This course offers an introduction to
literature that concerns the biophysical world. We will study an array of texts
drawn from a range of genres and historical periods in order to trace changing
conceptions of the relationship between humanity and nature. Topics our survey
of environmental literature will broach include place, globalism, animism, metaphor,
symbolism, biocentrism, and beauty. More specifically, through writing and
discussion we will examine closely the ways in which literary authors have articulated
ecological principles, narrated their experiences in the more-than-human world,
and depicted non-human species. In so doing, we will consider also how aesthetic,
metaphysical, spiritual, religious, mythological, and scientific ideas and
attitudes have shaped and informed a variety of literary treatments of environmental
visions.
Course Requirements
·
Attendance and Participation
·
Three 4-page Papers
·
Midterm and Final Exam
Required Texts
·
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
·
T.C. Boyle, When the Killing’s Done
·
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
·
Henry David Thoreau, Walden; Or, Life in the Woods
·
Karen Ti Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest
A course reader (poems, non-fiction prose,
short stories) also will be required.