Geography188
Cultural Landscapes
Purpose, Objectives, and Responsibilities
Richard Hofstadter remarked that "America was the
only country that started with perfection and aspired to
progress."
This course deals with landscape appreciation and understanding which, like
music and art appreciation, are holistic and attempt to stretch the mind and
senses beyond the obvious. We need to learn to look, to see beyond our most
"practical" needs, to admire things other than the big, the new, or the
historically famous. Too often, "foreign" or "exotic" places (unknown to us) are
simply ignored or consumed as another kind of commodity; however,
ethnic Europeans, racial minorities (American Indians,
African Americans, Hispanics, and
Asian Americans), genders, and classes express themselves
in the material world of cultural landscapes.Objectives
To understand,
appreciate, and enjoy
these different cultural landscapes of North America, you must meet six course
objectives:
- Define the concept of culture.
- Know the components of cultural
landscapes.
- Document the relationship between human ideals and fantasies,
behavior, and
human-created landscapes.
- Identify how religious, ethnic, and racial
groups have placed their imprints on landscapes.
- Understand how
social, political, and economic processes are expressed in landscape forms.
-
Know
the salient features of the landscape forms of oppression, by race
and sex.
Course Requirements
Because
this course uses slide
presentations, class attendance is critical for a full understanding of the
course material and for an appreciation of the various cultural landscapes.
Your final grade will consist of three parts:
1) two mid-term tests and a final examination
(65%), 2) map assignments (30%), and
3) web-based self-tests (5%).
| Grading Scale
|
|
Grade |
Percent |
Grade |
Percent |
|
A |
84 |
C |
61 |
|
A- |
79 |
C- |
52 |
|
B+ |
77 |
D+ |
48 |
|
B |
73 |
D |
45 |
|
B- |
69 |
D- |
40 |
|
C+ |
65 |
F |
-100 |
|
Your grade will be determined by the percentage on all your tests and assignments weighted by the grading option you selected.
The minimum percentage needed for each letter grade is shown in the
table. If you are curious about what grades students
actually received after each test, look at the
grade distribution graph -- almost all of the Fs
are students who had dropped the course! For
P/F students, a C is
equal to a passing grade.
|
 All work must be completed, even if it
is handed in
late and receives no points, to avoid an F for the course!
You must use your correct UWEC ID# when requested throughout the semester. You will lose 5 points from each test
score, if you don't use your authorized UWEC ID# or
otherwise not complete your score sheet correctly!
|
Course Materials
- Wilbur Zelinsky, The Cultural Geography of the United States
(rental section of the UWEC bookstore)
- Booklet of map assignments and Supplemental Readings (handout in class)
- USA and Canadian Topographic Maps: available in the Reserve Room of
the UWEC library
(the U.S. Geological Survey has a great web site:
what do maps show)
Go to the
Topical Course
Outline.
Created
by Ingolf Vogeler on 1 February 1996; last revised on
15 September 2008.
