“The king’s philosopher, when he had nothing to do, would come and sit beside me and watch me darning the pages’ socks, and sometimes he would start philosophizing, he used to say that each man is an island, but since that had nothing to do with me, being a woman, I paid no attention to him, what do you think, That you have to leave the island in order to see the island, that we can’t see ourselves unless we become free of ourselves, Unless we escape from ourselves, you mean, No, that’s not the same thing. The blaze in the sky was dying down, the waters grew suddenly purple, now not even the cleaning woman could doubt that the sea really is dark, at least at certain times of the day. The man said, Let’s leave the philosophizing to the king’s philosopher, that’s what they pay him for after all, and let’s eat, but the woman did not agree, First, you’ve got to inspect your boat, you’ve only seen it from the outside, What sort of state did you find it in, Well, some of the seams on the sails need reinforcing, Did you go down into the hold, has the ship let in much water, There’s a bit in the bottom, sloshing about with the ballast, but that seems normal, it’s good for the boat, How did you learn these things, I just did, But how, The same way you told the harbormaster that you would learn to sail, at sea, We’re not at sea yet, We’re on the water though, My belief was that, with sailing, there are only two true teachers, one is the sea and the other the boat, And the sky, you’re forgetting the sky, Yes, of course, the sky, The winds, The clouds, The sky, Yes, the sky.”
― José Saramago, The Tale of the Unknown Island, pg 32-34
Reading
- William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness“, Environmental History, 1996
- (Optional.) Judd’s “The Trouble with Thoreau’s Wilderness”
Screen
We’ll screen part of this in class and I’ll try to provide it for you all to finish watching on your own.
- John Cohrs’s film “Back Water”
Other objects and examples
Some photos and projects that I’ll share and discuss in class:
- Three photographs, by: Ansel Adams, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Edward Burtynsky
- Swoon’s “Swimming Cities” projects
- Mary Mattingly’s Swale project
- Sto Len, prints of Newtown Creek