Certificate in Science and Spirituality

date last updated: 2 August 2003

Wilderness and Imagination

Type of Course: Travel
Credits: 3 Graduate, Undergraduate, or CEU
Course Number: INTS-676-O
Faculty: Leslie Van Gelder, Ph.D., and Kevin Sharpe, Ph.D. (click each for a bio)
Location: The South Island, New Zealand
Registration Dates: Registration deadline 20 September 2003
Course Dates: 1 December - 12 December 2003
Costs (Provisional): Graduate or Undergraduate Credit tuition $3040.00, CEU tuition $2940.00, Family members and friends tuition $2700.00. Participants are also responsible for their travel to Christchurch, reading materials, site guide tips, lunches and dinners.
Prerequisites: Undergraduate degree for pursuing Graduate Credits

(They must complete and submit a Registration Form.)

Course Description:

What is the relationship between wild places and our imagination? Are there places that feed your soul? In this twelve-day long course we will focus on exploration the ways in which we are influenced by places and the ways in which our imaginations shape our interactions with those places. The South Island of New Zealand offers some of the most dramatic landscape in the world, and in this setting we will be free to explore our own inner landscapes while taking in the varied environments of New Zealand. Our lectures and discussions will revolve around topics such as the role of language and the brain, the power of stories, verbal and nonverbal forms of communication, and the relationship between spirituality and place. Participants will engage in a variety of creative activities in many media, which will help them to engage personally with the questions the course raises. Ample free time will be afforded to permit participants time to helicopter to the top of the Franz Josef Glacier, or hike into some of the most unique temperate rainforests in the world.

Our trip will begin and end in Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island. From there, participants may want to arrange transportation to the North Island or any of the islands of the South Pacific. We will be traveling in the end of spring and beginning of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Weather varies widely throughout this period, but the days will consistently get longer as we move towards their summer solstice.  We will travel by comfortable tour bus.

Most days will be a combination of direct instruction, a group visit to a site with learning activities involved, and time for personal reflection. The pace of life in the South Island is not rushed, and we will take time to appreciate the land and people of New Zealand.

Course Objectives and Outcomes:

Through the format of an experiential travel course, learners will be exposed to the wild New Zealand landscape. It will serve as both classroom and subject as we look to understand the relationship between internal and external landscapes.

The format for each day will be in five parts:

·        Lecture/Discussion on a topic (listed below)

·        Visit to one or more sites of interest

·        Guided creative activity

·        Reflective time for learners to work in small groups and become situated in the local culture

·        Large group discussion/reflection based on experience and growing knowledge base from lectures and readings

Assessment:

To receive Graduate or Undergraduate Credit for the course, a learner must complete all pre-course readings, submit a preliminary paper and a follow-up project, and participate in all group discussions and visits to sites. There are no letter grades for this course, only satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The relative weights that the elements of the course contribute to the final assessment are as follows: Preliminary paper 10%, Group discussions and visits 50%, Final project 40%.

To receive Continuing Education Units for the course, a learner must complete all pre-course readings and participate in all group discussions and visits to sites. They should not submit papers or projects to the instructors. There are no CEU letter grades for this course, only satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The relative weights that the elements of the course contribute to the final assessment are as follows: Group discussions and visits 100%.

Credit learners may request narrative evaluations for transcripts or learning plans/agreements.

Itinerary (subject to change) (click here)

Syllabus (subject to change):

Day 1: Christchurch. Evening meeting of group.

