This course will explore a range of literary and other cultural products in which the physical environment is figured as a means of self-expression, aesthetic response, and critical commentary. Key points of discussion include the symbolic structure and form of landscape in literature, (e.g., the green world of pastoral and wilderness); the connection between space, race and place; what we mean by the “environmental imagination”; the relationship between humans, non-humans and objects; and what we talk about when we talk about the Anthropocene.
- Teacher: Barbara Tannert-Smith