392 Index / Spring 2008 / Bryson

Welcome to Mike Bryson's homepage for BGS 392, the Seminar in Humanities, which will introduce you to several disciplines within the humanities and develop advanced skills in analysis and interpretation. This page provides an overview of course content, goals, activities, and requirements. For more detailed information, including useful tools for web-based research, consult the above links.

Introduction and Overview

Given the broad and breathtaking scope of the humanities--the study of art, ideas, and culture--every section of BGS 392 is designed with some kind of focus. This class takes the urban landscape--both the natural and the built environments--as its central focus, a point of reference to explore literature, art, history, architecture, and other forms of human expression. The overarching goal of the seminar is simple yet immodest: to inspire you to see the urban environment in a completely new way. The specific ways in which your angle of vision on the city changes will depend, to a great degree, on your previous assumptions and experiences as well as on your thoughtful engagement with the course readings.

But, you may be thinking . . . nature in the city? Aren't these diametrically opposed terms? If we want to study nature, why in the world would we focus on its urban presence? Isn't nature "better" when it's remote, out there . . . more, um, natural? I don't want to give away too much here; but suffice it to say that such questions, while perfectly understandable, are shaped by our culture's assumptions about the character and value of such terms as nature, culture, wilderness, city, suburb, and country. Learning about and questioning such assumptions are two important goals of this seminar, as we'll explore how historians, philosophers, geographers, writers, naturalists, landscape architects, and photographers have confronted the presence of nature within urbanized space--the nature that we see every day, but often ignore or take for granted; the nature that's constructed as much as any road or building; the nature that persists in a wild state despite our efforts to control or eradicate it. In our journey together this semester, we will explore the great new frontier of ecology and nature studies: the urban landscape.

Aerial perspective of the stockyards (source: Chicago Historical Society)

Our course readings include selections set in various American cities, from New York to New Orleans to Los Angeles. But I've selected Chicago as the geographic heart of our investigation of urban nature. One reason is that Chicago's history, both natural and cultural, is not only well-studied and documented, it's inextricably linked with how we've thought about, confronted, transformed, and even restored the natural environment. From its beginnings as a marshy trading post on the banks of the Chicago River, to its amazing expansion as an industrial power during the 19th and 20th centuries, to its reshaping of the physical landscape in that process (think about the reversal of the Chicago River, for example), to its self-proclaimed identity as the "City in a Garden," to its ascension as a global city in the 21st century that strives to be environmentally progressive--Chicago is the ideal laboratory in which to study the history and current manifestations of urban nature.

Want more reasons? There's a compelling argument that the historical, literary, and architectural legacy of Chicago is complex, immense, fascinating and utterly central to understanding the broader sweep of American history and artistic endeavor. Consider the sheer vitality and energy of this Midwestern Metropolis, known variously as The Windy City, the City by the Lake, The City of Broad Shoulders, My Kind of Town, City on the Prairie, the Second City (now third in population behind NY and LA), and Hog Butcher of the World (to Carl Sandberg). Questions of nature vs. culture aside, it's not only important to explore and understand some of this city's history and culture as educated citizens of the region, it's a crying shame not to--especially when you attend Roosevelt University, a distinctly Chicagoan institution of higher learning based downtown in the historic Auditorium Building, a national landmark that embodies Chicago-based architecture, as well as in Schaumburg, a quintessential 21st-century "edge city" suburb.

Schaumburg, IL (source: Chicago Wilderness Magazine)

Besides this emphasis on nature in the city, the broader goal of BGS 392 is to understand more fully how the arts and humanities reflect and shape our lives by looking closely at a wide variety of works and learning to recognize how themes, motifs, characters, settings, ideas, language, and/or images are developed in a given text/artwork/landscape. We'll do this by reading widely in literature, history, geography, and other genres; exploring a variety of texts, documents, and art productions; and taking a couple of field trips to significant cultural institutions and urban landscapes right here in the city. In the process, we'll explores the mysteries of literary prose and the analytic insights of science; we'll consider the relations between our anthropocentric perspectives on the world and the abundance of nonhuman life in the city; we'll learn about Chicago landscapes and ecosystems, people and places and structures; and ultimately, we'll critically reflect upon the human condition amidst the grand sprawl of nature within the built environment.

View of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition from Lake Michigan
(source: Chicago Historical Society)

Basic Requirements

Basic class activities for BGS 392 will include regular reading assignments, class discussions, some short lectures by yours truly, occasional postings to our course Blackboard (Bb for short) site in RUOnline, and a couple of field trips. Required readings will include the assigned texts, assorted websites related to each week's topic, and selected documents available in Bb or distributed as handouts. Remember that BGS 392 is a six-credit-hour seminar, and the required workload appropriately reflects that. Formal assignments include:

active weekly participation in class discussion
two "reading reaction" postings of comments/questions about the assigned reading of the day (each student is responsible for 2 days during the semester)
two analytic essays (5-7 pages) that ask you to creatively engage your ideas about/observations of nature in the city as well as reflect on our course readings
a research project which includes a short formal proposal (2-3 pages) and a final paper/project (7-10 pages) which explores a topic of your choice related to the course theme

More information on specific assignments as well as grading policies is available on the Assignments page.

Contact Information

Please feel free to talk to me during office hours or to make an appointment, should you have questions or feel like you need some individualized help beyond what I can provide in the classroom. Staying in touch is vitally important in this class, for our schedule is both tight and complex. Please do not disappear! I check my voicemail (312-281-3148) and email regularly, and I do my best to return messages within a day during the work week. Remember that there's no substitute for regular attendance and timely submission of your assignments.

Accommodation of Persons with Disabilities (from RU Student Handbook, p. 75)

"When a student . . . with a documented disability is able to perform the essential functions of the academic and program requirements, the University will provide reasonable accommodations to the needs of that individual, unless such accommodations would provide undue hardship to the University.

"Reasonable accommodations . . . will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Students with medically recognized and documented disabilities and who are in need of accommodation should notify the University of their needs. Students should contact the Office of Disability Services [ph. 312.341.3810] and provide documentation of their disability to this office."