Studies: Comp/Rhet/Language: Rhetoric and Environmental Justice

This section of this course carries a WI and an E designation.

In this course, we will study rhetorics of environmental justice. This means that we will not only study the rhetorical strategies and devices working in discourses of environmental justice, but also the belief systems that undergird and are mobilized in those discourses. We will begin by tracing a global, cross-cultural history of conceptions of humans’ relations to “nature,” and in doing so, we will problematize the binary (the opposition) of humans and nature. We will explore other ways of thinking about the boundaries between human/animal, civilization/nature, intelligence/instinct, survival of the fittest/collaboration. Specifically, we will examine the ways in which scholars, creative writers, and artists can help us to explore those boundaries — blurring, if not displacing them, and thus, providing us with other ways of understanding and engaging with the environment and with all that constitutes it. You will contribute to that discourse of exploration by participating in whole-class and small group discussions, formal debates, and presentations, as well as by conducting research and writing in both formal and informal forms.