ENGL1928

We create the future in part by imagining it, and this course will seek to understand how we have imagined our environmental futures over the last few decades, and how we should imagine them going forward. We will look in particular at popular nonfiction writing about three interconnected issues—food, climate, and decolonization—exploring how contemporary writers have not only warned us of environmental dangers but also tried to point us toward healthier, safer, and more environmentally just futures. We will read essays, interviews, and long-form journalism by such writers as Robin Wall Kimmerer, Rebecca Solnit, Thelma Young Lutunatabua, and Rebecca Tucker, and we will address such topics as plant-based eating, Slow Food, climate justice, Land Back, and scientific expertise. Requirements include attendance and participation, a series of short reading responses, several reflective writing assignments, and a final project exploring some aspect of our subject in greater depth.

This course is taught by Dan Philippon, an English professor who teaches courses in the environmental humanities, literary nonfiction writing, and sustainability studies. He is especially interested in how nonfiction writing creates social change and has published books on how nature writers shaped the environmental movement and food writers built the food movement. He is a Past President of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, a co-organizer of the University's Environmental Humanities Initiative, and a Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor.

001475

The Environment

Every Fall