America currently faces a crossroads in resource policy. Contradictions between the materialistic American lifestyle, the limitations of the earth to provide for our needs, and the present foreign policies in the Middle East have polarized political discourse to a point of stalemate. What lessons can be learned about equitable treatment of people of different cultures by a superpower in need of resources from a retrospective of the injustice, dispossession, and internment of ethnic groups and warfare in the West? We will explore the peoples of the West through lectures, documentary and popular films, and an optional overnight field trip to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. We will explore the peoples of the West through lectures, documentary and popular films, including "Brokeback Mountain" directed by Ang Lee (the featured director for On the Same Page this year), illustrating generational social differences with a regional basis. Each student is expected to conceive his or her own vision quest outlining in poster format a plan for a decade of personal and collective actions that might help propel American society along a path of cultural harmony while continuing to support its material and energy needs with environmentally sound practices. Poster talks are presented at a weekend class symposium.

This course may be used to satisfy the Physical Science or Social and Behavioral Sciences breadth requirement in Letters and Science. This course also satisfies the American Cultures requirement.