ENGLxENVI 262 / Calendar

LITERATURE AND
THE NATURAL WORLD

English x Environmental Studies 262 / Spring 2014

WEEK 1

Monday, Jan. 27

No response paper is due this week. Starting next week, you’ll submit one every week, on Monday or Wednesday.

  • Introductory. Today we’ll work out attendance and talk over the syllabus.

Wednesday, Jan. 29

  • Show and tell.  ☞ Come to class with a tiny item that relates “literature and the natural world,” whatever that means to you. It should be text, no longer than a brief paragraph or a few lines.

Friday, Jan. 31

Remember, starting next week, you must submit one response paper every week, on Monday or on Wednesday. I’ll ask for volunteers in class today.

  • Workshop.  Please bring a laptop—your own or one you borrow from the library.  In this first of our workshops, we’ll formulate some language about how we relate “literature” and “the natural world.” We’ll start off with this template, so have that cued up when you come to class.

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WEEK 2

Monday, February 3

Please ☞ submit one response paper every week on Monday or Wednesday.

  • Bruno Latour, from We Have Never Been Modern (1991) [pdf]

Wednesday, February 5

Remember, ☞ submit one response paper every week on Monday or Wednesday.  If you didn’t prepare one for Monday, please prepare one for today.

  • Margaret Cavendish, from Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666)and Poems and Fancies (1653) [pdf]

Friday, February 7

Please ☞ bring a laptop to every Friday workshop, your own or the Library’s. Just bring your readings and response papers from the week and prepare for a good conversation.

  • Workshop: “Nature,” “Culture,” and other literary devices

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WEEK 3

Monday, February 10

Don’t forget: a response paper is due today or Wednesday.

  • Timothy Morton, from Ecology without Nature (2007) [pdf]

Wednesday, February 12

  • William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798) and Poems in Two Volumes (1807) [pdf]

Friday, February 14

Don’t forget: please bring a laptop to class for our workshops. Just bring back your readings to talk about.

  • Workshop: “Environment is theory”

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WEEK 4

Monday, February 17

  • Jane Bennett, “Vitality and Self-Interest,” from Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010) [pdf]

Wednesday, February 19

  • Alexander Pope, from An Essay on Man (1733) [pdf]

Friday, February 21

  • Workshop: “Like bubbles on the sea of matter born”

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WEEK 5

Monday, February 24

  • Graham Harman, from The Quadruple Object (2010) [pdf]
  • Levi R. Bryant, from The Democracy of Objects (2011) [pdf]

Wednesday, February 26

  • Jonathan Swift, poems (1709 – 31) [pdf]

Friday, February 28

  • Workshop: “strange strangers”

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WEEK 6

Monday, March 3

  • Ian Bogost, “Metaphorism,” from Alien Phenomenology (2012) [pdf]

Wednesday, March 5

  • James Thomson, from The Seasons (1726 – 46) [pdf]

Friday, March 7

  • Workshop: “personification,” or object-oriented ethics

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WEEK 7

Monday, March 10

No response paper is due this week.

  • Synthesis and question-asking.  ☞ Come to class with a short paragraph (written down or typed, please) in which you synthesize what you’ve got from our conversation so far, concluding with a question or series of questions.  We’ll share these in class.  Bring all our texts back with you, if you please, to look stuff up.

Wednesday, March 12

No response paper is due this week.

  • Discussion about the final project.  ☞ Come to class prepared to ask questions about the final project; we’ll spend all day talking about what it might look like for you.  There will be time to talk with each other about possibilities for collaboration.

Friday, March 14

  • Workshop. ☞ Come to class with another short paragraph (written down or typed) that moves toward articulating the problem or question that will motivate your final project, by yourself or with collaborators.  By the end of today’s class, you should have a more solid sense of the questions you’d like to explore and what you’re going to do to explore them. You’ll sign up for a day to assign reading, if you haven’t already.

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WEEK 8

⚘ Spring Break ⚘

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WEEK 9

Monday, March 24

  • Workshop, continued. ☞ If you didn’t get to talk about your project last week, come to class with a short paragraph (written down or typed) that moves toward articulating the problem or question that will motivate your final project, by yourself or with collaborators.  By the end of this week’s workshops, you should have a more solid sense of the questions you’d like to explore and what you’re going to do to explore them. Make sure to sign up for a day to assign reading, if you haven’t already.

