ENG 259, 260 - Reading Ecologies

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirement HU (and W when offered as 259).
“Nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language,” says Raymond Williams in his influential book Keywords. This course explores the many meanings of “nature” as well as the assumptions, anxieties, and aspirations attached to such terms as “environment,” “ecology,” “conservation,” “resource,” “climate,” and “sustainability.” This is not a course in environmental literature per se, but rather an exploration of how literature, especially the poetry and fiction of the nineteenth century, engages with and shapes our relations to and within the natural world, and serves as a basis for contemporary ecological thinking. We further explore how literary study may help us to better meet the environmental crises we currently face.