Professor Anne Raine Office: Arts 305 / 562-5800 x1770 Office hours: Mon/Thur 2:30-3:30, or by appointment Email: araine@uottawa.ca
Winter 2010 Mon 8:30-10am/Thu 10-11:30 Montpetit 207
English 2141A: Literature and the Environment In this course, we’ll explore the relationship between human culture and the natural environment through critical reading of a variety of nature writing and contemporary fiction. Questions we’ll explore include: What do we mean by “nature”? Where do we find it? How do we produce our knowledge about it? How do we draw the line between nature and culture? What do we want nature to do for us? What should we do for it? How do social factors such as gender, class, and cultural background affect our relationships with “nature”? How do different writing and reading strategies affect how we can imagine, interact with, or participate in the natural world? This is a literature course involving extensive reading assignments, active engagement in class, and a substantial amount of writing. Two formal writing assignments, as well as one group presentation, will offer opportunities to practice the skills of close reading, critical analysis, and argumentation that are generally expected in academic writing. Though I will lecture at times, most of our class time will be spent on discussions, group work, and collaborative exploration of the readings, guided by the study questions I provide and the ideas and questions you bring to class. To make the large class environment more personal and interactive, I will divide you into groups of 5 or 6 students who will work together throughout the semester. You’ll spend part of each class session working in these small groups, recording the results in informal in-class writing assignments that I will collect each week. As noted above, you will also work together with your group to prepare an oral presentation at the end of term. Our goals will include the following: • To explore some important issues in environmental literary studies; • To become familiar with some defining characteristics of the genre of nature writing (a.k.a. environmental nonfiction) as it has developed in North America; • To practice thinking like a literary critic, analyzing how different writers use language to shape our understanding of the natural world and our human place within it; • To develop your skills as an academic writer by practicing the skills of close reading, critical analysis, and argumentative writing; and • To explore how literature can help us imagine more sustainable ways of being in the world. Course texts and resources: Available at the Agora Bookstore (145 Besserer St at Waller). Please buy the specified edition if at all possible (discussions will be easier if we all have the same page numbers). • Margaret Atwood, Surfacing (Emblem) • Don DeLillo, White Noise (Penguin) • Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rainforest (Hushion House) • Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Vintage) • Photocopied course packet (also available at the Agora Bookstore). • A working email account. I use email frequently to send you assignments, study questions, schedule changes, and other information, so be sure to check your email regularly.
English 2141 A / Raine / Winter 2010
Attendance and participation: Your active participation in class is expected and required. No one will learn much (and class will be really boring!) unless you all make an effort to participate and take an active interest in the work we do. Consequently, part of your final grade depends on the degree and quality of your participation in class. If you must miss class, I expect you to contact a classmate to find out what you missed. If you don’t attend regularly, you won’t be able to do well on the essays and exams. In addition, you can expect the following consequences: • Missing more than four classes will affect your participation grade. Missing more than eight will reduce your participation grade to 0. • Students who miss more than four consecutive classes will not be permitted to participate in the group presentation project (worth 15% of your final grade) and will not be permitted to write the final exam. If an unusual circumstance arises that interferes with your attendance, it’s your responsibility to let me know and to work with me to resolve the problem. Preparation and active reading: I expect you to come to class prepared to share ideas and ask questions about the texts we read. To do that, you need to read each text slowly, several times, with pencil in hand: get in the habit of marking the passages you find especially interesting, provocative, or puzzling, and making notes in the margins as you read (reactions, questions, ideas, connections, definitions of words you don’t know, etc). • You may be used to reading primarily for information. In an English course, though, we’re concerned not just with what the texts say, but also how they say it. As you read, pay attention to your own reactions, and think about why you respond the way you do. Think about the choices the writer has made in putting the text together: How is the text organized? What is its tone? Whose point of view does it represent? What does it emphasize or leave out? What kinds of language, imagery, or examples are used, and how do these affect your reactions? Assignments and grading: 10% Regular attendance, prepared participation and active engagement in all class activities 15% Essay #1 (4 pages, typed, double-spaced): a short response paper in which you use ecocritical concepts to analyze and respond to some of the nature writing texts we’ll read in Unit 1. 