In the Forest, On the Beach: Introduction to Literature and the Environment

Catalog description

In this course we will examine literary texts that create an immersive relationship to their environments, with an emphasis on the ecological dimensions of these sites. We will dwell on the seashore with writers, such as Marianne Moore and Rachael Carson, and then we will turn to the plant and animal worlds of terrestrial landscapes, such as the forest and the garden. In these varied settings, we will examine how poetic forms of attention can offer a different sense of the shifting temporalities of change in the age of the Anthropocene, allowing us to stretch our range of perception to non-monumental rhythms that may be at play below the thresholds of human perception. This course is designed as an introduction to the field of the Environmental Humanities. No prerequisites required.