Professor Anna Andrzejewski‘s AH 567/867: “Material History of American Landscape” seminar will be taught in-person on Mondays, 2:30–5:00pm.
This course seeks to examine what we can learn about the history of what we now call the United States by examining visual and material culture. It considers how material culture – things like buildings or built features – relate to the natural environment, and thus its intersections with geology, climate, vegetation, non-human species, and ecology. It also offers tools for interpreting historical buildings and cultural landscape: different ways of mapping American space, and different ways of narrating change on the American landscape. Students will choose the kinds of spaces to discuss in class as well as research in individual projects. Possible topics might include: zoning; transportation network; military landscapes; extractive landscapes of the west. Enroll here.