ENGL 622 Ecocriticism: Environmental Criticism and Literature

Ecocriticism is an emerging branch of literary criticism concerned with the relationships between literature and the physical world. This course will explore how theoretical understandings of the environment can be brought to literature of the environment. In the seminar students will develop a critical vocabulary and range of methodologies for discussing such topics as: the cultural construction of nature; the poetics and politics of nature writing; land as readable text; the idea of wilderness; land as economic and spiritual resource; Native American literature; “green” pedagogy; sense of place; nature and community; gender and nature; ecofeminism; and the relationship of natural science and nature writing.

3 Credit(s)