everything.study
STS.038

Risky Business: Food Production, Environment, and Health

2-1-9 units. HASS-H · Undergraduate

Follows the shifts in food production between small-holder, local production to large-scale industries and back again to "localvore" food production in the 19th and 20th centuries. Tracks how people grew anxious about health risks associated with modern food over time. In a weekly lab, students build a compost production facility and/or a segment of a perennial food forest. Discusses food politics, food security and justice, food sustainability and safety, and first steps in growing one's own food. Limited to 25.

Fall 2006 · Energy and Environment in American History: 1705-2005

A survey of how America has become the world's largest consumer of energy. Explores American history from the perspective of energy and its relationship to politics, diplomacy, the economy, science and technology, labor, culture, and the environment. Topics include muscle and water power in early America, coal and the Industrial Revolution, electrification, energy consumption in the home, oil and U.S. foreign policy, automobiles and suburbanization, nuclear power, OPEC and the 70's energy crisis, global warming, and possible paths for the future.

Readings

  • White, Richard. The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1996, pp. ix-xi and 3-29. ISBN: 9780809015832.
    Listed reading
  • Pyne, Stephen. Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire . Reprint ed. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1997 (1982), pp. 66-83 and 123-142. ISBN: 9780295975924.
    Listed reading
  • White, Richard. The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1996, pp. 30-58. ISBN: 9780809015832.
    Listed reading
  • Thoreau, Henry David. “Sounds.” In Walden and Other Writings . New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Books, 1994, pp. 92-106. ISBN: 9781566193061.
    Listed reading
  • Greenberg, Dolores. “Energy, Power, and Perceptions of Social Change in the Early Nineteenth Century.” American Historical Review 95, no. 3 (June 1990): 693-714.
    Listed reading
  • Von Helmholtz, Hermann. “The Conservation of Force: A Physical Memoir (1847).” In Selected Writings of Hermann von Helmholtz . Edited by Russell Kahl. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971, pp. 3-26, 48-9, and 52-4. ISBN: 9780819540393.
    Listed reading
  • Rabinbach, Anson. The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity . New York, NY: Basic Books, 1990, selections. ISBN: 9780465031306.
    Listed reading
  • Riskin, Jessica. “The Defecating Duck, Or, The Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life.” Critical Inquiry 29, no. 4 (Summer 2003): 599-633.
    Listed reading
  • Gorn, Elliott. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2002.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 9-10 · TOPICS: Electrification I: Building the Network · READINGS: Nye, David. Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992, selections. ISBN: 9780262640305. · READING QUESTIONS: ( PDF ) ↗
    Reading assignment
  • Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. “How the Refrigerator Got Its Hum.” In The Social Shaping of Technology: How the Refrigerator Got Its Hum . Edited by Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press, 1985, pp. 202-18. ISBN: 9780335150267.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “The ‘Industrial Revolution’ in the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the Twentieth Century.” Technology and Culture 17, no. 1 (January 1976): 1-23.
    Listed reading
  • Goldstein, Carolyn M. “From Service to Sales: Home Economics in Light and Power, 1920-1940.” Technology and Culture 38, no. 1 (January 1997): 121-52.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 13-14 · TOPICS: The Industrialization of Agriculture · READINGS: Fitzgerald, Deborah. Every Farm a Factory: The Industrial Ideal in American Agriculture . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003, pp. 1-32 and 75-105. ISBN: 9780300088137.
    Reading assignment
  • Black, Brian. Petrolia: The Landscape of America’s First Oil Boom . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, selections. ISBN: 9780801863172.
    Listed reading
  • Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power . Reissue ed. New York, NY: Free Press, 1993, selections. ISBN: 9780671799328.
    Listed reading
  • Rome, Adam. The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780521804905.
    Listed reading
  • You’re welcome to read the whole thing, but at least read the introduction, chapters 1, 2, 4, 7, and the conclusion.
    Listed reading
  • Badash, Lawrence. Scientists and the Development of Nuclear Weapons: From Fission to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1939-1963 . Reprint ed. New York, NY: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1999. ISBN: 9781573927154.
    Listed reading
  • I encourage you to read the whole Badash book if you can-it is short-but we will focus our discussion on chapters 2-4 (pages 11 to 62).
    Listed reading
  • White, Richard. The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1996, pp. 59-88. ISBN: 9780809015832.
    Listed reading
  • Horowitz, Daniel. Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970s . Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004, selections. ISBN: 9780312401221.
    Listed reading
  • For this reading, pay attention to how the different authors, from the President on to his advisors, supporters, and critics, diagnose and propose treatment for the 1979 phase of the “energy crisis.” What was the crisis, and why did it look so different to so many people?
    Listed reading
  • Hubbert, M. King. “ Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels (PDF) .” Presented at the American Petroleum Institute conference, March 8, 1956. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Weart, Spencer. The Discovery of Global Warming . Reprint ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674016378.
    Listed reading
  • It’s ok to skim parts that don’t seem as relevant to the overall picture, but do try to make your way through the book. Chapters 1-2, 5, and 7-8 are the most important.
    Listed reading
  • Davis-Floyd, Robbie E. “Storying Corporate Futures: The Shell Scenarios.” In Corporate Futures: The Diffusion of the Culturally Sensitive Corporate Form . Edited by George Marcus. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226504544.
    Listed reading
  • McPhee, John. “Coal Train.” In Uncommon Carriers . New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2006, pp. 185-236. ISBN: 9780374280390.
    Listed reading
  • The Bush-Cheney Energy Plan: National Energy Policy. Report of the National Policy Development Group, May 2001 (PDF) . ↗
    Listed reading
  • Skim the National Energy Policy. It is long . Read it to get a sense of what the plan actually is/was.
    Listed reading
  • White, Richard. The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1996. ISBN: 9780809015832.
    Required
  • Gorn, Elliott. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America . Reprint ed. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2002. ISBN: 9780809070947.
    Required
  • Rome, Adam. The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780521804905.
    Required
  • Horowitz, Daniel. Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970s . Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. ISBN: 9780312401221.
    Required
  • Badash, Lawrence. Scientists and the Development of Nuclear Weapons: From Fission to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1939-1963 . Reprint ed. New York, NY: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1999. ISBN: 9781573927154.
    Required
  • Weart, Spencer. The Discovery of Global Warming . Reprint ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674016378.
    Required

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None U (Spring) Not offered regularly; consult department 2-1-9 units. HASS-H

Sources