encouragement, and collaboration. In this course, we will visit the sites of this conflict and cooperation. We will debate subjects, learn about the process, and work to understand the surrounding context.