(UN)NATURAL HISTORY:

CONSTRUCTING + DISPLAYING THE ENVIRONMENT

IN COLONIAL COLLECTIONS + MUSEUMS
MSMS-GA 3330 // Spring 2021
Program in Museum Studies // New York University

Professor Elaine Ayers (she / her) Class Meetings: Mondays 10AM-1PM

240 Greene Street, 4th Floor Location: 194 Washington Square, Rm. 208
New York, NY 10003 // Lenapehoking Remote Office Hours: Mondays 4-6PM
elaine.ayers@nyu.edu // 507.450.3932 -or by appointment-

PENETRATED jungles, “Mother Nature,” primitive forests, quests to “preserve” the redwoods,
and silenced and buried cosmologies and worldviews—for hundreds of years, the environment has
been granted an anthropomorphized body along gendered, sexualized, and racialized terms,
rendering its products extractible while forming “specimens” out of living beings. This class traces
shifting conceptualizations of nature from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing on how
naturalists and scientists have described, collected, and displayed “new” environments in building
extractive natural history museums along colonial lines. Ranging from Linnaean systems of
classification to eugenic constructions of “wilderness” and from studies of evolution and
degeneration to post-nuclear landscapes in the Anthropocene, we will discuss how ideas about
race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability have been written onto nature, and how these social
categories have been variously defined as “natural” and “unnatural” throughout history. Readings
across multiple disciplines will inform conversations about knowledge production, possession and
dispossession, and classificatory and preservational impulses with the goal of interrogating how
these power structures have produced archival silences that enact long-lasting violence on the
environment and on human voices and bodies.

Class Logistics:
This class will be meeting in “hybrid mode”—barring changes to New York State / university
regulations or to students’ accessibility, some of us will meet in person at 194 Washington Square,
and some of us will participate synchronously via Zoom. For those of us meeting in person,
everyone must comply with university standards of COVID tracking (including biweekly testing
and completion of the daily screener), masks must be worn the entire time we are in the building,
and social distancing must be maintained. For those of us meeting remotely, please join class via
the circulated Zoom link and follow basic guidelines to help class run smoothly: mute your audio
when not speaking, wear headphones or otherwise try to reduce background noise, keep your
camera on if possible, and avoid private chats with classmates (your Zoom host can see these when

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the session ends). If you anticipate needing to participate remotely rather than in person or
asynchronously instead of synchronously, please get in touch with me as soon as possible so that
we can form a plan. Because of the uncertain nature of the pandemic, I ask that we all work together
and bear with each other: how we meet this semester is likely to change on short notice.

Grading:
Class Participation: 10%
Leading Class Discussion: 10%
Short Writing Assignments: 20%
Midterm Project Proposal: 20%
Final Project: 40%

Participation:
Like last semester, this semester presents extraordinary challenges as we navigate hybrid learning
during a global pandemic under a new administration, and we should anticipate inconsistencies
and disruptions to our schedule. In order to mitigate these inconsistencies, please arrive on time to
class, let me know if there are any changes to how you are able to participate as soon as possible,
and come to class with readings done, discussion questions and contributions prepared, and
distractions silenced. Following university policy, students are allowed absences for legitimate
reasons—see NYU’s policy on religious observances at <https://www.nyu.edu/about/policies-
guidelines-compliance/policies-and-guidelines/university-calendar-policy-on-religious-
holidays.html>

Please follow NYU’s guidelines on COVID testing, tracking, and reporting (these are kept up to
date on the NYU Returns site). If you are entering campus buildings, you must be tested biweekly
and complete the daily screener—failure to adhere to these guidelines will not constitute an
excused absence from class. If you fail to wear your mask or socially distance yourself during
class, you will be asked to leave immediately. If you are experiencing any symptoms of illness, do
not come to class in person. I will work with you one-on-one if you need unforeseen
accommodations because of the pandemic, and we should all endeavor to treat each other with
extra care, flexibility, and generosity this semester. If you feel unable to safely conduct or discuss
your work due to your home environment, please get in touch with me. Your health, safety, and
wellbeing are more important than this (or any) course.

Everyone comes into class with different learning styles and forms of experience. Some students
might come into class with strong opinions about the readings while others might process their
thoughts more slowly and through collaboration. Please note that by the very nature of this class,
many of the topics that we discuss are purposely political, complex, and sometimes polarizing.

