ENGL 265 A: Introduction to Environmental Humanities

English 265A:

Introduction to Environmental Humanities –

The Storyteller at World’s End

T/Th 9:30 – 11:20

Thompson 134

Jesse Oak Taylor

Office hours: T/Th 11:30 – 12:30

Office hours will be outside in the Grieg Garden

if weather permits, and otherwise in Padelford 408

jot8@uw.edu; 206-747-4818 (cell)

Overview & Course Goals:

This course focuses on how storytelling, one of the oldest and most pliable of human practices, can help us come to terms with life in a time of global climate change. We will focus on a set of novels that explicitly engage the imaginative challenges of climate change and its accordant crisis of mass extinction, pandemics, and social upheaval, giving rise to a new genre known as climate fiction, or “cli fi.” In so doing, we will ask how fiction can help us make sense of this epochal shift in Earth’s history, and help imagine new worlds into being.

By the end of the course, students should be able to think critically about narratives and how they are presented, reflect on different literary and discursive forms, and understand the difference between opinion and interpretation. We will pay particular attention to what (or who) particular stories include or exclude, the debates and questions they encourage or foreclose, and the people, organisms, ecosystems, or ideas they leave out. In order to answer these questions, we will have to think about how novels work: how the various features of the genre contribute to the conditions of possibility within it. Hence, the course serves as an introduction to both the humanistic study of climate change, on the one hand, and the study of the novel, on the other.

Readings:

The editions listed below have been ordered to the University Bookstore. I would prefer that you have either a physical copy or use an e-reader (kindle, etc.) rather than reading on a laptop or phone. Please complete readings prior to the date on which they are assigned. Additional shorter readings will be posted to the course Canvas site and/or linked to electronic editions where available.

• Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake. 978-0385721677
• Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower. Grand Central. 978-0-446675505
• Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide. 978-0618711666
• Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future. Orbit: 978-0316300131

Grade Breakdown:

Participation / In-class writing: 15%

What Does the Anthropocene Look Like? (Discussion Board): 10%

Essay #1: 20%

Final Exam: 20%

Essay #2: 25%

What Does the Anthropocene Look Like? (Graded): 10%

Participation: This is a “participatory lecture” course. You will be expected to complete the reading, and come to class ready to discuss issues, pose questions, and make specific reference to particular scenes/ passages from assigned course texts. You should always bring the book under discussion to class. Be prepared to ask questions, both of me and your fellow students. Also, be mindful that this course engages contentious, sometimes disturbing material. Engaging with it productively also means caring for ourselves, and for one another. Please be respectful of your classmates, even as you come prepared to have your own views questioned.

Written comments/ questions in class: during every class session, you will submit a short (1-3 sentence) comment or question on that day’s reading. Sometimes these responses will be guided by a particular prompt. Other times, they will be entirely free-form, giving you a chance to bring up things you either didn’t feel comfortable saying in class, to return to a point after the conversation has moved in a different direction, or to raise an issue from the reading that we didn’t address. These written questions will contribute to your participation grade. How much they factor into it will be up to you. If you speak up regularly, then they will be comparatively unimportant. If you are not an active participant in class discussions then your participation grade will rely primarily upon them. I will select some of these comments to read aloud (anonymously), or engage with in subsequent class meetings. If you submit a written comment that you explicitly do not want shared with the rest of the class, please make that explicit.

Essays: You will write two essays during the term. The first (4-5 pages) will focus on an interpretive reading of one of the books we have read up to that point, while the final paper (7-8 pages) will ask you to respond to the supplemental reading and/or to work across multiple novels (and/or films) in a comparative fashion. More detail about both assignments will be forthcoming.

If you would like to pursue a creative alternative to the final project I am open to discussing options for what that might look like. However, it will need to demonstrate a clear connection to the central preoccupations of the course, and include a substantive written component in order to receive “W” credit.

What Does the Anthropocene Look Like? An additional assignment to be completed throughout the term will be “What Does the Anthropocene Look Like?” – a collaborative image and short essay gallery to which everyone in the class will contribute.

The artists of Smudge Studio have created an “Anthropocene Viewer” predicated on the idea that anything you see through the viewer is the Anthropocene. However, framing matters: the particular Anthropocene image you choose will tell a particular story. Throughout the term, be on the lookout for Anthropocene images, either using the viewer directly or another device that (conveniently) is about the same size: a cell-phone camera. Upload these images along with a few sentences about how/why it is an “Anthropocene” image to Canvas discussion page where it will be visible to the class. You may submit as many images to the Canvas site as you want, but you must add at least three by the end of the term.

By May 31st, you must submit one of your Anthropocene images to the Canvas assignment page, along with a brief statement (one substantive paragraph) about why you think it an appropriate visualization of the epoch. These will be compiled into a slide show/gallery that we will discuss in class on the last day. Additional details about this assignment are available on the course Canvas page.

Late Work & Extensions: I will grant extensions requested at least 24 hours in advance of a due date. Work submitted late without a prearranged extension will be penalized at a rate of .1 GPA point per calendar day (i.e., 4.0 becomes 3.9, etc.). The same is true for work submitted after an extended deadline.  

