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Courses & Schedules
English 188A - Fall, 2016
Topics in Literary & Critical Theory
Topic: The Aesthetics of Air
Class Information
Instructor:
Hsu, Hsuan L.
CRN:
32534
Time:
MW 10:00-11:20
Location:
248 Voorhies
Description
Beginning with the Industrial era’s “London fog” and ending with the contemporary smog crisis in China (where people are purchasing cans of air shipped in from the Canadian Rockies), we’ll consider how writers, artists, environmentalists, and cultural theorists have responded to modernity’s increasing tendencies toward air pollution and “air conditioning”—or the partitioning and engineering of air. How do writers describe aerial aspects of setting, breath, voice, weather, and smell in an era when we can no longer take the air for granted as an undifferentiated medium? Reading literary and cultural texts alongside environmental criticism and aesthetic theory, we’ll consider topics such as L.A. smog, dust, atmospheric warfare, olfactory marketing, and pesticide exposure, focusing on how artists draw attention to invisible and often unnoticed airborne particulates.
Grading
30% participation, attendance, response papers, and in-class assignments; 15% shorter essay; 30% longer essay; 25% final exam
Texts
Vandover and the Brute
, Norris
Terror from the Air
, Sloterdijk
Animal's People
, Sinha
Their Dogs Came With Them
, Viramontes
thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs
, Spahr
Dust
, Marder