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This class will function as a safe space with a zero-tolerance policy for racist, sexist, or ableist
discourse, and you must refer to colleagues by their preferred pronouns and chosen name.
Everyone should feel comfortable to raise questions, voice confusion, and / or debate difficult and
confronting issues online and in class.

Required Course Materials:

All required readings will be posted to NYUClasses for this course—you do not need to buy any
books. Readings are subject to change throughout the semester, and we might experience some
hiccups in obtaining and accessing sources due to changing access to Bobst Library. On the first
day of class we will choose what book you would like to work with for your second short writing
assignment (I will circulate a list of options during class): I will purchase a copy of this book for
you.

Library and e-book access are subject to change this semester (usually at the discretion of
publishers, not the university), and we should anticipate slower turnaround times for scanning
sources, book requests and deliveries, and interlibrary loan requests. Please take this into
consideration when planning research for your final project, and request sources as early as
possible. For specific questions on how to obtain resources or work with online databases, please
get in touch with our Fine Arts + Museum Studies Librarian, Giana Ricci (gr985@nyu.edu).

Assignments:
Students are required to (1) lead class discussion twice throughout the semester; (2) write two short
assignments—one object study and one book review on a book of your choosing from a distributed
list; (3) write one project proposal due at midterm; and (4) produce one final project, either a
“traditional” research paper or a “creative option” fulfilling similar scholarly standards and
accompanied by a full bibliography. Your final project, whether traditional or creative, must be
approved by me during a one-on-one meeting.

For all written work, assignments must be submitted as Word documents using double-spaced
Times New Roman size-12 font with standard margins. Always include your name and page
numbers on assignments, and cite your sources using Chicago Style formatting. Assignments must
be submitted online via NYUClasses before class on the stated deadline (by 10AM on Mondays).
If your paper is not submitted on time, it will be penalized by a half-letter grade per day; after one
week, without an agreed-upon extension, I will no longer accept your assignment.

Leading Class Discussion: Each student will lead class discussion twice during the
semester. Please spend the first ~10 minutes of discussion summarizing the readings: who
are the authors? What is each reading arguing and why? What sorts of sources are they

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relying on and what methodologies are they using? What did you find interesting,
successful, surprising about the readings? Then offer up 2-3 questions for the class or
“themes” to think about. These should be a jumping-in point for the rest of our discussion.

Short Assignment 1—Object Study: When we think about nature, we often think of its
objects: plants, animals, minerals, and everything in between. As we will discuss this
semester, the way we view, name, and interact with these objects is informed by our
worldviews, calling into question how “natural” these objects really are. In this assignment
(guidelines will be circulated), you will look closely at an object chosen from a provided
list and write a 1000-word reflection of your “specimen.” In approximately 500 words, you
will conduct a formal analysis, describing its shape, size, colors, etc. in intense detail. In
your remaining 500 words, you will reflect on your own personal interaction with that
object. What does this thing mean to you, and why? What worldviews are you bringing
into your interaction with this object? What are your own limitations and biases, and how
does looking closely at this object challenge them? This exercise is designed to encourage
you to look deeply at the objects we consider this semester and to begin to break down
your immediate assumptions about them.

Midterm Project Proposal: Submit an approximately 750-word proposal for your final
project, describing what you plan to investigate historically and conceptually. In your
proposal please introduce your initial research question(s), provide any necessary
background information, and include a brief plan for your research going forward and / or
any challenges you expect to face and might need advice on. Your proposal must also
include an annotated bibliography of 5 sources, at least one of which should be a primary
source. Each annotation (between 3-5 sentences) should summarize the author’s argument
and methodologies.

Short Assignment 2—Book Review: Nature writing and climatological fiction, from new
climatological novels to futuristic science fiction, has occupied a prominent place in the
literary canon in recent years. Indeed, fiction has always existed as a space to explore
anxieties, predictions, and new alternatives for and about the uneasy interactions between
humans and nature. On the first day of class, you will choose a recent novel from a provided
list and work towards a 1000-word review of the book, situating it within themes from the
course and scholarship that we have explored together. Think of this exercise as a way of
contextualizing new fiction in its historical foundations: what are the roots of questions
explored in this book, what larger conversations does it speak to, and why does this book
matter? Please be prepared to discuss your novel with your colleagues during class.

Final Project: Option 1 is a 3750 – 5000-word research paper (approximately 15 – 20 pages

double-spaced) that incorporates both primary and secondary sources into an original

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 argument about related to course topics and your own broader interests. Using themes from
the course and your outside research, investigate your research question(s) by developing
a change over time narrative, using comparative case studies, or working with broader
theoretical concepts to tell us something new and historically significant. You must use at
least 10 sources, 3 of which must be primary. Please submit a full bibliography with your
paper and underline or highlight your thesis statement in the introduction to your paper.

