English 233-1 - Winter, 2023

Problems in American Literature

Class Information

Instructor: Ronda, Margaret
CRN: 44734
Time: R 3:10-6:00
Location: 120 Voorhies
Breadth: Later American
Focus: Genre, Method, Theory

Description

Ecopoetics: Methods and Practices

In this course, we will read widely in contemporary works of ecopoetics in a hemispheric and global context alongside key recent theories and concepts in the environmental humanities. We'll be considering how poetry as a medium reflects on and responds to material ecosystemic transformations across various scales, and its relations to modes of eco-activism and environmental theory. We will consider genres, forms, and themes central to ecologically-oriented poetry in the present, while placing these concerns into relation with longer literary and cultural histories of environmental poetics. Across these discussions, we will be considering ecopoetics as critical method and as a series of formal practices and poetic topoi.

We will read works by poets including Raquel Salas Rivera, Nicole Cecilia Delgado, Craig Santos Perez, Cecilia Vicuna, Wago Ryoichi, Rita Wong, Evelyn Araluen, Cecily Nicholson, Alice Oswald, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Kamau Brathwaite. Poetics works include Edouard Glissant, Epeli Hau'ofa, Joshua Bennett, Michael Cronin, Edgar Garcia, Anahid Nersessian.

Grading

Class participation
Discussion posts
10-12 page paper