World Literatures 340 - Problems in Literary Theory: Narrating the Anthropocene

Topics course: The Anthropocene has already disrupted many assumptions founded on the relative climatic stability of the Holocene bringing our attention to the interdependency and interconnectedness of geological and human agents. How can we tell the story of what Amitav Ghosh calls "The Great Derangement"? What are the languages and images which enable us to translate between the complex stratifications of nature and culture? What stories do earth, matter, plants, objects tell us about inter-species communication? What is the role of literature in mobilizing people politically in the age of the Anthropocene? This course is an introduction to the new interdisciplinary field of environmental humanities.

Instructor Permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores