ELECTIVES

ENGL 4000/6000: ANTHROPOCENE LITERATURES

DR. SETH RENO

Welcome to the Anthropocene. Literally meaning the “The Age of Humans,” this is the proposed name for our current geological epoch, which began when human activities started to have a noticeable impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems Nobel-prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen proposed the term “Anthropocene” in 2000, and it has quickly emerged as a vital paradigm in geology, the environmental sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. In recent years, a new literary genre called “cli-fi” (climate fiction) has become quite popular, and this course considers cli-fi as part of a larger body of Anthropocene literatures from the eighteenth century to the present. So, in this course, we will think about the Anthropocene from a variety of perspectives, including environmental science, biology, history, art, and philosophy, all with a focus on how writers document this new geological epoch in literature.