American Wilderness: From Frontier Myth to Climate Futures

Catalog description

This course follows the idea of "wilderness" across American writing, from early colonial accounts to contemporary climate fiction. We'll read texts that imagine wild places as terrifying, healing, sacred, profitable, and deeply contested - from captivity narratives and transcendental essays to Indigenous counter-stories, nature writing, environmental justice essays, and novels about fire, drought, and migration. As we move through these works, we'll ask what the wilderness story has done for the United States: how it helped justify westward expansion, shape ideas of national character, and hide or expose histories of displacement, labor, race, gender, and class. Our materials will include narrative nonfiction, essays, fiction, poetry, policy documents, and visual culture. A small field component invites you to think about your own nearby landscapes, while we use approachable critical tools to frame discussion. No previous experience with literary study is required - just a willingness to read closely, think historically, and talk together.