Sue Hagedorn
Position Paper
SLS 2002
Ecology Through Art, Science, and Politics
I feel rather humble adding my two-cents late to the discussion, but I feel my more experiential narrative fits well with the position papers already posted. I teach a Literature and Science course at Virginia Tech, but I don’t get to teach it more than once every year or so, and many of my perceptions are still in formation. In general, I am as interested in creating decent ecocritics as I am in exposing the students to ecocriticism.
When I started teaching the class several years ago, I had students with majors that ranged from Theater Arts to History to Electrical Engineering. This past Spring I taught a more homogenous class with all but one student having majors in biologically-related sciences (fisheries, forestry, etc.). (This may be due to a change in student attitudes, but I rather suspect that it is due to a new requirement for students to have at least one Writing Intensive course outside of their major—and they went for the buzz word “ecology”!)
I feel I bring several strengths to the class—not just my nearly 30 year career teaching English, but my research background in public perception of science and science rhetoric—but as with anyone else, I teach to (through?) my own biases. At each stage in the class I try to have students state how they came about their own perceptions, and I try to be as honest as I can about my own biases.
To start the class, I introduce them to the concept that THEY are biased in their view(s) of nature to break down science class-induced barriers and allow a more reflexive view of works coming later in the semester. I introduce them to an area where most have little knowledge—art criticism! I have them study a wide spectrum of art, from primitive cave drawings to Bosch to Hirsch to Homer to Tanguy. (My own favorite is Sheeler’s depiction of an out-of-doors artist with easel—painting a picture of a room’s interior.)
I have many art works on a Power Point show, but we also use every day campus sights from graffiti, advertisements in the campus newspaper, and even pictures in their classrooms. (Chillingly, as I write this on September 11, my classroom has a black and white Margaret Bourke-White photo from Life magazine showing a DC-4 flying over 1939 Manhattan.) Students first express their first impressions and then try to recreate the historical/cultural mindset of the artists. Students are very familiar with the idea of themselves as future scientists, but I then introduce the concept of science (especially ecology) as an art, a never-finished production.
Another important concept that is difficult for students is the idea of themselves as rhetoricians, that how they conduct and report on their own research will influence culture, the arts, and politics. We are wide-ranging in readings—poetry to short stories to advertisements to science fiction to drama, trying to reflexively explore visions of nature. Even though they are budding scientists, they are emotionally torn by an account of the death of a son at the Love Canal disaster—then we discuss the reality vs. the fictions in emotional environmental/ecology writing—and even in dry scientific reports.
Students are particularly resistant to seeing themselves as political entities, so I required reading of the text Environmental Politics by Jacqueline Vaughn Switzer (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001). This complex book introduces the history of the ecological movement and ties ecology with politics, law, and the economy.
To finish the course, I require students to create a web page on a cause, case study, author/artist, literary or artistic work, etc. that engages them. As a group we view the pages (more than expected were superb, most were mediocre, and a few, of course, were absolutely lousy) and critique how effectively the “author” presents his view of nature.
My major aims are to shake up students to see themselves more broadly than just as budding scientists. For their own future good—and ours—they need to see themselves reflexively not just as scientists but as rhetorical and political bodies. They are my students—they teach me new insights every day.
Posted 9-12-02