Geography 205, Winter 2004:
Nature, Science, and Religion

During winter term 2004, UCSB graduate students representing a wide range of disciplines participated in a reading seminar on nature, science, and religion taught by Prof. Proctor. The course syllabus and bibliography are below; click here to go to the full course website. 

Syllabus

General Information

Instructor

Objective
Geography 205 winter term 2004 is a reading seminar devoted to the topic of nature, science, and religion. It will survey literature, concepts, and theories related to the New Visions of Nature, Science, and Religion program at UC Santa Barbara. Please refer to the New Visions website at www.newvisions.ucsb.edu for further information.

Readings
Our readings this term will feature work drawn from geography and a wide range of disciplines across the spectrum of the physical and life sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and humanities and theology. Most readings are organized under the five metaphors or "visions" of nature covered in the New Visions program; additional readings discuss connections between nature, science, and religion, and offer a range of perspectives for rethinking science and religion. Readings not available online have been compiled into a course reader, available at the Alternative Copy Shop in Isla Vista (6556 Pardall); click here for a bibliography. Typically you will read four or five selections per class session. Online readings are accessed from links on the bibliography or the class schedule.

Activities and assignments
Class activities will primarily include seminar discussions on the readings. Though Mondays of weeks 3 and 7 are UCSB holidays, there will still be readings for those weeks; an optional discussion will be scheduled for those weeks. All students will submit online a roughly one-page reading summary and response prior to each class session; the first reading assignment is due by classtime Monday, January 12.

All students will submit a review of one related book (to be approved by the instructor) not covered in the readings. Book reviews will be presented at the end of each seminar session.

Additionally, students signed up for the 4 unit option will prepare a major course project. Course projects are intended to connect course material with the student's chosen or anticipated area of research, and could involve an annotated bibliography, review paper, empirical research paper, or similar product, to be approved by the instructor.

All student assignments will be submitted and shared online; more information will be given in class.

Grading and exams
The course grade will be determined based on the following elements:

2 Unit Option

• Reading Assignments: 60 percent
• Seminar Participation: 20 percent
• Book Review: 20 percent

4 Unit Option

• Reading Assignments: 30 percent
• Seminar Participation: 20 percent
• Book Review: 20 percent
• Course Project: 30 percent

Bibliography
Following is a bibliography for Geography 205, arranged according to chronological order of topics; books from which these readings are drawn will be placed on reserve. Electronically available readings (noted with *) have links to local download in PDF format.

Week 2: Nature, Science, and Religion?

• Albanese, Catherine L. 2002. Nature religion: Naming and narrating. In Reconsidering nature religion, 1-26. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International.
• Buttimer, Anne. 1993. Selections from Geography and the human spirit, 11-48, 77-85, 211-221. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press.
• Latour, Bruno. 1993. Crisis. In We have never been modern, 1-12. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• Midgley, Mary. 1992. Salvation and the academics; The function of faith. In Science as salvation: A modern myth and its meaning, 1-16; 51-61. London: Routledge.
• Weinberg, Steven. 1992. What about God? In Dreams of a final theory, 241-261. New York: Pantheon Books.

Week 3: Rethinking Science

• Cartwright, Nancy. 1999. Introduction; Fundamentalism vs. the patchwork of laws. In The dappled world: A study of the boundaries of science, 1-19, 23-34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• *Demeritt, David. 2001. The construction of global warming and the politics of science. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92 (2):307-337.
• Geertz, Clifford. 1994. The strange estrangement: Charles Taylor and the natural sciences. In Philosophy in an age of pluralism: The philosophy of Charles Taylor in question, ed. James Tully and Daniel M. Weinstock, 83-95. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Shapin, Steven. 1996. Introduction; What was the knowledge for? In The scientific revolution, 1-14; 119-165. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Week 4: Evolutionary Nature

• Cosmides, Leda, John Tooby, and Jerome H. Barkow. 1992. Introduction: Evolutionary psychology and conceptual integration. In The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture, edited by J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides and J. Tooby, 3-18. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ehrlich, Paul R. 2002. Evolution and human values. In Human natures: Genes, cultures, and the human prospect, 305-331. New York: Penguin Books.
• Livingstone, David N. 1999. Situating Evangelical responses to evolution. In Evangelicals and science in historical perspective, edited by D. N. Livingstone, D. G. Hart and M. A. Noll, 193-219. New York: Oxford University Press.
• *Morris, Simon Conway, and Stephen Jay Gould. 1998. Showdown on the Burgess shale. Natural History 107 (10):48ff.
• Wilson, Edward O. 1998. Ethics and religion. In Consilience: The unity of knowledge, 238-265. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Week 5: Emergent Nature

