Courses
The Spring Creek Project sponsors the development of new courses that cross all boundaries, bringing together OSU students and townspeople, science and the humanities, professors and practitioners, to study together in forests and along rivers, and, by these confluences, to understand the connections that explain and sustain us in the world.
PHL 499/599: Philosophy of Nature
Camping in a ponderosa pine forest at the edge of a Cascade Mountain lake, we will gather to study the philosophy of nature. What is nature? What is the relation of humans to the rest of the natural world? How are our concepts of nature shaped by the words and metaphors we use? What is the value of wild places? What can we learn from a close study of the natural world about right ways of acting in communities, both civic and biotic?
The course will draw on many ways of knowing—often philosophical analysis, but also creative writing, storytelling, music, close observation, scientific study, and "simply messing about in boats." Please know that field courses are challenging. Readings and assignments are extensive, faculty expectations (and enthusiasm) are high, and an entire term of study is compressed into a limited period of time. Students can expect a week of deep and intense thinking, collaborating, reading, and especially writing.
Download the syllabus. (PDF 64kb)
To view the Philosophy of Nature Reading List click here.
Native American Philosophies -- PHL 448/548; ES448/548
Native American Philosophies links an on-campus course with a community lecture series. Each time the course meets, a distinguished Native American writer, performer, or scholar speaks to an audience that includes community members and students enrolled in the course. The series provides a place where Native voices will be heard and carefully considered, and where many ways of knowing--poetry, music, story-telling, scholarship, lectures--will lead us to examine what we most deeply believe about who we are in the world and what sustains us, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Spring 2007 speakers include Leslie Marmon Silko, Wilma Mankiller, Linda Hogan, and Jan Michael Looking Wolf Reibach among others. Lectures are every Wednesday night from April 4 to June 6. Click here for the full schedule.
The course explores Native American perspectives on ways of knowing, and the relationship between self, community, and cosmos. It invites students and community members to engage in a sustained meditation on the ideas of leading Native American thinkers about the human relation to the natural world; sources of strength and wisdom; the nature of time and place and spirit; right ways of acting in communities, both civic and biotic; and the place of beauty in a well-lived life.
This course is a collaboration between the Spring Creek Project, Department of Ethnic Studies, and Department of Philosophy. Students may enroll for credits in ethnic studies or in philosophy. Additional sponsors include the Native American Collaborative Institute, and the USDA Forest Service.
All lectures are free and open to the public.
Download the Native American Philosophies 2007 syllabus. (PDF 112kb)