Not in Kansas anymore.....

Well Toto........

it's a different world down south. My second pre-pre day of school. Reflections: UGA is a very different institution than any I have ever attended. As opposed to a hike up gap mountain, we had an orientation sponsored by verizon wireless, where rubber beer coasters with important academic websites were passed out (something UGA student's couldn't misplace). Unlike Antioch's predominantly crunchy bearded folk (which applies to all genders, and everything in between), there are the air-brushed blondes and abercrombie-beer-can-crushing-on-head student body. Ok, i'm being way too judgemental. maybe. not.

I did register for classes today though....in the lineup is

Foundations of Ecological Anthropology (taught by my advisor)
Human-environment interaction in anthropological perspective from the eighteenth century to the present. (ok that is a horrible description of a class that i think will be extremely interesting)

History of Anthropological thought
The development of anthropological theory. (wow! ditto)

A proseminar (no description)

and

New Geographies of Conservation


This Graduate Seminar will help to deconstruct nature conservation in contemporary narratives of cultural landscapes. The main goal is to expose graduate students to the current literature on biodiversity conservation and the human predicament. The analyses of classical works on wilderness, of challenges to ideas of an uncommon ground to study the place of humans in nature will help us to construct appropriate descriptors of cultural landscapes with four major pillars: a) cultural reactions and conceptions of nature, b) degradation and restoration cycles of the environment, c) ecological time and footprint, and d) ecological forecasting and geographical scenarios of sustainability.

The first 3 weeks, we will be exposed to theorizing the objectives of nature conservation in a globalized world. We would analyze the metageography of continents to frame conservation scenarios in a North-South vector, with spatialitites of sustainability and transfrontier conservation. We will also identify the constraints of designing protected areas with the idea of wilderness and our definitions of paradise as archetype of the governance of conservation in a central protection scheme. We then construct our narrative for the human dimension of place worth conserving, namely a cultural landscape. The following weeks will bring a dynamic discussion based on students' presentations, and a final videoconference with the main actors of political ecology and conservation science available.

ok, i cheated on that one (don't tell the academci honesty gestapo) and copied it from the instructors course description.

Anyway, so i'm sure it will be interesting. Tommorrow, the pre-pre-pre first day of school, or would that just be one pre as the first is on thursday!, i will be meeting with the professor I am TAing for to discuss tactics for indoctrinating the minds of the young.