Our focus for this course will be upon how literature deals with the environment, i.e., how literary texts represent environmental issues and why it matters that they be represented in this form. How, that is, does where we live and, even more importantly, how we imagine the place in which we live, affect who we are? How do our relationships to nature and our relationships with other people intersect? We will be considering a range of prose texts, including both fictional narratives and a variety of non-fictional essays and journalism. Course goals include: 1) developing the analytical reading skills appropriate to different kinds of literary texts, 2) working on how to formulate and sustain critical arguments in writing, 3) learning how to uncover the logic and stakes of specific attitudes toward the natural world, 4) understanding how environmental issues are linked to other social and cultural concerns, 5) seeing how those linkages are affected by particular historical and political conditions. The course will contain a significant writing component, both regular informal writing assignments and several medium-length analytical papers; it can count for W-credit.

Tues/Thur 9:30-11:20   Mueller 154

For Tuesday, June 1:

1) Finish Bessie Head's When Rain Clouds Gather.

2) Read (and bring to class) Abbey's "Havasu" essay from Desert Solitaire.

3) Response Paper: As you did with Wild Seed, discuss the ending of Head's novel.  Does it seem to you to fit, to feel right (in a Lopezian sense, does it "ring true") as the conclusion of the narrative?  How so?  Why?

For Thursday, June 3:

NOTE--CLASS MEETS IN HUB 106B

1) Read Lopez, Arctic Dreams, Chapter 9 and Epilogue, pp. 355-415.

2) BRING YOUR COPY OF LOPEZ, and come to class prepared to discuss in groups and then present on the scene from your assigned chapter of Arctic Dreams.  The scenes selected by the 3 groups are:pp. 150-51, pp. 192-95, and pp. 224-28.

3) Response Paper: Totally free choice.

DARWIN/BUTLER/LEOPOLD PAPER DUE MIDNIGHT, SATURDAY, MAY 22, VIA E-MAIL

For Tuesday, May 25:

1) Read Bessie Head, When Rain Clouds Gather, pp. 1-99.

2) Response Paper: What previous author or text that  we have read in the course does this novel remind you of...and why?

For Thursday, May 27:

1) Read Lopez, Chapters 5 & 6 (pp. 152-251), with particular attention to your assigned chapter (4, 5 or 6) ; also Lopez's essay, "Landscape and Narrative" (PC)

2) Read Abbey, Desert Solitaire, "Havasu," pp. 246-58.

3) Response Paper: Discuss the role of your chapter in Arctic Dreams as a whole.  What does it contribute to the text and in what ways are these contributions essential?