Sarah S. Elkind

 

Course Descriptions

 

 

History 110:  US History since 1877 (usually offered Fall semesters)

My approach to this introductory course in U. S. history emphasizes environmental history, San Diego in the context of national trends, and changes in legal protections for freedom of speech during the twentieth century.  This course satisfies part of the GE requirements in American Institutions and Foundations – Humanities.

 

History 441: Unnatural Disasters (usually offered Spring semesters)

Global warming, rising gas prices, crashing fish populations, deforestation, water pollution, asthma, toxic mine runoff, eroding topsoil, environmental racism É we face a host of environmental problems today that seem so monstrous that it is hard to know what to do, or how things got so bad. This course will give you a better sense of why environmental problems have developed, what they might mean for us in the future.  The course will interest activists, but we will not "take sides" on these issues.  Our focus will be understanding the cultural, social and economic pressures -- the logical decisions -- that have led us to use nature as we do.

 

History 452 Advanced Internships in Public History (offered Spring semesters)

Independent, hands-on service learning internships in museum and park interpretation, research and archives.  Requires spring registration, but students can complete an internship any time of year.  Satisfies the History 450w requirement for history majors.  Click here for more information about internships.

 

History 584: Topics in Environmental History – course material varies from semester to semester.  SDSU students may take History 584 twice, as long as course material is different each time.  (usually offered once a year)

 

Environmental History of the United States

Americans have described their continent as both a promised land and a dangerous wilderness, an opportunity for an egalitarian society and for the expansion of private property.  Federal and state policies have distributed land, timber, water and minerals in order to protect both individual settlers and large corporations.  This course will examine the many contradictory ways in which Americans have viewed their land, and how these perceptions have been translated into private and public development decisions.  Through monographs and independent research, we will question the political, cultural, economic and technological influences on the American landscape.

 

Press, Politics and the Environment

In recent years, the news media have come under increasing criticism for their role in the American political process.  But newspapers, magazines and other media have always influenced public policy.  Editorial decisions about coverage and the presentation of information determines which issues attract public attention, how policy options are conceived by voters and officials alike, and which voices considered "legitimate" in policy disputes.  The importance of the press is further reinforced by elected officials' reliance on media as a proxy for public opinion.  This course will explore the role of the news media by examining the changing presentation of specific environmental controversies in news reports over time, with specific attention to agenda setting, reporting on scientific and technical debates, environmental problems, and the interactions between the public, media and policy makers.

 

Water in the West

The American West begins beyond the hundredth meridian, where the rains cease, and any intensive land use requires irrigation.  Or, at least, this is what some western historians seeking to define their field have argued.  Whether aridity defines the west or not is an open question, but certainly the history of water in the west tells us much about the values, dreams and political conflicts that have shaped American society.  This course will examine water development and water conflicts in the American west from the nineteenth century to the present.  We will examine how Americans have used water, and how they have fought over it, with particular attention to the values that have shaped the distribution and use of water in this arid land.

 

 

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