Posted below is the syllabus for the fly fishing themed course I’ll be teaching at my university this fall.
Religion, Sport, and Water: Contemplation and Play in “Nature”
Depiction of Juliana Berners. Lithograph by William Nicholson, 1898.
HONORS 380.2, Fall 2015
Class Time: TU,TH 2:50-4:05
Class Location: AVER 8
Professor: Ken Lokensgard
Office: Plateau Center for Native American Programs, Cleveland 23A
Phone: 509-335-1055
E-mail: kenneth.lokensgard@wsu.edu
Office Hours: TU,TH 4:15-5:00 pm and by appointment.
DESCRIPTION AND GOALS OF COURSE
This course is an introduction to the literary history, religious significance, and socio-cultural impact of fishing. Students will read historically and culturally important texts ranging from those written in Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, and in contemporary North America. All of these texts emphasize a relationship between religious experience, fishing, and the environment. We will explore this relationship, considering the cultural settings of each text while also learning about the overlapping aesthetic, ritual, and ecological dimensions ascribed to fishing—particularly fly fishing—by some of the most notable writers and intellectuals in European and Euro-American history. For comparisons’ sake, we will briefly examine religion and fishing in cultures outside of the European and North American literary worlds, as well. In addition to fishing literature, students will read relevant theoretical texts on religious experience, conservation, ecology, “play,” and “nature.”
As a whole, this course will serve as a focused study of the role that the extra-human environment and religious practice play in European, North American, and other cultural contexts. Thus, the course will introduce students to literature and ways of thinking that can be applied to any implicitly or explicitly religious phenomena that are practiced in so-called “natural” places. Moreover, the course will introduce students to the often religious significance that conservation and other ecologically informed practices play in the lives of many contemporary people.
This course is both reading and writing intensive. Most of the readings, however, were originally written for a popular audience. Also, the writing assignments will allow the student to incorporate his or her own, carefully examined reactions to these readings in his or her papers and essays. Therefore, this class is intended to be entertaining and engaging. Yet, it is designed for the student who is willing to consider religion within its broadest contours, who can devote concerted time to readings, and who is willing to engage in regular and thoughtful writing. If you are not such a student, then, this course is not designed for you.
Please note that Washington State University is committed to maintaining a safe environment for its faculty, staff, and students. Safety is the responsibility of every member of the campus community and individuals should know the appropriate actions to take when an emergency arises. In support of our commitment to the safety of the campus community the University has developed a Campus Safety Plan, http://safetyplan.wsu.edu. It is highly recommended that you visit this web site as well as the University emergency management web site at http://oem.wsu.edu/ to become familiar with the information provided.
ASSIGNED READINGS and OTHER RESOURCES
Required Books:
Swearer, Donald. Ecology and the Environment: Perspectives from the Humanities (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009).
Browning, Mark, Haunted by Waters: Fly Fishing in North American Literature (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998).
Walton, Izaak and Charles Cotton, ed. Marjorie Swann, The Compleat Angler (New York: Oxford University Press, USA: World’s Classics, 2014).
Luce, A.A., Fishing and Thinking (Shrewsbury, UK: Swan Hill Press, 2002).
Maclean, Norman, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Duncan, David James, The River Why, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition (Sierra Club Books, 2002). NOTE: This book is not available through The Bookie.
Other readings are listed in the tentative schedule and will be accessible online, via the course’s Blackboard site.
Films, Guest Lectures, and other activities will serve as important resources. The films are listed in the tentative schedule, below. Informal guest lectures will be delivered by regional artists, authors, and anglers at dates to be announced. Each guest will address the aesthetic and “spiritual” dimensions of fly fishing, from his or her perspective as a craftsperson or author. We will also visit the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections reading room to examine exceptionally rare editions of texts read or discussed in class, which are part of the Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Collection. Among these texts are several first and other 17th c. editions of The Compleat Angler.
Please note this course is designed to help students develop their critical reading and writing skills. Specific methods of critical reading and writing will be discussed in class at opportune times. You are also strongly encouraged to make use of the instructor’s office hours and of the Undergraduate Writing Center in Smith CUE 303.
REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
Four three-page critical reaction papers will be submitted throughout the semester. Papers should be written in a 12 point font with 1 inch margins. Each of these papers is worth 5 percent of your total grade (5 points each). There will be two exams, which will include short answer and essay questions. Each exam is worth 20 percent of the total course grade (20 points each). Toward the end of the semester, a twelve-page paper, analyzing the treatment of religion in at least three of the assigned readings, or in three texts dealing with other “outdoor” practices sometimes characterized as religious (I will provide a bibliography), must be submitted. This paper is worth 30 percent of your total grade (30 points). Ten points are reserved for attendance. Attendance will be taken randomly 10 times during the semester; an unexcused absence during any of these days will result in the loss of one point. See the tentative schedule, below, for due dates and exam dates.
An accumulated 93 or more total points for the course will result in a final “A” grade (“A+” and “D-“ letter grades are not awarded at WSU).
