Beyond Nature Worship: New Theories of Environmentalism
I used to teach an intro-level course on environmental literature, and was excited to redesign it for more advanced students, either in English or Environmental science. This new now fulfills my department's critical reflection requirement - kind of a theory-ish metacognition requirement for the lit. major.
I centered the course around the environmental thinkers I most admire, and filled in the rest with American novels from the last decade or so. My environmental thinking is always indebted to Liz DeLoughrey; in addition, I stole a lot from Min Hyoung Song's wonderful class "Contemporary Literature and the Environment."
I centered the course around the environmental thinkers I most admire, and filled in the rest with American novels from the last decade or so. My environmental thinking is always indebted to Liz DeLoughrey; in addition, I stole a lot from Min Hyoung Song's wonderful class "Contemporary Literature and the Environment."
This course contextualizes the environmental movement in post-World War II America. Together we will consider how gender, race, sexuality, class, and disability affect human relationships to natural and built environments, and how those relationships are represented. The course centers on a small roster of environmental thinkers, including Ursula Heise, Rob Nixon, and Elizabeth DeLoughrey, whom we will read closely, repeatedly, and in conjunction with several contemporary novels. In the spirit of Lawrence Buell’s assertion that “environmental crisis involves a crisis of the imagination,” the course is invested in discourses of both science and the humanities, and students with no previous college-level experience in English are welcome.
WRITTEN WORK
Discussion Questions [stolen from Kyla Wazana Tompkins]
For each starred reading on the syllabus, you and you classmates will collectively create a Google Doc of discussion questions. I will email you a link to the blank document. Your contribution consists of one discussion question and any contextual information you’ve gleaned.
Please put your initials after anything you add to the doc. I will not grade your discussion questions. You receive full credit for contributing on time, and periodically I will give you feedback on your questions.
Your contributions are due by 6PM the day before class.
Op-ed
First draft due 3/4, final draft due 3/14. “Op-ed” refers to a signed opinion essay by an outside contributor that appears “opposite the editorial page” of unsigned opinions by the publication’s staff. Write an op-ed of no more than 750 words that communicates a single argument about the environment memorably and persuasively. In order to have an argument about the environment, you need to not only do the readings for this class, but also pay close attention to the news. Start doing this now—if you don’t know where to start, the New York Times has a climate and environment section and The Atlantic’s Citylab often has great coverage.
We will discuss this assignment more at length in class, but you can find helpful guidelines at https://commskit.duke.edu/writing-media/writing-effective-op-eds/. In the spirit of engaging with a larger public, you will write several drafts of your op-ed and I will provide feedback but no grade. Attached to the final draft, please include a one-page reflection in which you compare your op-ed to a published op-ed you’ve read, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. I encourage you to submit your op-ed for publication in an appropriate venue (and I’m happy to talk about how you might decide what makes an appropriate venue).
Two response papers
Choose one statement (anywhere from a sentence to a short paragraph) from a reading by Cronon, Buell, Purdy, Guha, Ghosh, Heise, or Kim. It should be a complex statement that captures your interest—either because you’re intrigued by the idea, or because it adds to a conversation we’ve been having, or contradicts another writer’s ideas. Type this statement at the top of the page.
Then, in around three pages, analyze the statement. First, summarize it. In your own words, what is this statement really saying? Then, dig deeper. You might consider any of the following questions (but please don’t answer them all, one by one). How does the statement you’ve chosen fit in with the larger argument of the reading? What kind of diction does the writer use here, and to what effect? What kind of sentence structure does the writer use, and to what effect? Does this statement make you think of any primary texts from our class? (If so, bring in a specific example.) Does your example prove what the writer is saying, or does it seem to contradict it? Does this statement build on the work of other theorists we’ve read in class? Or, perhaps, does it contradict their work?
Your second response paper should act as a prospectus for your argumentative essay. It should focus on a statement from the theorist you’ve chosen to examine in your argumentative essay, and should begin relating that statement to a primary text you’d like to analyze further. The prospectus is not a contract, but do take it seriously as an opportunity to begin thinking about your major assignment for this class.
