Colonial Ecologies

This seminar explores the historical ecology of European colonial expansion in a comparative framework, concentrating on the production of “periphery” and the transformation of incorporated societies and environments. In the first half of the semester, we will consider the theoretical frameworks, sources of evidence, and analytical strategies employed by researchers to address the conjunction of environmental and human history in colonial contexts. During the second half of the course, we will explore the uses of these varied approaches and lines of evidence in relation to specific cases and trajectories of transformation since the sixteenth century.