HONOR3603

This course focuses on the legacy of the plantation and how it informs and inspires perceptions of cultivated green spaces, farms, gardens, and the labor that sustains these places. From the Garden of Eden to the plantation to our modern day agro-industrial farms and small community gardens, how have our ideas of the garden and agricultural labor shaped how food is produced for us and how we imagine sustenance and community? We’ll situate our studies for the most part on the experience of marginalized diasporic groups in the U.S with historical colonial connections across the Americas. We’ll pay attention to how these perspectives and experiences interact with a range of issues related to sex and gender, race, property, life, the human or nonhuman, and more. In particular, we chart the ways that communities have used the garden, especially to plot and provision alternative ecologies to colonial and capitalist systems.

Prerequisites: Member of the Honors College AND Junior Level.

Fall