CONTESTED LANDS: POLITICS AND POWER IN U.S. NATIONAL PARKS

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

This course explores the national park system as a symbolic battleground where histories of settler colonialism, conservation policy, scientific research, and aesthetic design intersect. We will investigate how parks have been used to tell national stories, to exclude certain communities, and to manage nature itself, whether through the reintroduction of wolves, the prioritization of charismatic species, or debates over fire suppression and biodiversity. Readings will draw from history, environmental philosophy, conservation biology, Indigenous scholarship, and landscape studies. We will also consider how ideas of beauty, wilderness, and visitor experience have shaped which lands are protected and how they are presented to the public.