English 270 - Winter, 2015

Studies in Contemporary World Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Hsu, Hsuan L.
CRN: 93576
Time: T 3:10-6:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Later American
Focus: Interdiscipline, Other National, Method, Theory

Description

Today we don’t just live in toxic environments—we are born with toxins in our cells, we eat and drink chemicals and absorb radiation, & we all learn to navigate and manage risks. Although the risk theorist Ulrich Beck has claimed that “Poverty is hierarchical, smog is democratic,” groups and places are not equally affected by environmental risks. This class will look at how writers represent chemical and radioactive pollutants in a range of risk-laden places. Through readings of important theoretical and critical accounts of risk—as well as narrative texts from Polynesia, South Korea, India, and different US communities—we will discuss how literature negotiates the subjectivity of risk perception, exposes invisible, incalculable, and time-delayed sources of harm, and explores the ethical and narrative implications of the vulnerable bodies produced in risky places.

Grading

short writing assignments=10%
attendance & participation=25%
2 presentations=20%
annotated bibliography=10%
final essay=35%

Texts

Risk Society, Ulrich Beck
Contagious, Priscilla Wald
Sense of Place and Sense of Planet, Ursula Heise
Bodily Natures, Stacy Alaimo
Eco-Sickness, Heather Houser
Environmental Other, Sarah Ray
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Rob Nixon
thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs, Juliana Spahr
from unincorporated territory [saina], Craig Santos Perez
Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
Family of Fallen Leaves, Charles Waugh and Huy Lien
Animal's People, Indra Sinha
Book of the Dead , Muriel Rukeyser
Melal, Robert Barclay
Gain, Richard Powers