Wednesday, March 26

  • Workshop, continued. ☞ Bring back the language you’ve written to sketch out the problem or question that will motivate your final project.  We’ll continue the conversation we started Monday.

Friday, March 28

  • Workshop, continued. ☞ Bring a single sentence (preferably in the form of a question) that crisply articulates the problem or question that will motivate your final project. We’ll discuss these and provide encouragement.
  • We’ll also talk about how to go about the task of research for your final project, so (if you can) bring a short list of sources you might be planning to consult and talk about why you have chosen them.

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WEEK 10

Monday, March 31

Response papers from Ava, Carter, Jessie, Jasper, Lydia

Readings from Wendy Gorman
  • Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild” (1995) [link]

    A warning: parts of this story are gross and gory.

  • Scenes from Portal (2014) [video]

    This is a video clip of a Let’s Play of Portal, a video game. A Let’s Play is when someone else records a video of themselves playing the game, and then uploads it to YouTube. A brief description of what’s going on in the game: You are trapped in an abandoned testing facility, solving a series of puzzles in test chambers while a robotic voice belonging to an AI named GLaDOS dictates to you what is happening and lets you know about the tests in a (supposedly) objective manner. You must solve the puzzles to move on to the next chamber. An interesting thing to note: often, in video games, you have some sort of guide who will let you know what’s going on. Generally, they are helpful. In Portal, GLaDOS is consistently mean to you, which is a departure from normal video game practices.

Wednesday, April 2

Response papers from Blair, Nicole, Marta, Izzy, Olivia

Readings from Jasmine Landry

I think these readings exhibit several aspects of the perceptivity of children and the impressions they have regarding nature and society as well as the more subtle difference in perspective between children and adults. I would love to use these as something of a background in looking at the way the distinction between nature and society is represented in children’s literature.

  • J.M. Barrie, from Peter Pan and Wendy (1911) [pdf]
  • Shel Silverstein, from Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974) [pdf]

Friday, April 4

Response papers from Carter, Jessie, Jasper, Wendy, Lydia

Today we are going to have some alumni sitting in on our conversation. We should try to be even more scintillating than usual.

Readings from Ava Bindas
  • J.M. Coetzee, from Elizabeth Costello (2003) [pdf]

    Some context: the protagonist, Elizabeth Costello, is a famous author. She delivers a speech to Appleton College regarding animal rights, not literature. The account is told by Costello’s son, whose wife, Norma, is not a fan of her mother-in-law. Elizabeth’s speech is interesting, but the part I’d like the class to focus on the confusion and controversy afterwards. I’m curious about the moment(s) of disconnect and perhaps how they’re reconciled or handled.

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WEEK 11

Monday, April 7

Response papers from Blair, Nicole, Jasmine, Izzy, Olivia

Readings from Marta LeFevre-Levy
  • Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson, “War and Foreign Policy,” from Journey to the Ants (1994) [pdf]
  • Albert White Hat, Sr., “Our Origin Story,” from Zuya [pdf]

I am examining what makes collections of objects different from other collections of objects. I am particularly interested in why (many? some?) humans insist on having “unique abilities.” Should human objects work to change this point of view? Is it practical? What benefit might be gained by it? In order to examine these ideas I have assigned 1) Journey to the Ants by Hölldobler and Wilson. For me, the social nature of ants points out their collective similarity to the human collective and makes me think about what really makes ants and humans unique from one another. Why is it often difficult for human objects to think that ants are on the same level? 2) Zuya by Albert White Hat is an explanation of Dakota beliefs and culture. The chapter on creation presents a possible solution this question of uniqueness. Is the way of thinking in Zuya impossible in a Modern world? Is it different from anthropomorphism and how? Also note that the word “wakan” means something like sacred and that everything in the world is wakan.

