Tree

William E. Friedman (Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology)
First-Year Seminar 52C  4 credits (fall term)  Enrollment:  Limited to 12

Note: The first class on Sept 11 will be held at the Univ Herbaria on campus. Most classes will meet at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. The class will meet from 3-6:30pm to allow for travel time.

Have you hugged a tree lately?  How about grown one? Photographed one? Drawn one? Written about one?  Imagine a semester devoted to connecting two organisms: a person (you) and a tree (not you).  Interacting with a single tree, you will explore its individual history, evolutionary history, life cycle, leaves, bark, roots, flowers, cones, and architecture.

In an age of environmental destruction and outright murder of our biological brethren, there is something deeply troubling about humanity’s relationship with nature. Technology has left us with mere facsimiles of nature - pixilated abstractions of biodiversity through satellite imagery, decoded strings of DNA – and we, as a species, have become fundamentally disconnected from actual nature and the magnificent organisms with which we share the earth. In this seminar, we will work to understand and give agency to trees as individual organisms, literally rooted in the ground, and evolutionarily rooted in deep time. Topics to be covered include the evolutionary origin of arborescence, human relationships with non-sentient organisms, the case for legal rights for natural objects, reading a twig, the unseen world of roots, and finding human meaning in the longevity in trees. Each student will also work with an individual tree in the living collections of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and observe (see) this organism throughout the entire semester through the creation of images (photography, drawing), journaling, and other forms of representation. The goal of this first-year seminar will be to initiate a personal and lifelong connection with the “other,” the vast and variant organisms with which we share the planet.