30% Essay #2 (6-8 pages, typed, double-spaced): a literary-critical essay in which you use ecocritical concepts to develop and support a specific argument about one of the novels we’ll read in Unit 2. 15% Group presentation in which you and your group members use ecocritical concepts to analyze a work of environmental nonfiction, and compare and contrast it with other nature writing and fiction we’ve read. 30% A final exam in which you demonstrate (a) your knowledge of the texts, critical concepts, and historical information we’ve covered; (b) your knowledge of the characteristics of American nature writing; (c) your ability to analyze the assumptions about nature operating in a text; and (d) your skill as a close reader and interpreter of nature writing and fiction, and your ability to integrate close reading with critical argument. Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the specified due dates. I do not accept papers via email. For each day that an assignment is late, I reserve the right to deduct one partial grade (e.g., from B+ to B). If you’re feeling daunted or confused about an assignment, come see me right away so we can help you get back on track. Academic honesty and plagiarism: Plagiarism is intentionally or unintentionally presenting someone else’s words or ideas as your own. If you use a paragraph, a sentence, a phrase, or even just an idea from any source without acknowledging the source in your paper, you are guilty of plagiarism—regardless of whether the source is a book by a prominent critic, a study guide, or a student paper you found on the internet. Plagiarism is fraud; it is a very serious form of academic misconduct, and it has serious consequences. If you submit an essay containing plagiarized material, the least you can expect is a mark of F for the essay. Additional penalties range from failing the course to being expelled from the University. Plagiarism is easy to avoid: if you use another writer’s words or ideas anywhere in your paper, simply indicate the author’s name and the page number, and include the publication information in your Works Cited list. If you’re unsure about how to cite a source you’ve consulted, just ask. If you’re having so much trouble with an assignment that you’re tempted to use someone else’s work, come talk to me immediately so I can help.
English 2141 A / Raine / Winter 2010
Office Hours and Additional Help: My office hours are a time I set aside for you, so do take advantage of them. I’m always happy to talk with you about your ideas, questions, or concerns, or to work with you to solve specific writing problems. If you are unable to come to my office hours, contact me to make an appointment for an alternate time. If you have a physical or learning disability that will affect your participation in the class, please come see me and let me know what I can do to help make the course work for you. Help for students with physical or learning disabilities is also available from the Access Service, a part of SASS (www.sass.uottawa.ca/classroom/access/).
Tentative Course Schedule This schedule may change depending on the needs of the class; it’s your responsibility to keep yourself informed. The materials in the course packet and the information I provide in the study questions are an integral part of the required reading for this course. I expect you to read and take notes on this material as well as on the novels. Nature Writing and Environmental Literary Studies: Examples, definitions, and critical questions Thur, Jan 7
Week 2 Mon, Jan 11 Thur, Jan 14
Course introduction; introduction to nature writing and close reading Barbara Kingsolver, “The Memory Place”; Maxine Hong Kingston, “A City Person Encountering Nature” [handout] Introduction to ecocriticism and green cultural studies William Cronon, “Introduction,” Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (1995); Lawrence Buell, from “Introduction,” The Environmental Imagination (1995) Environmental awareness and bioregionalism Jerry Mander, “The Walling of Awareness” (1977); Jim Dodge, “Living By Life” (1990); Gary Snyder, “The Etiquette of Freedom” (1990)
Unit 1: A brief introduction to American nature writing Week 3 Mon, Jan 18 Thur, Jan 21 Week 4 Mon, Jan 25
Conservation vs. preservation: two versions of a “land ethic” Aldo Leopold, selections from A Sand County Almanac (1949); Edward Abbey, selections from Desert Solitaire (1968) and “Eco-Defense” (1988) Leopold and Abbey cont’d
Thu, Jan 28 Fri, Jan 29
Nature as contested terrain: social conflict and environmental politics Jamaica Kincaid, “Alien Soil” (1993); Sharman Apt Russell, “The Physics of Beauty” (1993) Kincaid and Russell cont’d DUE: Proposal for essay #1 (email to me by 5 pm)
Week 5 Mon, Feb 1
Workshop essay #1
Unit 2: Environmental issues in late twentieth-century fiction Weeks 5 and 6: Wilderness Thur, Feb 4 Margaret Atwood, Surfacing (1972) Mon, Feb 8 Thu, Feb 11 Fri, Feb 12
Atwood cont’d Atwood cont’d DUE: Essay #1 (in my office by 3:30 pm)