            Topic: ‘Expectations and Anticipations’

Day 2: Christchurch - Punakaiki - Hokitika

            Topic: ‘Wilderness, Wildness and Imagination: Defining Terms’

Day 3: Punakaiki - Fox Glacier

            Topic: ‘All in Our Heads? The Neurobiology of Creativity and Story’

Day 4: Fox Glacier - Lake Wanaka

            Topic: ‘Moving Toward Old Growth: Exploring Concepts of Time and Process’

Day 5: Queenstown - Te Anau

            Topic: ‘Replacing Memory: Storied Landscapes’

Day 6: Milford Sound

            Topic: ‘Romanticism and the Sublime’

Day 7: Doubtful Sound

            Topic: ‘Sheep Tales: The Myth of the Pastoral, Utopias and Dystopias’

Day 8: Te Anau - Queenstwon

            Topic: ‘Nonverbal Communication’

Day 9: Glenorchy - Middle Earth - Paradise

            Topic: ‘Rimes of the Ancient Mariners: Birds of Imagination’

Day 10: Queenstown - Dunedin

            Topic: ‘Romanticism and the Sublime’

Day 11: Dunedin

Day 12: Dunedin - Christchurch

Logistics:

The course will begin at 7 pm in Christchurch, New Zealand on 1 December 2003 and conclude at 5 pm on 12 December in Christchurch, New Zealand. Course will include all accommodation and daily breakfast as listed on itinerary as well as transportation during the scheduled program. Graduate credit tuition is $3040, CEU credit tuition is $2940, and non-credit tuition cost is $2700 each from Christchurch, not including travel to and from the learner’s residence and Christchurch. All course reservations and tuition payments must be made by 20 September. Participants pay for tips for site guides, and one meal per day. Breakfast and one other meal will be provided. The sites to be visited are public, not restricted, but all will not be accessible for wheelchairs. A release form will be sent to participants to be signed and returned before the course.

Requirements:

Prior to the Course:

Graduate and Undergraduate Credit learners, and CEU learners, will complete the required readings in advance of the course. Each Graduate and Undergraduate Credit learner should also submit a five to ten page paper by email to the instructors focusing on their sense of the nature of creativity both personally and within the context of the readings.

During the Course:

Graduate and Undergraduate Credit learners, and CEU learners, are expected to participate in all group discussions and visits to sites throughout the course.

Following the Course:

Graduate and Undergraduate Credit learners are to complete a five to ten page follow-up paper/creative piece that incorporates their new learning and experiences into a thesis they develop during their time in France and that relates to their own thinking about their research and lives. These projects are to be submitted to the conveners within ten days of the conclusion of the course.

Credit will only be given for learners who successfully complete all aspects of the course.

Required Texts:

London, Peter. No More Secondhand Art. Boston: Shambahla Books, 1991.

Lopez, Barry. Landscape and Narrative. In Crossing Open Ground. New York: Scribners and Sons, 1998.

Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. New York: North Point Press, 1990.

Turner, Jack. The Abstract Wild. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996.

A collection of scholarly papers available online from http://faculty.tui.edu/sharpek.

Supplemental Resources:

Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage, 1996.

Atkinson, Robert. The Gift of Stories: Practical and Spiritual Applications of Autobiography, Life Stories, and Personal Mythmaking. Westport, CT:  Bergin and Garvey, 1995. 

Bohm, David. On Dialogue. London: Routledge, 1996.

_________. On Creativity. London: Routledge, 1998.

Carse, James. Finite and Infinite Games. New York: Ballentine Books, 1986.

Cobb, Edith. The Ecology of Imagination in Childhood. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity. New York: HarperPerennial, 1996.

Holzer , Nina Burghild. A Walk Between Heaven and Earth: A Personal Journal on Writing and the Creative Process. New York: Bell Tower, 1994.

Hulme, Keri. The Bone People. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.

Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

Jensen, Derrick. Listening to the Land: Conversations About Nature, Culture and Eros. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995.

Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Meeker, Joseph W. The Comedy of Survival: Literary Ecology and a Play Ethic. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997.

Metzger, Deena. Writing For Your Life. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.

Oelschlager, Max. The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

Williams, Terry Tempest. An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field.  New York : Pantheon Books, 1994.

A travel guide to New Zealand, such as the Lonely Planet Guide.

Equipment and Facilities:

This course will take place on-site in the South Island of New Zealand. Meeting facilities will be provided by the hotels. Learners are not expected to have any special equipment, but should be capable of walking, as many of the locations will require walking through woods or along beaches.

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