Humans and plants have forged complex relationships over our long coevolutionary history on planet Earth. Indeed, human life is not possible without plants, whether from the food and shelter that plant materials provide, directly or indirectly, or the plant-derived medicines that are the foundation of all healing traditions. Psychoactive properties in plants have also contributed to the development of religious insights and spiritual traditions. Plants have enabled the development of urban settlement patterns, the expansion of global commerce, and the flourishing of distinct cultural expressions ranging from cuisines to crafts. Similarly, plants have been instrumental in the expansion of empire and the reach of global capitalism; they have been foundational to the development of plantation economies and the exploitation of human labor and the simplification of local ecologies. They have also served as resources for inter-species resistance and biocultural resilience. In this course, we will explore these and other relationships between people and plants. We will get to know some of the key agricultural, culinary, material, and medicinal plant companions that inhabit WNC’s woods, fields, and edge habitats, as well as the colonial and pre-colonial histories of global commodity crops. The course will include significant hands-on elements, from foraging, harvesting, and processing, to basic, introductory level craft activities. In doing so, we will learn from plants as we learn
from one another. Topics courses are 2 or 4 credit, in-depth, thematic courses that may be repeated for credit under a different theme. May be repeated up to two times for a maximum of 12 credits.
- Teacher: Tony VanWinkle