History 211: History of the Desert

Fall 2004

 MWF 11-11.50

Life Sciences 131

Gary Reger

Seabury 405

(860) 297-2393

Humans have a long history of interaction with arid environments. We have created great agricultural civilizations in arid environments, sought solitude for religious practice, drilled for oil, explored, conquered, and – most recently – preserved. This course explores the range of human activity in and attitudes toward arid environments in a diachronic and comparative manner.

Right: Libyan Desert near the Pyramids at Giza, Egypt

Please note: I have not taught this course before.  This course applies only as an elective toward a History major.

Assignments

Participation. Every Friday's class (with a few exceptions noted in the weekly Schedule below) will be devoted to discussion of the readings for the week. Every student is expected to come to class having read carefully the assignments and prepared to make substantive contributions to the class discussion.

Mid-term exam. There will be a mid-term exam on Friday, October 22. The details will be announced later.

Option of Papers and Final. I am offering two options for completing the course work. (1) Students may elect to write two (2) short papers linked to the readings. One such paper is due before the midterm on any reading you chose, the other will be due before the Friday before Thanksgiving Break (November 17) on any reading between the midterm and the end of the course. Students electing this option will also take the final exam. (2) Students may elect to write only the first paper and replace the second paper and the final with a longer paper with a research component. This second paper will be due on the day of the final.

You will need to let me know by October 22 which option you will pursue. I will set up meetings with everyone choosing option (2) to decide on topics within the two weeks after the mid-term exam.

Short Papers. Everyone will write at least one (1) short paper of 4-5 pp. These papers focus on a reading of your choice and should offer an analysis of that reading (not a narrative or mere summary of content) dealing with the contribution of the reading to the aims of this course. The first paper may be handed in any time up to October 20 and may deal with anything we have read up October 18. Students choosing option (1) outlined above will also write a second short paper dealing with any reading between October 25 and November 17 due on November 17. Because you may choose your reading and hand in your paper anytime up to the due date(s), NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED.

Research Paper. Students electing option (2) outlined above will write a longer research paper (10-12 pp.) on a topic developed in consultation with me. Final version due on December 20 by 2 pm.

Final exam or final paper. There will be a final exam on December 20, 12-2 pm. Final papers are due on the same day at noon, to be delivered to the exam room.

Readings

            Athanasius, The Life of Antony. The Coptic Life and the Greek Life, tr. Tim Vivian and Anastasios Athanassakis

            Richard W. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (New York: Columbia University Press 1990).

            Most of the readings are posted on the Blackboard (abbreviated as "BB" below) site for this course, where they may be read on line or printed.

 Schedule of Classes

 September 6 (M): Introduction. Why the desert?

             Does the proposition of a "history of the desert" simply recall the old theory of environmental determinism? Or can the study of human activity in similar environments in different times and places contribute something new and useful to our understanding of human history? This course as an exercise largely in comparative history.

September 8 (W): What is a Desert?

            Geography vs. history. Deserts as a physical phenomenon vs. deserts as an historical phenomenon.

 September 10 (F): Discussion

I. Attitudes toward the Desert in Western Imagination:

from the Bible to Edward Abbey

September 13 (M): The Desert in the Bible

            Reading: Bible, Exod 2:11-3:18, 4:18-5:13, 13:17-14:30, 15:22-17:7, 24:9-18; Num 13:17-14:45, 20:1-13, 21:4-9, 25:1-17; Deut 32:48-52; Mark 1:1-13; Matt 2:13-4:11; Luke 3:1-22, 4:1-13

September 15 (W): Ibn Khaldun and the Theory of the Desert

             Reading: Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah. An Introduction to History, tr. Franz Rosenthal, ed. N. J. Dawood (Princeton 1967) pp. 91-122 (BB). Further information about Ibn Khaldun can be found at Ibn Khaldun on the Web, with links to many other on-line resources.

