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Eng 100EN, Winter 2009

Honors Seminar for Engl/ES 122LE, Introduction to Literature and the Environment

An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng/ES 122LE for particularly motivated students. Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing. Cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.

This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.

“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”

Average rating: 4.5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣ Fair; ♣ Poor)

♣♣♣♣♣ Clear, solid, well-informed, challenging and excellent at encouraging responses.

♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner rox my sox.