Choose one of the following options and write a 3-5 page paper that fully and coherently explores the topic, guided by a clear, unified, strong thesis. All papers should make specific reference to the works we have studied that are relevant to the prompt/topic chosen. These prompts are meant as suggestions for directions one can go and need not be followed to the letter, but rather used as jumping off points for one’s own exploration of the topic.

Write an essay in which you discuss how the course texts critique the dominant paradigm determining how humans conceive of and act toward what we call nature. Why have humans developed the concept of nature that we have, and what do the texts indicate as problems with that concept and how it arranges human understanding and behavior? What alternative ways of understanding the world are presented by the texts?