ENGL 205 - The Environment and American Fiction

FC ARHU CD WINT

4 credits
When one thinks of “environmental literature,” the genres that come to mind tend to be either poetry or nonfiction (i.e. Thoreau’s Walden). However, there is also a wealth of fiction deserving of study within an environmental context. In this course, we will read American novels and short stories with an ecocritical lens, including Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony,” and Ruth Ozeki’s “My Year of Meats,” in order to explore the role the natural world plays in these texts and the ways fiction can affect our understanding of the environment.

Sustainability
This course is appropriate for new students.