Exam: The final exam will consist of a combination of passage identifications from the works read during the term, and a series of short answer questions dealing with course concepts. Since your own writings will focus on selected readings, this format should allow you to respond to the course as a whole, while also providing a chance for you to get credit for the thing that will take up the majority of your course prep time: doing the reading. In preparation for the final exam, I encourage you to note significant passages, character names, places, and other details as you read, and to pay particular attention to concepts and key terms introduced in lecture.   

Schedule: This is a reading intensive course. Read ahead wherever possible. Ministry for the Future, in particular, is quite long. If you can get a head start on it, your future self will thank you! The sections listed for each day are the amount of the novel that will be discussed on that day, and should be completed by that time. If you have read ahead, this also serves as a guide so that you don’t “spoil” the books for your fellow students. Supplemental readings and films will not be on the exam.

Week 1:

3. 3.29: Introductions. “Welcome to the Anthropocene?” and “Rise: From One Island to Another” (watch both films in class)

Th. 3.31: Jedediah Purdy, “Preface” & “Introduction” to After Nature (e-book in library).  Watch on your own: The Anthropocene (streaming on YouTube, Amazon, and other sources);

Week 2:

4. 4.5: Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake Ch. 1-3

Th. 4.7: Atwood, Oryx and Crake Ch. 4-5

Supplemental: Explore the Feral Atlas

Week 3:

4. 4.12: Atwood, Oryx and Crake Ch. 6-8

Th. 4.14: Atwood, Oryx and Crake FINISH

Week 4:    

4. 4.19: Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, Ch. 1-5

Th. 4.21: Butler, Parable of the Sower Ch. 6-11

Supplemental: McKibben, “In a World on Fire, Stop Burning Things”

Week 5:

4. 4.26: Butler, Parable of the Sower Ch. 12 - 20

Th. 4.28: Butler, Parable of the Sower FINISH.

Supplemental: Rich, “Losing Earth”; Solnit, “Dare We Hope?”  

Week 6:

5. 5.3: Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, “Tide Country” – “Stirrings”

Th. 5.5: Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, “Morichjhãpi” – “Pursued”

Supplemental: Ghosh, “Stories” from The Great Derangement (or lectures “Fiction 1” and “Fiction 2” from the lecture series on which the book is based)  

First Essay DUE Monday 5.2 on Canvas

Week 7:

5. 5.10: Ghosh, The Hungry Tide “Beginning Again” – “A Killing”

Th. 5.12: Ghosh, The Hungry Tide FINISH

Supplemental: Watch: Virunga (available on Netflix & elsewhere)

Week 8:

5. 5.17: Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future Ch. 1-10

Th. 5.19: KSR, Ministry for the Future Ch. 11-40

Supplemental: Watch Don’t Look Up (Netflix and elsewhere)

Week 9:

5. 5.24: KSR, Ministry for the Future Ch. 41-66

Th. 5.26: KSR, Ministry for the Future Ch. 67-77

Week 10:

5. 5.31: KSR, Ministry for the Future Ch. 78-90

Th. 6.2: KSR, Ministry for the Future FINISH

What Does the Anthropocene Look Like? Due on Canvas May 31

Exam:

6. 6.8: 10:30 – 12:20 THO 134

Final Paper Due: Friday June 10^th by 5pm on Canvas

Grade Scale:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: The UW English Department aims to help students become more incisive thinkers, effective communicators, and imaginative writers by acknowledging that language and its use are powerful and hold the potential to empower individuals and communities; to provide the means to engage in meaningful conversation and collaboration across differences and with those with whom we disagree; and to offer methods for exploring, understanding, problem solving, and responding to the many pressing collective issues we face in our world--skills that align with and support the University of Washington’s mission to educate “a diverse student body to become responsible global citizens and future leaders through a challenging learning environment informed by cutting-edge scholarship.”

As a department, we begin with the conviction that language and texts play crucial roles in the constitution of cultures and communities, past, present, and future.  Our disciplinary commitments to the study of English (its history, multiplicity, and development; its literary and artistic uses; and its global role in shaping and changing cultures) require of us a willingness to engage openly and critically with questions of power and difference. As such, in our teaching, service, and scholarship we frequently initiate and encourage conversations about topics such as race and racism, immigration, gender, sexuality, class, indigeneity, and colonialisms. These topics are fundamental to the inquiry we pursue.  We are proud of this fact, and we are committed to creating an environment in which our faculty and students can do so confidently and securely, knowing that they have the backing of the department.

Religious Accommodations: Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Academic Integrity:  When quoting, paraphrasing, or referring to another writer’s words or ideas (including any you might find on the Internet), you must cite the source properly using MLA citation guidelines, which I will explain before the first essay assignment is due.  Don’t hesitate to ask me if you have questions about proper attribution.  I will hand over any plagiarized work to the Dean’s Committee on Academic Conduct, and plagiarism may result in a failing grade on the assignment or the course.  For further information on what constitutes plagiarism, see http://depts.washington.edu/grading/issue1/honesty.htm#misconduct.

Disability Accommodations: Your experience in this class is important to me. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please activate your accommodations via myDRS so we can discuss how they will be implemented in this course. If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), contact DRS directly to set up an Access Plan. DRS facilitates the interactive process that establishes reasonable accommodations. Contact DRS at https://disability.uw.edu.