Nature on Display

This course will explore the different ways in which people have represented the natural world in a variety of context and time periods from the 16th to the 21st century. We will look at the depiction of nature in museums, gardens, documentary films, and municipal parks, as well as the science of biology and ecology. As we do so, we will explore our changing attitudes towards nature and the place that we occupy in it, thinking through the complex and philosophically fraught question of what nature is, and what, if anything, distinguishes it from the rest of our world.