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Subject: English (UG) (ENGL)
CRN: 22293
In Person | Lecture
St Paul: John Roach Center 301
2020 Core Requirements Met:
Diversity/Soc Just AND Integ/Humanities
Other Requirements Met:
Amer Culture & Diff Minor Appr
English Early Literature Req.
Pre-1900 American Lit.
Signature Work
Writing in the Discipline
The wallpaper in The Yellow Wallpaper looks like mushrooms. Frederick Douglass repeatedly compares a specific despair he felt while enslaved to being trapped in the earth. The falling Usher mansion gets swallowed by a lake in Poe’s famous story. While none of these well-known texts have been considered "nature writing," ecocriticism has recently introduced a concept of the "ecogothic" to account for such moments where nature gets linked to fear and anxiety, violence and horror. It’s argued that the ecogothic dread is born not just of the desire to survive and to thrive in a hostile, outdoor environment, but of something far more sinister. That is, a desire to more than thrive, a desire for control over other things, other beings, and ultimately other human beings. With this in mind and some help from geography, history, and Black and queer ecocriticism, we will look at how an idea of "the natural world" as well as binaries like self/other, human/animal, and living/dead were forged not merely alongside but with those of race, gender, and sexuality. Our literary focus will be American and transnational literary texts of the long 19th century that wrestle with and resist these dark desires and may include narratives of captivity and enslavement like Mary Prince’s, short stories by the likes of Poe, Hawthorne, and Chesnutt, and even the work of authors seemingly enchanted by nature such as Dickinson and Thoreau. This course satisfies a Signature Work requirement, a Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice requirement, a WAC Writing in the Discipline requirement, and an early American Literature requirement for English majors. Prerequisite: Five English courses at or beyond ENGL 211, including ENGL 280, or instructor permission for all other majors/minors.
4 Credits