HSTRY 498 A Seminar Summer 2026
Bodies, Commodities, and Global Environments
Room: Thomson Hall 215 Time & Date: Fri. 09:40AM - 11:50AM
Instructor: Nathan Roberts Email: ner3@uw.edu
Office Hours: By appointment in person or on ZOOM
Course Design and Goals
This conceptually rich course asks students to investigate the intersections where human and other living bodies, commodities and the processes of commodification, and diverse environments and cultures meet. It further asks students to interrogate many accepted and oft repeated ideas about nature, culture, and the marketplace. For example, bodies, far from being discrete entities are not only part of environments but also deeply implicated in environmental change. Commodities, though they make up substantial portions of our world and daily habits, are one of the most significant cultural practices that humans have for changing the meanings of bodies and the material world. And, environments are not simply the blackboard on which we write human stories or reap resources, but both material and cultural constructs that present limits to human behaviors and desires. The material and cultural spaces where these topics meet offer great insight into how humans remake both the human and non-human worlds on a daily basis.
The course is a seminar, which means an opportunity to discuss readings in the field with the instructor and students during our Friday meetings. Each week, the class will have assigned common readings, and it is necessary that you complete the readings before class so that we can discuss them. In addition, each student will develop their own course project that examines a topic of their choosing related to the course themes. This project includes sharing with the class the topic’s theoretical problems, some of what the student is learning from historical sources, and how the student is approaching their work. Ultimately, each student will produce an original historiographical essay on the topic.
Friday Sessions:
Students must show up to class with the assigned reading completed. Students should take good notes so that they can discuss the readings in depth. In addition, as participation is a major portion of your overall course grade, be ready to interact with the instructor and the other students. Do not assume that I will do most of the talking. You all should be prepared to bring up your own questions, comments, and observations.
Required Readings:
Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (Hill and Wang, 1995).
Other short readings will be on our Canvas website as pdfs.
Readings: everyone will read.
White, The Organic Machine
Early Period: choose one
Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery
Koeppel, Banana
Murphy, Captivity’s Collections
Later Period: choose one
Langston, Toxic Bodies
Govindrajan, Animal Intimacies
Zheng, Red Lights
Assignments & Grading
Participation 20%
Short Paper 15%
Glossary Assignment 15%
Historiographical Essay 50%
*Includes Rough Draft (20%) and Final Draft (30%)
Participation
Your in-person contribution to the course is a major part of the course grade. You must show up on Friday ready to engage the other students and the instructor through active listening, generative questions, and analytical comments. It is essential that our conversations are grounded in the readings.
If you are unable to attend class and want to provide official documentation from a doctor, police, courts, or another official source then I can excuse the absence. Otherwise, I will not. Credit for participation that is missed cannot be made up.
Short Paper
The course’s short paper is simply a briefer version of the historiographical essay that you must write. The short paper will draw on the readings and concepts from the first few weeks of the course. It should place secondary sources into conversation with one other in order to explain and analyze a select group of the course’s main topics.
Glossary Assignment
This assignment is designed to help the students understand the course’s concepts through defining and explaining examples from the readings and examples in the wider world.
Each week certain students will work together or individually in an online forum, probably Instagram, to offer clarity to complex concepts. These posts should be accompanied by real world images and examples. The intention is clarity, so these entries should be legible and relatable to people outside of the course and the university.
Instagram information:
Instagram: bodiescommoditiesenvironments pw: 498bAu24
Requirements:
- Your name.
- Citation for the source. (minimum: author, title, date)
- Minimum 3 images. Think creatively. Please avoid copyrighted images and stock photos from the internet or software.
- Specific term or concept such as "commodity fetishism," "companion species," "the ecological body"
- Quote from the author, presumably a definition. Max. 50 words.
- An original example or interpretation in your own words. Max. 75 words.
Historiographical Essay
The course’s largest assignment is a historiographical essay that deals with the course’s main topics, concepts, and themes. Each student will design their own focus and emphasize the readings and ideas that are most compelling to them. The essay requires a rough draft of at least 1,500 words and a final draft of 3,000 to 4,000 words (not including footnotes).
Late Policy:
The course’s papers and glossary assignments degrade by 0.5 on the 4.0 scale each day that they are turned in late.
Online discussion posts can not be turned in late or made up.
CLASS SCHEDULE
Week 1 - June 26
Discuss Course, Assignments, Syllabus, and initial readings on bioethics.
Assign Early Books
Week 2 - July 3
Discuss Foundational Common Readings
Assign common readings:
- Johnson, Soul by Soul Intro, chs. 1 and 4.
- Camp, Closer to Freedom ch. 3
- Qureshi, “Displaying Sara Baartman…”
Week 3 - July 10
Discuss common slavery readings
Students should be able to introduce their early book by having read and understood at least the introduction and possibly the first chapters as well.
Assign common readings:
- White, “From Globalized Pig Breeds to Capitalist Pigs…”
- O’Gorman and Gaynor, “More than Human Histories”
Week 4 - July 17
Discuss Early Books - Students should have at least 80% of their early book read.
Discuss White, “From Globalized Pig Breeds to Capitalist Pigs…” and O’Gorman and Gaynor, “More than Human Histories”
Assign common reading:
- White, The Organic Machine
Week 5 - July 24
Final discussion of early books.
Discuss White, The Organic Machine.
Assign Common Readings:
- De Muth, The Floating Coast
- Rosenthal, “Life and Labor in a Seabird Colony”
- Kreitman, “The Race to Marcus Island”
DUE Tues July 28 - Short Essay
Week 6 - July 31
Discuss common readings: De Muth, Rosenthal, and Kreitman
Students should be able to introduce late period books by having read the Introduction at least.
Assign common readings:
- Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World
- Mansfield, “Fish, Factory Trawlers, and Imitation Crab…”
Week 7 - Aug 7
Discuss first half of late period books.
Discuss common readings: Tsing and Mansfield
Assign common reading:
- Mitchell, “Can the Mosquito Speak?”
Week 8 - Aug 14
Rough Draft due on Canvas Wed
Discuss second half of late period books.
Discuss common readings: Mitchell.
Assign Feral Atlas
Week 9 - Aug 21 - Last In-class Meeting
Discuss Feral Atlas
Discuss Final Papers and Final Thoughts
Final Paper due