Argumentative essay
In an essay of 10-12 pages, articulate a relationship between a secondary reading and a primary text from the syllabus. That articulation should take the form of a specific and debatable argument about the primary text. Heads up: the relationship between text and theory need not be direct or harmonious! Some of the most exciting essays demonstrate how a work of literature suggests the shortcomings of a particular theory. The essay is due Thursday, 4/18.
Concept map [stolen from Jacquelyn Ardam]
This final exercise asks you to synthesize the readings we’ve done this semester by designing a concept map for the course.
PROPOSED READING SCHEDULE
W 1/23 Introduction
Nature vs.
M 1/28 *Cronon, “The Trouble With Wilderness”
Recommended: Marris, “Weeding the Jungle”
W 1/30 *Buell, “Toxic Discourse”
M 2/4 Pico, Nature Poem
W 2/6 Nature Poem
We Should All Be Environmentalists
M 2/11 *Purdy, Prologue, Introduction, and Ch. 4 in After Nature
W 2/13 Purdy, Chs. 5 + 7 in After Nature
M 2/18 First response paper due at the start of class
Marris, “Novel Ecosystems”
Powers, The Overstory
W 2/20 The Overstory
M 2/25 The Overstory (recommended: Marris, “The Forest Primeval”)
W 2/27 The Overstory (recommended: Singer, “Should This Be the Last Generation?”—google it and you’ll find it)
Postcolonial Critiques of Western Environmentalism
M 3/4 Op-ed first draft due at the start of class
*Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism” (I will email you this one)
W 3/6 *Nixon, Preface, Introduction, Chs. 6 + 7 in Slow Violence
M 3/11 Op-ed workshop
W 3/13 *Ghosh, The Great Derangement
Th 3/14 Op-ed final draft due at 3PM in my mailbox
M 3/25 Sinha, Animal’s People
W 3/27 Animal’s People
What is it like to be a bat?
M 4/1 *Heise, Introduction, Chs. 2 + 6 in Imagining Extinction
W 4/3 Second response paper due at the start of class
*Woods and Veatch, “Strangers in a Strange Land”
Marris, “Learning to Love Exotic Species”
M 4/8 *Kim, Chs. 3 + 4 in Dangerous Crossings
W 4/10 Millet, How the Dead Dream
M 4/15 How the Dead Dream
Migration and the Future
W 4/17 *Arendt, “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man” in The Origins of Totalitarianism (https://www.azioniparallele.it/images/materiali/Totalitarianism.pdf)
Th 4/18 Argumentative essay due in my mailbox by 3PM
M 4/22 *Maxwell, “…to Have…” in The Right to Have Rights (I will email you this one)
W 4/24 Deloughrey, Didur, and Carrigan, Introduction to Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities
*Deloughrey, “Ordinary Worldings” in Global Ecologies
M 4/29 Hamid, Exit West
W 5/1 Exit West
M 5/6 Concept map due via email at 3PM
WRITTEN WORK
Discussion Questions [stolen from Kyla Wazana Tompkins]
For each starred reading on the syllabus, you and you classmates will collectively create a Google Doc of discussion questions. I will email you a link to the blank document. Your contribution consists of one discussion question and any contextual information you’ve gleaned.
Please put your initials after anything you add to the doc. I will not grade your discussion questions. You receive full credit for contributing on time, and periodically I will give you feedback on your questions.
Your contributions are due by 6PM the day before class.
Op-ed
First draft due 3/4, final draft due 3/14. “Op-ed” refers to a signed opinion essay by an outside contributor that appears “opposite the editorial page” of unsigned opinions by the publication’s staff. Write an op-ed of no more than 750 words that communicates a single argument about the environment memorably and persuasively. In order to have an argument about the environment, you need to not only do the readings for this class, but also pay close attention to the news. Start doing this now—if you don’t know where to start, the New York Times has a climate and environment section and The Atlantic’s Citylab often has great coverage.
We will discuss this assignment more at length in class, but you can find helpful guidelines at https://commskit.duke.edu/writing-media/writing-effective-op-eds/. In the spirit of engaging with a larger public, you will write several drafts of your op-ed and I will provide feedback but no grade. Attached to the final draft, please include a one-page reflection in which you compare your op-ed to a published op-ed you’ve read, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. I encourage you to submit your op-ed for publication in an appropriate venue (and I’m happy to talk about how you might decide what makes an appropriate venue).
