HIST 150. Introduction to Historical Thinking: Mountains (1). In this introductory seminar we will examine the ways in which various people throughout history have engaged the greatest monuments in their midst—the mountains that dominate certain parts of the human landscape. Mountains have figured prominently in writings and oral traditions from earliest times, and the fascination with them continues in the disciplines of history and anthropology, where the study of lofty terrain has alternately framed and dominated research work. We will study human interactions with mountains, from classical statements of mountain travel and thought by Confucius, Vasari, in the Bible, and in other sources. We will also examine many of the geological and environmental issues that affect mountain landscapes. In particular, we will study the five “marchmounts” or cosmological mountains of China. Laid out in powerful “architectural” fashion, the great Chinese mountains framed political and historical discourse in early China. Since early times, the Chinese imagined heaven as round and earth as square, and their linkage played a prominent role in three thousand years of political and historical writings. To this day, those mountains remain important as cultural sites and pilgrimage centers, and we will look at their role in multiple levels of Chinese economic, cultural, and political life. These readings will form a framework that students will each use to develop their own particular focus on mountain environments. Students will have the opportunity to choose, for their final projects, a mountain territory that they will study in-depth, placing it in environmental, cultural, and historical context. (5T) Topics course. Offered each semester.