Justin D’Souza                                                                               About 170 words

SUNY Geneseo

INTD 105 Science Writing

False Dichotomies of “Modern” Society

By Justin D’Souza

When one browses a newspaper, one encounters many neat sections: “science, politics, economy, law, religion, [etc.].” But the complexity of modern issues goes beyond labels. For example, a story about the ozone layer blends science and politics. Latour argues that we too frequently create false dichotomies between human events and natural/scientific events due to our inability to properly classify such hybrid “networks.” However, every culture has these interconnected networks – an anthropologist analyzing an ancient culture will synthesize them, like a “narrative” Therefore, old cultures did not have the false dualisms modern culture has that separates us from nature and science. We uphold this dualism so we can think of ourselves as more modern than others, the West versus the old. But since this dualism does not really exist, we are like ancient cultures, aka not modern.

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Geneseo’s Arboretum certainly seems like an example of a “nature-culture,” But, I predict that if a discovery were found in the trees, it would be confided to the science section of a newspaper regardless of if it relates to other fields.

Mike Emanuele

“We Have Never Been Modern” by Bruno Latour

We live in a generation where false dualisms surround us. Humans have become hybrids, involving themselves with every element on this planet. We have blurred dualisms  such as nonhuman nature and human culture, combining  the two into a lifestyle. The definition of the word “modern” means a passage of time into a new regime, from revolution, rupture, or any significant change. However to be modern we must be symmetrical, meaning we must to be able to separate practices such as translation and purification. Being a hybrid is not modern because it breaks the symmetry. Latour describes our era as the Gordian Knot meaning the weaving of issues and crises all into each other even though they are irrelevant to one another. Science has little relevance in politics, as social affairs have little to do with science. According to my mini essay, we incorporate a tree into our living space and use it as a symbol. Ultimately involving something non human, to humans. This is not modern. Their is no symmetry between a human and a tree. 

Simon Lee                                                                     Approximately  150 Words

Shl5@geneseo.edu

Scientific Writing 105-19

We Have Never Been Modern

By Simon Lee

In We Have Never Been Modern, Bruno Latour discusses how newspaper articles that are written are distinguished into one category or another. However, a lot of the articles are hybrids. For example, an article about the ozone layer involves both science and politics. Yet the fragile thread that connects several different fields of study will be broken. However to be a modern society we must retie the Gordian knot.

I believe that the Greek Tree is a good example of what Latour discusses in his article. The Greek Tree is a blend the natural world and the social world into one. However people will try to distinguish it into one category or another instead of realizing that it is a blend of both.

Paul Weissfellner

INTD 105: Science Writing

Prof. Fenn

The Trouble with Wilderness Response

In his essay The Trouble with Wilderness, William Cronon lays out a comprehensive critique of the American concept of wilderness. He takes the reader through the history of wilderness and perceptions of it in America, from the standpoint that the entire idea of wilderness and the way that it is expressed is flawed and dangerous. From its origins as a forum for religious experiences  to a playground for the urban elite, wilderness has taken many forms. I found his descriptions of the issues with wilderness interesting, especially as he presented them as antithetical to all of mainstream environmentalism. I particularly liked his analysis of the effects of wilderness of the general views of nature as a whole. Nature is only valuable if it is untouched, but what really constitutes untouched? Humans have lived everywhere for thousands of years, and, more often than not, wilderness preserves an area where people had lived after kicking them out; it is not how nature was before humans. It’s how nature was when a certain group of humans arrived. At the end, Cronon brings it back to Haraway’s ideas of the cyborg, in that nature and humanity cannot be separated without dire philosophical consequences. My rock is no longer a representation of the struggle between humans and nature; rather, it is a monument to unity, to the natural and human-made systems that worked together to create it as it exists now.

Emma Cooke                                                                                     about 150 words

erc8@geneseo.edu

INTD 105-19 Science Writing

The Trouble With Wilderness

William Cronon’s “The Trouble with Wilderness” is his response to the idea that “wilderness is the preservation of the world”. Cronon argues that the wilderness is actual a human creation, that the very idea of the wilderness is a product of our culture and interference. He gives examples of the many ways in which humans have interfered in the wilderness including our emphasis on the sublime and the frontier- preserving that experience. He states that “if we allow ourselves to believe that nature, to be true, must also be wild, then out very presence in nature represents its fall” (Cronon 97).

This concept can be connected back to the ivy growing up Sturges Hall. The growth of the ivy is managed, humans chose not to allow the ivy to grow over windows, how high it grows and often only allow it to grow because it is aesthetically pleasing. William Cronon emphasizes that there is not a true border between the human and natural worlds because humans have interfered in what was once the natural world.

