Summer Session 2007 History 399
The American Environment Through Film
This course will use films, television documentaries and readings to examine how Americans have understood and represented Nature over the past century. Because American national identity has so often been proclaimed through representations of the landscape, a critical evaluation of how the environment is portrayed and used in film provides a wonderful method for understanding the ways Nature has been used as a rubric for ideas about morality, national purpose, race, gender, social status, freedom, economic programs, and a host of other essential concerns .