Two response papers
Choose one statement (anywhere from a sentence to a short paragraph) from a reading by Cronon, Buell, Purdy, Guha, Ghosh, Heise, or Kim. It should be a complex statement that captures your interest—either because you’re intrigued by the idea, or because it adds to a conversation we’ve been having, or contradicts another writer’s ideas. Type this statement at the top of the page.
Then, in around three pages, analyze the statement. First, summarize it. In your own words, what is this statement really saying? Then, dig deeper. You might consider any of the following questions (but please don’t answer them all, one by one). How does the statement you’ve chosen fit in with the larger argument of the reading? What kind of diction does the writer use here, and to what effect? What kind of sentence structure does the writer use, and to what effect? Does this statement make you think of any primary texts from our class? (If so, bring in a specific example.) Does your example prove what the writer is saying, or does it seem to contradict it? Does this statement build on the work of other theorists we’ve read in class? Or, perhaps, does it contradict their work?
Your second response paper should act as a prospectus for your argumentative essay. It should focus on a statement from the theorist you’ve chosen to examine in your argumentative essay, and should begin relating that statement to a primary text you’d like to analyze further. The prospectus is not a contract, but do take it seriously as an opportunity to begin thinking about your major assignment for this class.
Argumentative essay
In an essay of 10-12 pages, articulate a relationship between a secondary reading and a primary text from the syllabus. That articulation should take the form of a specific and debatable argument about the primary text. Heads up: the relationship between text and theory need not be direct or harmonious! Some of the most exciting essays demonstrate how a work of literature suggests the shortcomings of a particular theory. The essay is due Thursday, 4/18.
Concept map [stolen from Jacquelyn Ardam]
This final exercise asks you to synthesize the readings we’ve done this semester by designing a concept map for the course.
PROPOSED READING SCHEDULE
W 1/23 Introduction
Nature vs.
M 1/28 *Cronon, “The Trouble With Wilderness”
Recommended: Marris, “Weeding the Jungle”
W 1/30 *Buell, “Toxic Discourse”
M 2/4 Pico, Nature Poem
W 2/6 Nature Poem
We Should All Be Environmentalists
M 2/11 *Purdy, Prologue, Introduction, and Ch. 4 in After Nature
W 2/13 Purdy, Chs. 5 + 7 in After Nature
M 2/18 First response paper due at the start of class
Marris, “Novel Ecosystems”
Powers, The Overstory
W 2/20 The Overstory
M 2/25 The Overstory (recommended: Marris, “The Forest Primeval”)
W 2/27 The Overstory (recommended: Singer, “Should This Be the Last Generation?”—google it and you’ll find it)
Postcolonial Critiques of Western Environmentalism
M 3/4 Op-ed first draft due at the start of class
*Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism” (I will email you this one)
W 3/6 *Nixon, Preface, Introduction, Chs. 6 + 7 in Slow Violence
M 3/11 Op-ed workshop
W 3/13 *Ghosh, The Great Derangement
Th 3/14 Op-ed final draft due at 3PM in my mailbox
M 3/25 Sinha, Animal’s People
W 3/27 Animal’s People
What is it like to be a bat?
M 4/1 *Heise, Introduction, Chs. 2 + 6 in Imagining Extinction
W 4/3 Second response paper due at the start of class
*Woods and Veatch, “Strangers in a Strange Land”
Marris, “Learning to Love Exotic Species”
M 4/8 *Kim, Chs. 3 + 4 in Dangerous Crossings
W 4/10 Millet, How the Dead Dream
M 4/15 How the Dead Dream
Migration and the Future
W 4/17 *Arendt, “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man” in The Origins of Totalitarianism (https://www.azioniparallele.it/images/materiali/Totalitarianism.pdf)
Th 4/18 Argumentative essay due in my mailbox by 3PM
M 4/22 *Maxwell, “…to Have…” in The Right to Have Rights (I will email you this one)
W 4/24 Deloughrey, Didur, and Carrigan, Introduction to Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities
*Deloughrey, “Ordinary Worldings” in Global Ecologies
M 4/29 Hamid, Exit West
W 5/1 Exit West
M 5/6 Concept map due via email at 3PM