                    Right: Tunisian postage stamp depicting Ibn Khaldun --

September 17 (F): Discussion

September 20 (M): American Views of the Desert, I. A New Aesthetic -- John C. Van Dyke

            Reading: John C. Van Dyke, "Desert Days," The Open Spaces (New York 1922) pp. 78-101 (BB)

September 22 (W): American Views of the Desert, II. Edward Abbey and His Critics

            Reading: Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire. A Season in the Wilderness (New York 1968) 112-127 ("Water") and 39-59 ("Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks") (BB)

September 24 (F): Discussion

II. The Early Christian Desert

September 27 (M): Early Christian Monasticism and the Deserts of Syria and Egypt

            Reading: Start Athanasios, Life of Antony, pp. 51-137 (odd numbered pages only)

            Right -- El Sourian monastery at Wadi Natrun

September 29 (W): St. Antony in the Desert

            Reading: Continue Athanasios, Life of Antony, pp. 139-259 (odd numbered pages only)

October 1 (F): Discussion

            Reading: Finish Athanasios, Life of Antony, pp. xxiii-lxvi (general introduction)

III. Making the Desert Bloom: Irrigation and Agriculture -- Four Case Studies

"This is the way the ditch is. You work yourself half to death and think everything's fine. But it isn't. It never is. The ditch is a moody creature, unpredictable, irritable, irritating, unreliable...."

-- Stanley Crawford, Mayordomo (Albuquerque 1988) 74

October 4 (M): The Fayum in Egypt

"Pour qui va dans le Fayoum, devant le spectacle du désert qui a repris sa place, ne laissant que des dunes attendant leurs fouilléurs, il faut un sérieux effort d'imagination pour ressusciter l'activité de ce chantier d'o avaient surgi une ville et des domaines."

 -- Maire-Claire Amouretti, Le pain et l’huile dans la Grece antique. (Paris 1986) 238.

Left: View of the ruins of Karanis, once a thriving Roman town, now reclaimed by the desert.

Right: View of one of the modern Fayum canals.

For much very useful information about the Fayum, see the Fayum Project website under the

direction of Willy Clarysse. The Department of Greek and Latin at the University College London runs the Fayum Survey Project under the direction of Cornelia Römer. The Project explores the western Fayum, including the area around Philoteris, where a canal system has been a special focus of interest.

            Reading: Fayum documents (BB)

October 6 (W): The Hohokam in the Southwestern United States

        Reading: Jerry B. Howard, "A Paleohydraulic Approach to Examining Agricultural Intensification in Hohokam Irrigation Systems," in Economic Aspects of Water Management in the Prehispanic New World, eds. Vernon L. Scarborough and Barry L. Isaac (Greenwich-London 1993) 263-324 (BB)

    Right: The Big House at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

October 8 (F): Discussion

October 11-12 (M-T): Trinity Days. No classes

October 13 (W): Nessana – A Desert Community in Late Antiquity

            Reading: Nessana documents (BB)

October 15 (F): India – Imperialism and the Conquest of the Desert

            Reading: David Gilmartin, "Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation in the Indus Basin," Journal of Asian Studies 53 (1994) 1127-1149 (BB)

October 18 (M): The Vision of John Wesley Powell

            Reading: John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah, ed. Wallace Stegner (Cambridge, Mass. 1962) pp. 37-57 (Chapter II, "The Land System Needed for the Arid Region") (BB)

October 20 (W): Discussion

October 22 (F): Mid-term Exam

IV. Peoples of the Desert

October 25 (M): The Sanusi of North Africa

            Reading: Emrys L. Peters, The Bedouin of Cyrenaica. Studies in Personal and Corporate Power (Cambridge 1990) 10-28 ("The Sanusi Order and the Bedouin") (BB)

October 27 (W): Akimel O'odham ("Pima") of the Sonoran Desert

            Reading: TBA

            Have a look also at the Gila River Indian Community web page.

October 29 (F): Discussion

V. Movement of Goods: The Desert as Connector

November 1 (M): The Camel

             Right: Monument in Arizona to Hadji Ali ("Hi Jolly"), a driver for the US Camel Corps

            Reading: Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel, pp. 7-27, 87-140, 216-236

November 3 (W): The Darb el-^cArbein and the Sudanese Slave Trade

            Reading: William G. Browne, Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria from the Year 1792 to 1798 (London 1799) 180-215 (BB)

            A note on the current situation -- The southwestern region of Sudan, called Darfur, will be familiar to you now as a source of slaves for the nineteenth century slave trade to Egypt and Libya through desert caravan routes like the Darb el-^cArbein. Today this region suffers from ravages of war and genocide perpetrated by the Sudanese government on ethnic minorities. To find out more, visit Darfur: A Genocide We Can Stop, and see the article "Dying in Darfur," by Samantha Power in the New Yorker (August 30, 2004).

