ENGL 395 - Topics in Literature in English in Counter Traditions

Credits: 3-4

Prerequisite: ENGL 299. Enrollment limited. A seminar course on literature written in English in an area of “counter traditions” with special emphasis on research and discussion. Student suggestions for topics are welcome. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Spring 2018, ENGL 395-01: Planetary Lines in World Literature (3). Prerequisite: ENGL 299. How do we read world literature in the Age of the Anthropocene? The growing debates around environmental crises have an emerging literary counterpart—whether these be realist novels on climate refugees in the Global South, eco-fiction works on dystopic survival, or documentary representations of a dissolving and privatizing landscape. This reading-intensive course examines multi-genre depictions from North America, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania of a human-impacted ecology. The question of “world” as universal and “planet” as material are thus considered, as are aesthetic moves narrating dis/placement and non/human relations. Course work includes in-class writing, group presentations, and a hybrid final paper that may incorporate creative elements. A midterm field project engaging with translation, as an underlying aspect of worlds in world literature, helps students collaborate across disciplinary and linguistic interests. (HL) Rajbanshi.