Option 2 is a “creative” project that encompasses the same amount of research as the
“traditional” paper but presents those findings in new, public-facing ways. Like the
research paper, you will rely on both primary and secondary sources and form an original
argument. Your argument can be presented visually, three-dimensionally, orally,
virtually—the sky is the limit. Remember, per our discussions this term, that interpretations
of nature and the environment always present, uphold, or challenge intellectual, cultural,
and social arguments. With this in mind, how might you create your own nontextual
argument using historical sources? Projects might take the form of (for example)
reconstructed or reimagined collections, homemade podcasts, scientific illustrations or
models, maps, proposed syllabi for new courses, sample lectures, or exhibition designs.
Alongside your project, you must submit a full bibliography following the same guidelines
as Option 1 and a brief research statement (around a paragraph) presenting your argument
and explaining your methods.

Statement on Plagiarism:
Plagiarism—employing ideas or phrases that are not your own without explicitly and sufficiently
crediting their creator—will not be tolerated. If you plagiarize, the Program Chair and the
university will be notified of your actions, and appropriate steps will be taken. I urge you to err on
the side of caution: take careful notes, cite your sources carefully and consistently, and do not leave
assignments to the last minute. For this and other university policies, see the Graduate School of
Arts and Science Policies and Procedures Manual.

University Statement for Students with Disabilities:

New York University is committed to providing equal educational opportunity and participation
for students with disabilities. It is the university’s policy that no qualified student with a disability
be excluded from participating in any university program or activity, denied the benefits of any
university program or activity, or otherwise subjected to discrimination with regard to any
university program or activity. The Henry and Lucy Moses Center for Students with Disabilities
(CSD) determines qualified disability status and assists students in obtaining appropriate
accommodations and services. Any student who needs a reasonable accommodation based on a

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qualified disability is required to register with the CSD for assistance. To contact the CSD, visit:
<nyu.edu/students/communities-and-groups/student-accessibility.html> or call 212.998.4980.

Schedule of Classes + Readings:

Week 1 // February 1 // Constructing the Colonial Environment: Race, Gender, and Nature’s
“Body”

Week 2 // February 8 // Ordering + Naming: “New World” Taxonomies in Colonial Collections

• Staffan Müller-Wille, “Linnaean Paper Tools,” in Helen Anne Curry, Nicholas Jardine,
James Secord and Emma Spary, eds., Worlds of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2018), 205-20.
• Londa Schiebinger, “Lost Knowledge, Bodies of Ignorance, and the Poverty of Taxonomy
as Illustrated by the Curious Fate of Flos pavonis, an Abortifacient,” in Caroline Jones and
Peter Galison, eds., Picturing Science, Producing Art (New York: Routledge, 1998), 125-
44.
• Harriet Ritvo, The Platypus and the Mermaid, and Other Figments of the Classifying
Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), Chapter 1: “The Point of
Order” (1-50).
• “Robin Wall Kimmerer on the Language of Animacy,” Orion Magazine Podcast, 17 July
2017 [20 min].

Week 3 // February 15 // NO CLASS – University Break

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Week 4 // February 22 // Colder, Higher, Farther, Deeper: Colonial Fieldwork in “Extreme”
Environments
• Felix Driver, “Distance and Disturbance: Travel, Exploration, and Knowledge in the
Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the Royal Historical Society 14 (2004): 73-92.
• Daniela Bleichmar, Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the
Hispanic Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), Chapter 3:
“Painting as Exploration” (79-122).
• Andrew Stuhl, Unfreezing the Arctic: Science, Colonialism, and the Transformation of
Inuit Lands (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), Chapter 1: “Dangerous: In the
Twilight of Empires” (15-38).
• Sujit Sivasundaram, “Natural History Spiritualized: Civilising Islanders, Cultivating
Breadfruit, and Collecting Souls,” History of Science 39 (2001): 417-43.
• Joyce Chaplin, “Terrestriality,” The Appendix Magazine 2.2 (2014).

