Assignments

 

Assignments can be turned in early, but must be turned in no later than the due date.


Writing Assignments:

Writing Assignment 1 - Due Monday, May 12, 2008

Writing Assignment 2 - Due Monday, May 19, 2008

 

Homework Assignments:

Homework Exercise 1 - Due Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Homework Exercise 2 - Due Monday, June 2, 2008

Updated: Thursday, May 8, 2008

 

Suggested Links to Add to Your Experience


 

Recommended Reading: Here are some books that I have found to be both interesting and enlightening. If you are looking for a more detailed look at some of the resources and topics that we cover in class, I would suggest you start with some of these books...

 

    Hubbert's Peak: the Impending World of Oil Shortage, by Kenneth S Deffeyes

        (2001)

 

    Resource Wars: the New Landscape of Global Conflict, by Michael T Klare (2001)

 

    Cadillac Desert: the American West and It's Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner

        (1993)

 

    Twilight in the Desert: the Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, by

        Matthew R. Simmons (2005)

 

    A Thousand Barrels a Second: the Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges of

        Facing an Energy Dependent World, by Peter Tertzakian (2006)

 

Chris Jordon - Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption

Exploring around our country's shipping ports and industrial yards, where the accumulated detritus of our consumption is exposed to view like eroded layers in the Grand Canyon, I find evidence of a slow-motion apocalypse in progress. I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.

The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.

http://www.chrisjordon.com/


Copyright © 2005 Chris Jordon.