ENST 271 - Literature and the American Environment

1 unit(s)

This course considers the representations of nature and the environment in American literature, from the nineteenth century to the present, with special emphasis on contemporary experience and perception. Topics will include: the importance of sense of place (and displacement); multiple cultural discourses about nature; the rise of modern ecocriticism; indigenous understandings of the natural world; and the role of literature in environmental movements. Readings will be drawn from such authors as H. D. Thoreau, Mary Austin, Jean Toomer, Aldo Leopold, Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, Leslie Silko, John Edgar Wideman, Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, and Terry Tempest Williams, as well as from critical and scholarly sources.

(Not available to students who have taken ENST 270.)

Two 75-minute periods.

Not offered in 2019/20.

Course Format: CLS