Instructor:
Michael Southworth

Seminar (CCN: 48626) F 2 –4P 315 D Wurster Hall

Units: 2

The purpose of this seminar course is to become familiar with major ideas and thinkers in landscape architecture and environmental planning through discussion and debate of primary literature in the field. Although this is not a history course, it will include some literature that goes back to the early years of the field and that represents the breadth of thinking in both environmental planning and landscape design, as well as other sub disciplines. Each week students will lead a debate and discussion on a different theoretical issue based on the assigned readings for that week. All students must read all readings and participate in the discussions.

Topics will include:
· Conceptions of nature
· Conservation, eco-religion, authenticity, the invention of nature
· Aesthetics, poetics, style, modernity
· The garden
· Process
· The cultural landscape
· The social landscape
· Landscape and health
· Race, gender and landscape
· Landscape perception, interpretation, and sense of place
· The public landscape
· Commons
· Sustainability and ecological design

Course Requirements
1. Do the readings and write a brief critique of them each week
2. Participate in class discussions
3. Several class presentations
4. A final exercise

Text
The only text will be the 2-volume course reader (available at Ned’s on Bancroft Way) that presents major conceptions and issues in the field.