• *Clayton, Philip. 2000. Neuroscience, the person, and God: An emergentist account. Zygon 35 (3):613-652.
• *Levin, Simon A. 1998. Ecosystems and the biosphere as complex adaptive systems. Ecosystems 1 (5):431-436.
• *Malanson, George P. 1999. Considering complexity. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 89 (4):746-753.
• *May, Robert M. 1995. Necessity and chance: Deterministic chaos in ecology and evolution. Bulletin (New Series) of the American Mathematical Society 32 (3):291-308.
• Morowitz, Harold J. 2002. The emergence of emergence; Athens and Jerusalem; Science and religion. In The emergence of everything: How the world became complex, 1-14, 185-191, 192-196. New York: Oxford University Press.

Week 6: Malleable Nature

• *Anderson, Kay. 1997. A walk on the wild side: A critical geography of domestication. Progress in Human Geography 21 (4):463-485.
• Brooke, John Hedley. 2003. Detracting from divine power? Religious belief and the appraisal of new technologies. In Re-ordering nature: Theology, society and the new genetics, edited by C. Deane-Drummond, B. Szerszynski and R. Grove-White, 43-64. London: T & T Clark.
• Keller, Evelyn Fox. 2000. Introduction: The life of a powerful word; Conclusion: What are genes for? In The century of the gene, 1-10, 133-148. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Levidow, Les. 1996. Sustaining mother nature, industrializing agriculture. In FutureNatural: Nature, science, culture, edited by G. Robertson, M. Mash, L. Tickner, J. Bird, B. Curtis and T. Putnam, 55-71. London: Routledge.
• Wynne, Brian. 2003. Interpreting public concerns about GMOs: Questions of meaning. In Re-ordering nature: Theology, society and the new genetics, edited by C. Deane-Drummond, B. Szerszynski and R. Grove-White, 221-248. London: T & T Clark.

Week 7: Rethinking Religion

• Beyer, Peter. 2003. Conceptions of religion: On distinguishing scientific, theological, and "official" meanings. Social Compass 50 (2):141-160.
• *Holloway, Julian. 2003. Make-believe: Spiritual practice, embodiment, and sacred space. Environment and Planning A 35:1961-1974.
• Luckmann, Thomas. 2003. Transformations of religion and morality in modern Europe. Social Compass 50 (3):275-285.
• *Peterson, Gregory R. 2001. Religion as orienting worldview. Zygon 36 (1):5-19.
• Scott, Jamie S., and Paul Simpson-Housley. 1991. Afterword: The geographics of religion in a postmodern environment. In Sacred places and profane spaces: Essays in the geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, edited by J. S. Scott and P. Simpson-Housley, 177-190. New York: Greenwood Press.

Week 8: Nature as Sacred

• Brooke, John Hedley, and G. N. Cantor. 1998. Natural theology and the history of science. In Reconstructing nature: The engagement of science and religion, 141-175. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
• Glacken, Clarence J. 1967. Order and purpose in the cosmos and on earth. In Traces on the Rhodian shore: Nature and culture in Western thought from ancient times to the end of the eighteenth century, 35-79. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Stoll, Mark. 1997. Introduction: The lumbermen of Eden; Beaury and wonder, dominion and stewardship. In Protestantism, capitalism, and nature in America, 1-7, 11-28. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
• Tucker, Mary Evelyn, and John A. Grim. 2001. Introduction: The emerging alliance of world religions and ecology. Daedalus: Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 130 (4):1-22.

Week 9: Nature as Culture

• Castree, Noel. 2001. Socializing nature: Theory, practice, and politics. In Social nature: Theory, practice, and politics, edited by N. Castree and B. Braun, 1-21. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers.
• Hacking, Ian. 1999. What about the natural sciences? In The social construction of what?, 63-99. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
• Latour, Bruno. 1999. Do you believe in reality?. In Pandora's hope: Essays on the reality of science studies, 1-23. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• *Proctor, James D. 1998. The social construction of nature: Relativist accusations, pragmatist and critical realist responses. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88 (3):352-376.

Background | Visions of Nature | Events | Resources

New Visions of Nature, Science and Religion
University of California, Santa Barbara

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