Built around the term "give and take," these slides are for a lecture on art that represents southeastern Alaska. It was given as part of the 2015 Stanford University Sophomore College course, "In the Age of the Anthropocene: Coupled Human-Natural Systems of Southeast Alaska." The act of giving, even to the brink of your own ruin, and taking, a more selfish act that may cause the ruin of others, are balancing poles that can help us understand some of the most important art that’s come out of this region and by extension the region itself. It also gives a frame to think specifically about the give and take of tourism, one of the four main course units. The lecture explored this give and take through three main topics: the photographs of Edward Curtis, the concept of Potlatch, and the carvings of many sizes created by the Tlingit people. Related topics and themes mentioned are John Muir and conservationism, glaciers and geology, the 1899 Harriman Expedition, Eadweard Muybridge, the Yukon Gold Rush, totem poles, and the philosophical concepts of "wilderness" and "frontier."

1. Give and Take:
Representing
Southeast Alaska
George Philip LeBourdais
Ph.D. Candidate, Stanford University
Department of Art & Art History

3. Edward Sheriff Curtis, Self-Portrait, 1899

4. E.S. Curtis,
Kikisoblu or “Princess Angeline” of the Duwamish, 1896

5. E.S. Curtis, Chief Joseph, Nez Percé, 1904

7. E.S. Curtis, Three Piegan Chiefs, 1910

8. E.S. Curtis, The Elder in Glacier Bay, June, 1899

13. E.S. Curtis, Sitka Bay, Alaska, June, 1899

14. Robert Swain Gifford, Barry Glacier,
Entrance to Harriman Fjord, Prince William Sound, 1899

15. E.S. Curtis, Reid Inlet - Glacier Bay, 1899

20. Eadweard Muybridge, Sitka from Japanese Island, 1868

25. Preston Singletary, Raven Bowl, 2013

27. Tlingit peoples, Eagle Rattle, Sitka, 19th cent.

29. C. Hart Merriam, Tlingit Totem poles
and houses at abandoned village at Cape Fox, 1899