Classes

Photo by China Jorrin ’86

Academic Courses

Bard College offers a diversity of academic courses that use the resources of the Arboretum for learning.

Fall 2023

Landscape Studies: The Hudson River Valley
Course Number: HUM 234
Professor: Jana Mader
Cross-listed: Architecture; Environmental and Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Experimental Humanities; Literature
Credits: 4
For centuries, the land on which the Bard Arboretum now sits has been inhabited and used by diverse societies and cultures. In this course, students learn to critically engage with the existing landscape and vegetation to unfold “the story” of the land now owned by Bard College. By confronting the narratives that shaped these lands from an interdisciplinary perspective, students can build skills to become informed and impactful agents of change. Particular areas of inquiry include the Hudson River Valley in art, literature, music, and film; the history of Native Americans, colonialism, and slavery in the region; horticulture, bio-diversity, and native plants of the Hudson River Valley (living collection). We will explore the past, present, and possible future of the Hudson River Valley through a series of primary and secondary sources including fiction and nonfiction works of literature, visual art, film, etc. Meetings will be held in the classroom, and outdoors at the Bard Arboretum, Montgomery Place, and Blithewood; we will observe and study the actual river, our native plants, and learn more about how our current home and what we see in it have changed over time. This is an Engaged Liberal Arts & Sciences (ELAS) course.

Spring 2019

The Window at Montgomery Place
Course Number: HIST 123
Professor: Myra Armstead
Cross-listed: American Studies; Environmental & Urban Studies; Experimental Humanities
Credits: 2
In 1802, when widow Janet Montgomery (1743-1824) acquired a 380-acre property on the Hudson River, she began the process of converting the landscape from a "wilderness" into a "pleasure ground." This transformation was a physical one, reflecting prevailing ideas about the ideal, aesthetic relationship between humans and "nature" as well as emerging notions regarding scientific agriculture. After her death, her successors continued this task. Additionally, the creation and development of Montgomery Place mirrored contemporary social relations and cultural conventions, along with shifts in these realities at the national level. As it was populated by indentured servants, tenants, slaves, free workers, and elites, Montgomery Place will be approached as a historical laboratory for understanding social hierarchies, social roles, cultural practices, and the evolving visions of the nation and "place" that both sustained and challenged these things during the nineteenth century in the United States.