Week 5 // March 1 // Glass Cases + Controlled Reproduction: Acclimatization, Settler

Colonialism, and the Rise of Plantation Agriculture
DUE: Short Assignment 1—Object Study; In-Class Visit: Dr. Julie Park, Assistant Curator /
Faculty Fellow in Special Collections at Bobst
• Jennifer Morgan, “Some Could Suckle Over their Shoulder: Male Travelers, Female
Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology, 1500-1770,” William & Mary Quarterly
54.1 (1997): 167-92.
• Greta LaFleur, The Natural History of Sexuality in Early America (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2020), Chapter 1: “The Natural History of Sexuality” (32-62).
• Ikuko Asaka, Tropical Freedom: Climate, Settler Colonialism, and Black Exclusion in the
Age of Emancipation (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), Chapter 5: “Race Climate,
and Labor” (140-66).
• Camille T. Dungy, “From Dirt,” Emergence Magazine.
• “Reflections on the Plantationocene: A Conversation with Donna Haraway and Anna
Tsing,” Edge Effects, 18 June 2019 [89 min].

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Week 6 // March 8 // Mastodons in North America: Extinction, Deep Time, and the Mapping
of the Earth
• Ralph O’Connor, The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-
1856 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), Chapter 1: “Enter the Mammoth” (46-
85).
• Miles Powell, Vanishing America: Species Extinction, Racial Peril, and the Origins of
Conservation Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), Chapter 1: “Surviving
Progress” (14-45).
• Janet Browne, The Secular Ark: Studies in the History of Biogeography (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983), Chapter 2: “The Nations of Plants” (32-57).
• Kathryn Yusoff, A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2019), “The Inhumanities” (65-86).
• Explore Smithsonian American Art Museum’s exhibition Alexander von Humboldt and the
United States: Art, Nature, and Culture <americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/humboldt> and
listen to Episode 2: “The Last Man Who Knew it All,” Sidedoor Podcast [28 min].

Week 7 // March 15 // Looking at Animals: Taxidermy and Evolution in the Modern Museum
DUE: Midterm Project Proposal; Potential Site Visit: American Museum of Natural History
• John Berger, About Looking (New York: Vintage, 1980), “Why Look at Animals” (3-30).
• Rachel Poliquin, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), Chapter 3: “Spectacle” (77-110) and
Chapter 4: “Order” (111-140).
• Donna Haraway, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy and the Garden of Eden,” in Primate
Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science (London: Routledge,
1990), 26-58.
• Episode 654: “The Feather Heist,” This American Life Podcast, 10 August 2018 [64 min].

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Week 8 // March 22 // Looking at People: Bodies on Display from Sideshows to World’s Fairs
• Elizabeth Edwards, “Evolving Images: Photography, Race, and Popular Darwinism,” in
Diana Donald and Jane Munro, eds., Endless Forms: Natural Science and the Visual Arts
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 167-94.
• Janet Browne and Sharon Messenger, “Victorian Spectacle: Julia Pastrana, the Bearded and
Hairy Female,” Endeavour 27.4 (2003): 155-9.
• Nancy Leys Stepan, Picturing Tropical Nature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001),
Chapter 3: “Racial Degenerations” (85-119).
• Sadiah Quereshi, “Peopling Natural History,” in Helen Anne Curry, Nicholas Jardine,
James Secord, and Emma Spary, eds., Worlds of Natural History (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2018), 363-78.
• Episode 5: “Race, Display, and Empire with Sadiah Quereshi,” The Wonder House
Podcast, 21 January 2020
• Selected poems from Carrie Allen McCray, Ota Benga Under My Mother’s Roof
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2012).
• Allison Meier, “Minik and the Meteor,” Narratively, 19 March 2013.

Week 9 // March 29 // Coal, Steam, Oil + Rubber: Building the Capitalocene in the Age of
Industry
• Melanie Kiechle, Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban
America (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018), Chapter 2: “Navigating by Nose:
Common Sense and Responses to Urban Odors” (53-77).
• Bathsheba Demuth, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait (New
York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2019), Chapter 1: “Whale Country” (15-43) and Chapter 2:
“Whale Fall” (44-72).

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 • Michitake Aso, Rubber and the Making of Vietnam: An Ecological History, 1897-1975
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Chapter 2: “Cultivating Science”
(59-91).
• Peter Bowler, “H.G. Wells and the Uncertainties of Progress,” The Public Domain Review,
26 June 2019.
• Episode 28: “Bathsheba Demuth on Capitalism, Communism, and Arctic Ecology,” When
We Talk About Animals Podcast, 10 February 2020 [60 min].

