English 184 - Spring, 2014

Literature & the Enivonment

Class Information

Instructor: Hsu, Hsuan L.
CRN: 22588
Time: MWF 11:00-11:50
Location: 7 Wellman

Description

After Nature
This course will consider a range of literary texts that represent human relationships with the nonhuman environment. After considering nineteenth-century writings concerned with encountering and preserving the wilderness, we will turn to more recent works that consider forms of “nature” that have been altered by climate change, chemical pollutants, and radiation. In these stories of cyborgs, mutations, toxicity, and environmental risk, “nature” cannot be separated from human bodies and activities. The course will consider a range of genres—such as memoir, magical realism, science fiction, naturalism, and experimental poetry—that demonstrate how literature can engage with environmental issues beyond familiar frameworks of conservation and “nature writing.”

Grading

short essay
longer essay
final exam

Texts

Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams
Under the Feet of Jesus, Helena Maria Viramontes
Watershed, Percival Everett
So Far From God, Ana Castillo
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
On Such a Full Sea, Chang-Rae Lee
thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs, Juliana Spahr
Animal's People, Indra Sinha
from unincorporated territory [saina], Craig Santos Perez