Choose two of the following three questions on which to write 800 word (maximum) essays.
(1) . Write an essay that answers the following questions about this passage from Cronons The Trouble with Wilderness.
If the core problem with wilderness is that it distances us too much from the very things it teaches us to value, then the question we must ask is what it can tell us about home, the place where we actually live? p. 23
What is wilderness, according to Cronon?
How does it distance us too much from the things it teaches us to value?
What does Cronon think wilderness can teach us about home?
What do you think is the most philosophically problematic or appealing aspect of Cronons suggestion for what wilderness can teach us about home?
2. In Embodied Realism and Invasive Species, Brendan Larson argues that the concept of ecological invasion is constituted by three performative metaphors. Write an essay that answers the following questions about the performative metaphors of invasion.
What are the metaphors from which the concept of ecological invasion is constructed, according to Larson?
In what ways is the metaphor-laden idea of ecological invasion performative?
What are some of the ethical implications of the performative force of the idea of ecological invasion?
How do you think we should respond to these ethical implications?
3. In Gender, Race, and the Regulation of Native Identity in Canada and the United States, Bonita Lawrence argues for the following claims.
. . . systems [of classification and regulation of Indian status, such as the Indian Act] have indelibly and forcibly supplanted traditional indigenous ways of anchoring relationships among individuals, their communities, and the land. Native identity has been categorized and “measured” according to racist and sexist criteria; these categories are then used to divide communities and to deny entitlement to land to certain groups of Native people. For the colonizer, this not only facilitates the theft of Native land but also effectively divides Native opposition to the land theft. p. 24
Draw from Lawrences article and from Alanis Obamsawins Waban-aki: People from Where the Sun Rises to explain the claims Lawrence makes in this passage.