Week 10 // April 5 // Eugenic Landscapes: National Parks, White Supremacy, and the Politics
of Preservation
• William Cronon, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York:
W.W. Norton & Co., 1995), “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong
Nature” (69-90).
• Miles Powell, Vanishing America: Species Extinction, Racial Peril, and the Origins of
Conservation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), Chapter 3: “A Line of
Unbroken Descent” (82-118).
• Alexandra Minna Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in
America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016), Chapter 5: “California’s Eugenic
Landscapes” (139-72).
• Paul Sutter, “Nature’s Agents or Agents of Empire?: Entomological Workers and
Environmental Change during the Construction of the Panama Canal,” Isis 98.4 (2007):
724-54.
• J. Drew Lanham, “Birding While Black,” Literary Hub, 22 September 2016.
• Major Jackson, “Surroundings More Congenial: The Perils of Hiking While Black,” Orion
Magazine, 29 December 2020.
• Episode 34: “Women and the National Parks,” Lady Science Podcast, 21 October 2020 [46
min].

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Week 11 // April 12 // Blood, Bones + DNA: Dissecting Bodies in the Service of “Collections”
DUE: Short Assignment 2 – Book Review
• Bruno Strasser, “The Experimenter’s Museum: GenBank, Natural History, and the Moral
Economies of Biomedicine,” Isis 102.1 (2011): 60-96.
• Kim TallBear, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic
Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), Chapter 1: “Racial Science,
Blood, and DNA” (31-66).
• Warwick Anderson, The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), Introduction: “The Disease Europeans
Catch from Kuru” (1-9) and Chapter 3: “A Contemptuous Tenderness” (59-90).
• Bayo Akomolafe, “When You Meet the Monster, Anoint its Feet,” Emergence Magazine.

Week 12 // April 19 // NO CLASS – University Break

Week 13 // April 26 // Biting Back, Fighting Back: Narratives of Resistance from Queer, Crip,
Feminist, and Haunted Nature
• Stacy Alaimo, “Eluding Capture: The Science, Culture, and Pleasure of ‘Queer’ Animals,”
in Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson, eds., Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature,
Politics, Desire (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 51-72.
• Eli Care, “Notes on Natural Worlds, Disabled Bodies, and a Politics of Cure,” in Sarah
Jaquette Ray, ed., Disability Studies and the Environmental Humanities: Towards an Eco-
Crip Theory (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), 242-66.
• Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013),
Chapter 6: “Bodies of Nature: The Environmental Politics of Disability” (129-48).
• Elizabeth Parker, The Forest and the EcoGothic (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020),
Chapter 3: “What if It’s the Trees?: The Living Forest” (69-135).

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 • Ferris Jabr, “The Social Life of Forests,” The New York Times, 2 December 2020.

Week 14 // May 3 // Making Kin with the Nonhuman: Radical Ecology and Multispecies
Worldmaking
Potential Site Visit: Yayoi Kusama’s COSMIC NATURE at New York Botanical Garden
• Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life
in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), Prologue: “Autumn
Aroma” (1-10) and Part 1: “What’s Left?” (11-44).
• Thom Van Dooren, Eben Kirksey and Ursula Münster, “Multispecies Studies: Cultivating
Arts of Attentiveness,” Environmental Humanities 8.1 (2016): 1-23.
• Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2016), Chapter 2: “Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene,
Chthulucene” (30-57).
• Chie Sakakibara, “People of the Whales: Climate Change and Cultural Resilience Among
Iñupiat of Arctic Alaska,” Geographical Review 107.1 (2017): 159-84.
• David Haskell, “Birds and the Language of Belonging,” Emergence Magazine.
• Explore “Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene,” curated and edited by Anna
Lowenhaupt Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena, and Feifei Zhou.
<feralatlas.org>

Week 15 // May 10 // The Politics + Poetics of Extinction: What Does it Mean to Study Nature
in a Changing World?
DUE: Final Project
• Dolly Jorgensen, “Endling: The Power of the Last in an Extinction-Prone World,”
Environmental Philosophy 14.1 (2017): 119-38.

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• Thom Van Dooren, “The Last Snail: Loss, Hope, and Care for the Future,” in Libby Robin,
Jennifer Newell and Kirsten Wehner, eds., Curating the Future: Museums, Communities,
and Climate Change (New York: Routledge, 2016), 194-202.
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge,
and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2013), Part 5: “Burning
Sweetgrass” (303-79).
• Gabriel Popkin, “Can Genetic Engineering Bring Back the American Chestnut?” The New
York Times, 30 April 2020.
• Lacy Johnson, “How to Mourn a Glacier,” The New Yorker, 20 October 2019.

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