ENGL 3565 - Black Ecoliterature

(crosslisted) AMST 3565, ASRC 3565, FGSS 3565
(ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG)

Fall or Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

This course counts toward the Literatures of the Americas and post-1800 requirements for English majors.

C. Frazier.

Mainstream media would have us believe that driving a new Toyota Prius, recycling, and shopping “clean” at Whole Foods would make us all food environmentalists, right? Additionally, climate change and environmental degradation are often discussed as if they are phenomena that affect us all equally. Despite these dynamics, research in recent years tells us that while there might be some general ways that we experience our constantly changing physical environments—race, gender, and location very much affect how we experience “Nature.” In this course we will use literature from across the African diaspora to investigate how looking at race, gender, and location produces very different ideas about environment, environmentalism, and “Nature” itself.