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Course Info for ENGL - 360 - 01, Fall 2026
Class number: 3298 Title: Walden Department: English
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 15 Current enrollment: 13 Available seats: 2
Start date: Tuesday, September 8, 2026 End date: Wednesday, December 23, 2026 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: WF: 8:30AM-9:45AM, 115V - 106 Instructor(s): Hager, Christopher
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Humanities Requirement
Note: For English majors, this course fulfills the post-1800, elective, and additional literature or film requirements. For all students, it fulfills the College’s HUM requirement.
Course Description:
Henry David Thoreau is one of the most familiar yet least understood figures in American intellectual history. He is, in fact, several figures at once: a pioneer of social protest, an intrepid (if sometimes myopic) student of North America's Indigenous history, a naturalist whose data is used in 21st-century climate science, as well as a writer and philosopher. This course takes one book--WALDEN, a capacious, unruly, often cryptic blend of memoir, nature writing, spiritual reflection, and social commentary--as the starting point for an intellectual exploration that ranges from Thoreau's medieval Japanese precursor Kamo No Chomei to ecological and philosophical debates raging today. Students will get to follow--or chart for themselves--one of the many paths of inquiry Thoreau's work inspires.