Logan Steffens                                                                                                148 words

lts6@geneseo.edu

INTD 105

The Trouble With Wilderness

In “The trouble with Wilderness” by William Cronon he says that we must preserve the environment. The wilderness we know of today is not real wilderness; it is merely an escape from everyday life. We have lost most if not all connection we once had with the environment. We are an urbanized society and Cronon suggests that we keep that in mind and not to pretend that our home is the wilderness when our home is the civilization we have built. Instead of having to go out to the “wilderness” to appreciate nature we can look within our own cities. Everything there is part of nature from the birds perched on windowsills to the rocks on the ground. The rock outside Suffolk hall exemplifies nature similar to everything around us and shows us that we do not need to leave our homes to see the nature around us.

Racheal Devine                                       about 150 words

rmd20@geneseo.edu

Science Writing INTD 105-19

The Trouble with Wilderness

William Cronon, the author of the essay “The Trouble with Wilderness” develops his ideas on what wilderness means starting from the late eighteenth century all the way to modern day. “For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected earth.” Starting 250 years ago he describes how the wilderness was thought of as anything but positive, and more as a biblical place. Beginning in the nineteenth century people started to look at the wilderness as a preservation of the world, at this time is when national parks began to be created. In the twentieth century wilderness turned into the frontier and sublime as in the “rare places on earth where one had more chance than elsewhere to glimpse the face of god.” Wilderness today is just one big environmental concern and acts as the foundation for a list of other concerns.

This can connect to my mini essay of the vines because they are wilderness just the same but looked more as a decoration.

Matt Klein                                                            approximately 250 words

mgk6@geneseo.edu

INTD 105-19: Science Writing

“The Trouble with Wilderness” Response

By Matt Klein

William Cronon begins his argument describing humanity’s relationship with nature by explaining past and current beliefs about wilderness. Before the nineteenth century, the “wilderness” was something to be feared. Few ventured there, and the biblical association with the word—the place of Moses’ exile and Jesus’ struggle with Satan—was extremely negative. With the coming of writers such as Thoreau and John Muir, that connotation was completely reversed. Cronon gives two sources for these individuals’ reactions to the wilderness: the sublime, the grandeur of nature through with God can be seen, and the frontier, the opportunity for people to free themselves from civilization through primitivism and become their own individuals. This sentiment led to the birth of environmentalism and conservation in order to preserve the sublime and the frontier. The focus of “The Trouble with Wilderness” is Cronon’s disagreement with the concept of conservation for nature’s sake. Though he admits we should honor nature since it has its own autonomy, he argues that, in attempting to preserve nature, we ironically bring human culture to it. Cronon believes that, if we accept our involvement in nature, “if wildness can stop being just out there and start being also in here,” then we can “[struggle] to live rightly in the world.”

“The Trouble with Wilderness” strongly relates to my mini-essay about the Arboretum. Since the concept of the Arboretum is similar to the parks and nature preserves mentioned by Cronon, his analysis can be directly applied to the relationship of nature and human culture seen at the Arboretum.

Daniel Biskup                                                                              Approx. 165 words

INTD 105

djb29@geneseo.edu

Cronon’s main argument is that the concept of wilderness is a social construct invented by man. He starts by establishing what wilderness is, describing it as isolated nature untouched by man, that serves as a way to save mankind from its over, industrialized self. He then goes on to explain how this construct came about, first demonstrating biblical descriptions of a barren land void of human contact that is associated with original sin and temptation. He moves on to romantic descriptions of nature coinciding with the supernatural and even the divine, leading to the current view of beauty and adventure of the frontier that has inspired park services and conservation efforts.

My object, the greenhouse behind ISC, led me to believe man and nature to be separate, which was why I agreed with Cronon’s argument, because he states that the ideal wilderness is paradoxical because if a piece of nature were untouched by mankind, its influence on that nature would destroy the concept as soon as it entered. Man and nature are separate, but according to Cronon they always tow a fine line of coexistence.

Aubrie Cross
INTD: Science Writing
ac46@geneseo.edu

“The Trouble with Wilderness”

In the essay “The Trouble with Wilderness” by William Cronon, he talks about the drastic change on peoples view points of the wilderness over time. Cronon explains how it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that people began to admire nature. He also states in the beginning of his passage, “For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the Earth.” In this quote he refers to the fact that our viewpoint of the wilderness is as if it has been untouched and that it is all natural. However, later on he says “Wilderness hides it unnaturalness behind a mask that is all the more beguiling because it seems so natural. Here he begins to contradict his idea and explain how its only a facade. This piece of writing relates back to the Greek Tree because it shows directly how humans have un-purified the wilderness.