Our planet is in peril. You, who clicked on this course to read the description, probably know this already—your concern for this fact is maybe why you clicked. Or maybe you clicked because you saw “nature” and “ecoliterature” in the title, and you happen to like books and spending time outside. (So well rounded!) Maybe you just like a good pun, and “human/nature” did the trick. No matter the source of your curiosity—climate anxiety, an interest in the “natural world,” or an attraction to clever writing—it’s a sign you might enjoy this course, where we’ll talk about all that and more.

In “Human/Nature,” we’ll read literature that represents different natural and human-made environments from across genres and time periods. We’ll consider questions like: what is “nature” and how has literature represented the more-than-human-world and humans' relationship to it across genres? Across time? How has such representation reflected past attitudes about the environment and our role in it, and how has such representation shaped the environment and our role in it? What are the ethical implications of making art about a dying world? How does travel and travel writing interpret or affect the environment? Can writing about ecocide (human-caused mass destruction of nature) and climate crisis effect change? How? Or if not, why do it? How does environmental literature also engage questions of human identity, like race, sexuality, or gender? The answers we come up with to these questions will be as various as the kinds of environments we’ll read about. To deepen your thinking and engagement with the texts, you will write three short (3-4 page) formal writing assignments, as well as weekly responses to our readings.