Wednesday, April 9

Response papers from Ava, Carter, Jasper, Wendy, Lydia

Readings from Jessie Del Fiacco
  • Jack Kerouac, from The Dharma Bums (1958) [pdf]

    At this particular point in time (late 1950s), humans were feeling pretty good about finally having complete control over the natural world, BUT there was also this growing demand to protect and idolize “wilderness” (as something better than the alternative: “artificial” consumer society). This brief section of the novel focuses on the suicide of a woman, Rosie, and how it affected the protagonist, Ray. Rosie is very much a product of San Francisco, while Ray is dead set on becoming a dharma bum and moving to live in nature. The novel is also a bit of pseudo-philosophical exploration of Buddhism and Catholicism by Kerouac; I included a couple of points from later in the book that show his search for enlightenment while living on a mountain.

  • Terrence Malick, from Badlands (1973) [link]

    Badlands is another portrait of 1950s America, but unlike in Dharma Bums, nature here is much more integrated into the characters’ lifestyle and their actions. Teens Kit and Holly go on a murder spree in South Dakota—this clip shows their hiding place in the woods after the first murders. Apologies for the low quality, this was the only version of this scene on YouTube. Excerpt from an online review of the film:

    You’d think that a man who makes films all about this existential dilemma would make wholly cynical films, but the work of Terrence Malick is the exact opposite. If anything, he finds solace in the fact that our lives are able to have so much meaning and power, even when we are but small specks in a vast unknowing-ness. Malick is the kind of man who finds this kind of meaning in all the events of this planet. The crashing of the waves is as powerful as the loss of a loved one. A child playing is as beautiful as the sun’s shine. And a balloon drifting away until it’s no more is as monumental as a man losing his life.

Friday, April 11

Response papers from Blair, Nicole, Jasmine, Marta, Olivia

Readings from Izzy Miller
  • Haruki Murakami, from 1Q84 (2011) [pdf]

I’m trying to understand the feeling of strangeness and, for lack of a more developed word, “misalignment” that comes from science fiction and fantasy worlds where things are only slightly off. What does that feeling of uneasiness tell us about the reality we perceive to be our own? This book, 1Q84, shows two different viewpoints on this: One, the actual disorientation and nervousness of the protagonist as the world changes around her, as well as the reader’s confusion and wonder at what is occurring in the novel. The book itself depicts Japan in 1984, and is written from the perspective of two different people whose lives slowly converge as extremely odd things begin happening around them. 

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WEEK 12

Monday, April 14

Response papers from Ava, Carter, Jessie, Jasper, Wendy

Readings from Lydia Karlson
  • Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility (1996) [pdf]

    With my final project I’ve decided to look into the idea of human superiority/dominance, or more generally why humans are thought of or portrayed as special or unique, especially in literature. This reading gives an overview on the idea of a distinction between humans and other animals, and why that distinction exists.

  • Isaac Asimov, “Homo Sol” (1940) [pdf]

    It is very common in science fiction for humans to be portrayed as special or different than the aliens or other creatures they are interacting with. Asimov was opposed to the idea that humans are inherently special or superior, and tried to avoid this trope by creating universes in which humans were the only form of intelligent life and thus could not be “special” as compared to another creature. This is a story in which Asimov subverts his usual trend and does include aliens and other intelligent life in the universe. In the afterword, Asimov mentions his friend and editor, John W. Campbell, who was very much a fan of the “humans are special” trope, which did sometimes have an effect on Asimov’s final products.

Wednesday, April 16

Response papers from Blair, Olivia, Jasmine, Marta, Izzy

Readings from Nicole Emanuel
  • Kenneth Grahame, from The Wind in the Willows (1908) [pdf]
  • Art Spiegelman, from MetaMaus (2011) [pdf]
  • The Brave Little Toaster, dir. Jerry Rees (1987) [link]

I want to investigate the question of why anthropomorphism is used in literature: what can be shown with anthropomorphized characters that cannot be depicted with either humans or non-human objects? I want to look at Wind in the Willows because it is an example of extremely endearing anthropomorphism, and with this particular excerpt, I am also very interested in how plants and landscapes are anthropomorphized as well as the protagonists. MetaMaus is a much heavier example. It is mostly an interview with Art Spiegelman, whose work Maus is essentially a biography of his father’s experience during the holocaust, but it is a biography told in the comics medium using anthropomorphized mice, cats, etc. I’ve also included a few pages from Maus in this PDF. Lastly, “The Brave Little Toaster” is a movie from the ’80s made by a bunch of people who went on to found Pixar. This movie strikes me as an extremely bizarre example of anthropomorphism, and I wanted to include it so we can talk about some anthropomorphized non-living objects.