November 5 (F): Discussion

Panorama of the Baris Oasis in Kharga, Seen from Kysis

VI. War in the Desert

November 8 (M): Roman Troops at Mons Claudianus -- Keeping the Barbarians at Bay

            Reading: Ostraka of the Eastern Desert, I (BB)

            Left -- O. Krok. 87, the "Amphora of the Barbarians"

November 10 (W): The North African Campaign of World War II

            Reading: TBA

November 12 (F): Discussion

VII. Exploiting the Desert

November 15 (M): The Roman Quarries at Mons Claudianus

            Reading: Ostraka of the Eastern Desert, II (BB)

November 17 (W): American Extraction: The Mining Law of 1872

            Reading: The text of the law (BB)

The Lavender Pit at Bisbee, Arizona

Dodge-Phelps Mine

November 19 (F): Discussion

VIII. The Nuclear Desert

November 22 (M): Nevada Test Range and South Africa in the Kalahari [Note: Circumstances require me to be out-of-town for this class meeting. Please do the reading. We will cover this material and that scheduled for November 29 on the latter day.]

                Right: "Priscilla," a balloon-born 37-kiloton nuclear bomb denoted at the Nevada Test Site on June 24, 1957

            Reading: TBA

November 24-28 (W-Sun): Thanksgiving Vacation

November 29 (M): The Desert as Dump

            Reading: Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management, Yucca Mountain Project, is the official federal government site about Yucca Mountain. The State of Nevada Comments on Yucca Mountain Environmental Impact Statement archives the official responses to the State of Nevada to the federal government's Environmental Impact Statements on the site (the EIS can be found through the Yucca Mountain Project page). The Eureka County Nevada Nuclear Waste Page and the Churchill County Nuclear Waste Oversight Program present updates from local governments in areas affected by nuclear waste deposition at Yucca Mountain.  The Shundahai Network is a group of Western Shoshone activists working against the Yucca Project. The Western Shoshone Defense Project works as the tribe's official organ opposing the site. This listing is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

IX. Preserving the Desert

December 1 (W): Creation of Desert Parks and Monuments

            Reading: Richard S. Felger, Bill Broyles, Michael Wilson, and Gary Paul Nabhan, "The Binational Sonoran Desert Biosphere Network and Its Plant Life," in Dry Borders. Binational Sonoran Desert Reserves, eds. Richard S. Felger and Bill Broyles, Journal of the Southwest 39.3-4 (1997) 411-560 (note: only pp. 411-425 included) and Wendy Laird, Joaquin Murrieta-Saldivar, and John Shepard, "Cooperation Across Borders: A Brief History of Biosphere Reserves in the Sonoran Desert," ibid. 307-313 (BB)

            Web sites for some of the western US desert preserves include: Mojave National Preserve, established in 1994 by the California Desert Protection Act; Death Valley National Park, designated a national monument in 1933 and upgraded to a park in 1994; Joshua Tree National Park, designated a national monument in 1936 and upgraded to a park in 1994; Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, established in 1937; Saguaro National Park, designated a national monument in 1933 and upgraded to a park in 1994; Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, created in 1939; Sonoran Desert National Monument, established by proclamation of Bill Clinton in 2001.

December 3 (F): Discussion

X. Deserts of the Imagination

December 6 (M): Encounters with Aliens. Deserts of Hope, Deserts of Fear

            Reading: View the film It Came from Outer Space (On reserve in the Media Library); Ray Bradbury's short story (BB)

December 8 (W): The Deserts of Outer Space -- Percival Lowell and the Deserts of Mars

            Reading: TBA

XI. Conclusions -- Out of the Desert

December 10 (F): Conclusions and Final Discussion

December 20 (M): Final Exam, 12-2 pm

College Course 245: The Sonoran Desert (0.5 cr). Students who have taken History 211 will be given preference in registration for a course I will be teaching in the Spring 2005 semester on the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. This 0.5-credit, which counts only as an elective, culminates in a Spring Break trip to Arizona during which we will be camping and hiking in the desert. Please see me during pre-registration if you are interested.