Short Course Description
Ecocriticism and Literature
Ecocriticism, an emergent discipline in literary and cultural studies, contemplates the entwined relationship between human beings, culture, and the environment through the representations of the natural world within literature. Current trends in ecocriticism question the very distinctions between constructs such as human and non-human and between nature and non-nature and consider how they frame our conceptions of the current environmental crisis.
The course will focus on environmental destruction and climate change, and examine key concepts such as Anthropocene, environmental justice, slow violence, and transcorporeality drawing on critical thinkers such as Rachel Carson, Lawrence Beull, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rob Nixon, Ursula Heise, Stacy Alaimo, and Adam Trexler. These concepts will inform our reading of literary and cultural texts by authors such as Amitav Ghosh, Ruth Ozeki, Barbara Kingsolver, Luis Alberto Urrea, Richard Powers, and Lydia Millet (tentative list).
Participation: 20%
Final: Take Home Assignment: 80%
Full syllabus will be available to registered students only
