English 233 - Winter, 2012

Problems in American Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Ziser, Michael
CRN: 53870
Time: M 3:10-6:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Earlier American
Focus: Interdiscipline, Method

Description

This team-taught interdisciplinary seminar will explore changing connections between peoples and the natural world as they are reflected in literary and historical documents. Beginning with the European colonization of North America, we will examine a range of methodological and substantive issues, from how to characterize the “Columbian Exchange’s” material and representational legacy to the impact of the agricultural conversion of the Midwestern grasslands to the rise and fall of environmental activism in the late 20th century, with many other stops (New Orleans, the desert southwest, Los Angeles) along the way. Students from all disciplines who are interested in environmental history, ecocriticism, science studies, and colonial studies are encouraged to participate. The seminar will run concurrently with the Environment and Societies colloquium, for advanced students who wish to immerse themselves in the (trans)discipline.

Please note: this seminar is listed under two different departments, English 233 (CRN 53870) and History 202H (CRN 53809). Students should sign up for whichever version works best with the requirements of their particular program. For English graduate students, the course may fulfill either the early or later national requirement, depending on the subject of the final paper.

Grading

50% participation
50% final paper (15-20pp)

Texts

The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), Edward Abbey
Bodily Natures (2010), Stacy Alaimo
Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War (2008), Thomas Andrews
Vicious: Wolves and Men in America (2004) , Jon Coleman
Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (1983) , William Cronon
Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, William Cronon
Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, William Cronon
Zeitoun (2010), Dave Eggers
A Briefe and True Report of the New-found Land of Virginia (1585) , Thomas Harriot
A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans (2006) , Ari Kelman
Inescapable Ecologies: A History of Environment, Disease, and Knowledge (2006) , Linda Nash
The Octopus, Frank Norris
Jared Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles (2004)
American Environmental History, Louis Warren
The Organic Machine: The Re-Making the Columbia River (1995) , Richard White