90-92pts = A-
87-89 pts = B+
83-86 pts = B
80-82 pts = B-
77-79 pts = C+
73-76 pts = C
70-72 pts = C-
67-69 pts = D+
60-66 pts = D
0-59 pts = F
Reasonable accommodations are available for students with a documented disability. If you have a disability and need accommodations to fully participate in this class, please either visit or call the Access Center (Washington Building 217; 509-335-3417) to schedule an appointment with an Access Advisor. All accommodations MUST be approved through the Access Center.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY and EXPECTATIONS
Academic integrity is absolutely required in this course. Any student caught cheating, in any way, will fail the course and be reported to the Office of Student Standards and Accountability. Cheating is defined by Washington State Academic Code ((WAC 504-26-010 (3).) It is strongly suggested that you read and understand the definitions.
In this writing intensive course, you should be particularly mindful of avoiding plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined in WAC 504-26-010 (3i) as follows:
Plagiarism is presenting the information, ideas, or phrasing of another person as the student’s own work without proper acknowledgment of the source. This includes submitting a commercially prepared paper or research project or submitting for academic credit any work done by someone else. The term “plagiarism” includes, but is not limited to, the use, by paraphrase or direct quotation, of the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgment. It also includes the unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling of term papers or other academic materials.
All written assignments must be submitted by 11:00 pm on the day they are due. To do this, upload your paper as a document file in the “assignments” section of the course’s Blackboard site. The title of your file should be “HONORS 380.2 Paper #–your first and last name” (e.g., HONORS 380.2 Paper 1–Juliana Berners). Please put your name on the first page of the document itself, as well. Late assignments will not be accepted unless prior arrangements are made or if a documentable emergency occurs.
Tentative Midterm Exam Date: Oct. 6.
Final Exam Date and Time: Tuesday, Dec. 15, 10:10 am – 12:10 pm.
TENTATIVE WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Week 1: August 25 and 27.
Academic Integrity, the Academic Study of Religion, and Religion as a Lived, Social Phenomenon.
Readings: Browning, ch’s 1 and 2, Haunted by Waters (skip “The Interludes”); Snyder, “New Streams of Religion (online); Primiano, “Vernacular Religion” (online).
Film: Prosek, The Complete Angler.
Week 2: September 1 and 3.
Water, Humanity, and Other-Than-Human Worlds.
Readings: Turner, “Liminality and Communitas,” (online); Jackson, “Cultural Readings of the ‘Natural World’” (online).
Week 3: September 8 and 10.
Ancient and Medieval European Fishing, Monasticism, Sustenance, and Leisure.
Readings: Hoffman, ed., Excerpt from Fernando Basurto’s Dialogo (online); Berners, “The Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle” (online); James, “Mysticism” (online).
Paper 1 Due
Week 4: September 15 and 17.
King Arthur’s Knights, Celtic and Anglo Saxon Fishing, and England.
Readings: Walton, The Compleat Angler (Part I, ch’s 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 16, 21).
Visit to MASC.
Week 5: September 22 and 24.
The Enlightenment, Play, and the Escape to Nature.
Readings: Cotton, The Compleat Angler (Part II, letters, “Retirement,” skim ch’s 5-12).
Week 6: September 29 and October 1.
The Americas, Natural Law, and Romanticism.
Readings: Worster “Nature, Liberty, and Equality,” in Ecology and Environment; Seecombe, “Business and Diversion” (online).
Paper 2 Due.
Week 7: October 6 and 8.
Midterm Exam (Oct. 6).
The Americas, Romanticism v. Reality.
Browning, ch’s 5 and 6 (skip “Interludes), Haunted by Waters.
Week 8: October 13 and 15.
The Americas, Romanticism v. Reality.
Hemingway, “Big Two-Hearted River” (online).
Week 9: October 20 and 22.
Fishing, Religion, and Relationship.
Readings: Browning, ch’s 9, Haunted by Waters; Luce, ch’s 1-6, Fishing and Thinking.
Paper 3 Due.
Week 10: October 27 and 29.
Fishing, Relationship, and Ethics.
Readings: Luce, ch’s 7-12, Fishing and Thinking.
Week 11: November 3 and 5.
Lived Religion, Map, and Territory.
Readings: Maclean, A River Runs Through It.
Week 12: November 10 and 12.
Lived Religion, Nature Mysticism, and Ecology.
Readings: Duncan, The River Why.
Paper 4 Due.
Week 13: November 17 and 19.
Lived Religion, Nature Mysticism,and Ecology.
Readings: Duncan, The River Why; Browning, ch’s 7 and 8, Haunted by Waters.
Week 14: November 19 and 21.
Native American and other Religious Views of Water, Fish, and Fishing.
Readings: Browning, ch 3, Haunted by Waters; Tucker, “Touching the Depths of Things,” in Ecology and the Environment; Lokensgard, “One-Horned Serpents, Underwater People, and Fly Fishers” (online).
Week 15: December 1 and 3.
Religion, “Nature,” and the Environment.
Readings: Taylor, “From the Ground Up,” in Ecology and the Environment; Browning, ch’s 10 and 11, Haunted by Waters.
Week 16: December 8 and 10.
Conclusion.
Readings: Ecology and the Environment, “Literature as Environmentalist Thought Experiment.”
Film: A River runs Through It.
Analytic Paper Due: December 10.
Final Exam Date and Time: Tuesday, Dec. 15, 10:10 am – 12:10 pm.
Copyright 2015 Kenneth H. Lokensgard
The Literary Fly Fisher 