About

Description

The Path Foundation, Trees Atlanta, Friends of the Beltline, ATL Urban Farms, Ponce City Farmers Market, Aware Wildlife Center: these are just some local organizations working to sustain ecologies in Atlanta. Over the course of this class, we will visit and host guests from urban farms and farmer’s markets, as well as wildlife centers, green spaces, and the Beltline, so that students can identify and describe the relationship between the ecological and the social in their communities. Students will engage community partners and course texts through some of the following questions: how do individual actions effect larger ecosystems in which humans are enmeshed? How can humans avoid destroying ecology as we reach out to sustain it? How can we sustain the ecologies that sustain us without abandoning human community? This class Uses a WOVEN approach to communication that considers the interrelationship between Written, Oral, Visual, and Nonverbal modes to give students practice in analyzing the rhetorical strategies for articulating their own ideas about sustainability. To investigate the ways in which humans sustain ecology, we will analyze selections from Wendel Barry’s A Continuous Harmony, bell hook’s Belonging, John McPhee’s Uncommon Carriers, and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as well as readings on the history and the trouble with sustainability by such authors as Jeremy Caradonna, Steve Mentz, Timothy Clark, and Tim Morton. Students can expect to compose an introductory video; design a poster that illustrates sustainability; film and edit a mini-documentary about Atlanta’s green and urban spaces; produce a collaborative cookbook that represents the ecologies of food in and around the Beltline; and curate all major assignments into a showcase portfolio. In the same way that our community partners sustain ecologies in Atlanta, in this class students will develop practices consistent with their roles as responsible members of local, national, and international communities.

Course Goals/Concepts