Friday, April 18

Response papers from Ava, Jessie, Jasper, Wendy, Lydia

Readings from Carter D’Angelo
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Cut-Glass Bowl” (1920) [pdf]
  • Joseph Conrad, from Heart of Darkness (1899) [pdf]

This is a pair of excerpts in which the main character Marlow interacts with Africans. I would like everyone to pay attention to the language and word choice, especially the distinction between the way Marlow describes the natives compared to how he describes other Europeans. Also compare the descriptions of the Africans with the language used to describe the environment.

  • Robert Frost, from “The Gift Outright” (1923) [pdf]

This poem was read at JFK’s inauguration. While reading try to consider how the environment is both personified/humanized and simultaneously devalued and objectified. How is this possible? And what would motivate it?

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WEEK 13

Monday, April 21

Response papers from Nicole, Jasmine, Marta, Izzy, Olivia

Readings from Blair Boyd
  • Susan Clayton and Susan Opotow, from Identity and the Natural Environment (2003) [pdf]
  • Blair Boyd, from an untitled story (2014) [pdf]

    • I am interested in how personal identity is influenced by our conception of the natural environment. The first reading I have assigned is taken from the introduction of a book containing a series of psychological case studies on individuals’ identities that are shaped by their relationship with their natural environment. Next I have included a very rough draft of the creative piece that I am writing. It started out as a thought experiment on what would happen if someone took a journey into what they believed to be a completely passive and non-judgmental environment and later found that they were wrong. It then went on to include other aspects about identity as well. It’s still quite messy, and I do apologize for that.

Wednesday, April 23

Response papers from Ava, Carter, Jessie, Wendy, Lydia

Readings from Jasper Edwards
  • George Gordon, Lord Byron, fragments (c. 1811?) [pdf]
  • René Descartes, from Mediations (1641) [pdf]

I’ve selected a couple of passages from Lord Byron’s prose. And to contrast his romantic/exuberant writing style with a more introspective philosophical perspective, I picked Descartes’s Second Meditation, concerning “The Cogito and the Self.” Two different pieces, but both relative to the discussion we have been having in class. The Descartes bit more so, especially in relationship to Cavendish and her take on corporeal bodies.

Friday, April 25

Response papers from Blair, Jasmine, Marta, Izzy, Nicole

Readings from Olivia Thorp
  • Reif Larsen, from The Collected Works of T.S. Spivet (2009) [pdf]

These are selections from a book about a seven-year-old boy cartographer. His mentor (Dr. Yorn) submits some of his work to the Smithsonian for an award without his knowledge, and he wins it. He is invited to come to Washington DC to work for them (they are not aware he is seven), and though he initially turns it down he changes his mind and hops a train and heads across the country from his farm in Montana. When you guys are reading it would be helpful to me for you to think about how his idea of home changes, how his home (whatever that is) affects his identity, and what his attitudes are towards movement and stillness, which seem to be very intertwined with the idea of home. Also a few character notes: Layton is his brother, who accidentally dies in his childhood, Verywell is his dog, Dr. Clair is his mother, and Valero is the RV he lives in while he is on the train to DC.

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WEEK 14

Monday, April 28

  • Workshop.  ☞ Come to class with a paragraph (or more) from your final project—from the work itself or, if you’re writing a work of an “other” kind and would prefer it, from the little essay that will preface the work. Also, as part of the writing you bring or as a separate sentence or two, articulate, as clearly and crisply as you can, the single question or problem that is motivating your project.

Wednesday, April 30

  • Workshop, cont’d.

Friday, May 2

Please come prepared to fill out English Department evaluation forms.

  • Conversation.  What have we learned from the work we have done this term?  What new questions can we ask that we couldn’t before?  How have we changed, if at all?

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WEEK 15

Monday, May 5

  • Workshop. Object-oriented merriment.  Bring things to eat and drink, hedgehogs, hermit crabs, etc.

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FINALS WEEK

Friday, May 9

Please submit your final project by the end of the day today.

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