7:15p-8:30p TR (25) 3 cr

COAS INTENSIVE WRITING SECTION.

TOPIC: LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENT

Our course reads literature within its surrounding "environment." Environmental" criticisms and "ecological" criticisms have recently come on the scene and expanded dramatically. We'll read some critical attempts to understand literature from environmental perspectives.

Our readings will include one of the environmental anthologies, probably Anderson, Slovic, and O'Grady, Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture . We'll also read from an "ecological criticism" collection. Among the themes and topics, we'll consider women and nature; men and nature; development, urbanization, and the advance of suburban sprawl; chemicals and pesticides in the ecosystem; separation from nature and return to nature; predator elimination and predator reintroduction; extreme nature encounters; extreme weather and global atmospheric change; and critiques of environmental thinking. The readings contain fiction and non-fiction, all from the twentieth-century environmental canon.

In addition to our anthology, course readings will probably include Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home and Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences ; Rick Bass, The Ninemile Wolves ; Pat Murphy, Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles ; Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac ; fiction and poetry by Leslie Marmon Silko; Jack London, The Call of the Wild ; Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild ; John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid ["Narratives about a conservationist and three of his natural enemies"]; selections from Rachel Carson, Silent Spring ; and selections from Martin W. Lewis, Green Delusions: an Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism .

There will be mid-term and a final. Students will also write a short paper (5-6) pages and a longer (circa 10 page) paper. Short paragraph-length working papers are also a possibility. Class meetings will mix lecture and discussion.