English 2141 A / Raine / Winter 2010
* Feb 15-19
STUDY WEEK *
Weeks 7 and 8: Consumer culture / Environmental hazards Mon, Feb 22 Don DeLillo, White Noise (1985), part 1 Thur, Feb 25 DeLillo, part 2 Mon, Mar 1
DeLillo, part 3
Weeks 8 and 9: Globalization Thur, Mar 4 Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rainforest (1990) Mon, Mar 8 Thur, Mar 11 Fri, Mar 12
Yamashita cont’d Yamashita cont’d DUE: Optional proposal for essay #2 (email to me by 5 pm)
Unit 3: Nature writing revisited Week 10 Mon, Mar 15 Thur, Mar 18
NO CLASS: Optional writing conferences this week Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (1991)
Week 11 Mon, Mar 22 Thur, Mar 25
In-class work on group presentations In-class work on group presentations
Week 12 Mon, Mar 29 Thur, Apr 1
NO CLASS: Group presentations NO CLASS: Group presentations
Week 13 Mon, Apr 5 Thur, Apr 8 Mon, Apr 12
NO CLASS: Happy Easter! DUE: Essay #2 Wrap-up and review for final exam NO CLASS: Extra studying day
English 2141 A – Raine – Winter 2010 Study Questions for Day 2: Ecocriticism and green cultural studies Cronon, “Introduction: In Search of Nature” and Buell, “Introduction” On Monday, we’ll identify some key issues and questions in environmental cultural studies by reading the introductions to two important books in the field, one by the environmental historian William Cronon (the edited collection Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature) and one by the literary critic Lawrence Buell (The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture). I’ve provided the study questions below to help guide your reading. I won’t be collecting your answers to the questions, but you should come to class on Wednesday prepared to discuss them with your group. Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything in these articles; if you have questions about specific passages, jot them down (and mark the page numbers) so that you can raise them on Wednesday. 1) What parts of each introduction do you find especially appealing, puzzling, or troubling? Why? 2) What would you say is each writer’s main argument? What is he trying to accomplish by writing this article? What does he want you, as a reader and scholar, to notice, think, or do? 3) Each writer offers a kind of checklist that we’ll refer to throughout the term, so I’d like you to pay special attention to these. (You’ll probably want to take notes on these and keep them handy for future reference.) a) Cronon spends much of his article on an extended checklist of different conceptions of nature that often shape the way North Americans think about nature. What are these different conceptions? Which ones seem closest and/or farthest from your own ideas about nature? Which ones do you think are operating in the nature writing pieces we read in class on Monday? b) Buell offers a list of four criteria for deciding whether or not a text should be categorized as environmental writing. How do you think these criteria apply (or not) to Kingsolver and Kingston? 4) What is your reaction to each writer’s argument? How do his ideas compare with the ideas about nature (or about literature) that you brought to the text? What questions does each article leave you with?
English 2141 A – Raine – Winter 2010 Discussion Questions for Day 1: Exploring nature writing Kingsolver, “The Memory Place,” and Kingston, “A City Person Encountering Nature” Today we’re going to read and discuss two examples of contemporary nature writing by the well-known nature writer Barbara Kingsolver and the contemporary novelist Maxine Hong Kingston (see handout). A) Read over the discussion questions below, and then carefully read these two short nature writing pieces. Practice active reading: mark or underline any words, passages, images that you find especially interesting, appealing, annoying, or confusing, and jot down any reactions, questions, ideas, or associations that occur to you as you go along. B) As you do the reading, I will divide you into small groups by assigning each of you a group number. When you’ve finished, introduce yourself to your group members, and write down each other’s names and email addresses. C) Discuss with your group the following questions. Your goal is not necessarily to come up with a single answer to each question, but instead to share and compare your different responses to the readings. 1) Which of the two pieces did you find most interesting or appealing? Why? Which parts of either article did you find puzzling, annoying, or strange? Why? 2) What does “nature” mean to each of these writers? What kinds of things does each writer encourage us to notice about the nonhuman world? How are we invited to feel about nature in each piece, and what has the writer done to make us feel that way? 3) What do you think each writer is trying to show or suggest by writing this article in this particular way? What point(s) is she trying to make about nature or wilderness, and/or about or human relationship to the nonhuman world, and/or about different kinds of people (environmentalists and people who aren’t environmentalists, “city people” or country people, biologists)? What do you think each writer wants you, the reader, to notice, think, or do? 4) How do you respond to each writer’s perspective? How do their ideas about nature compare with the ones you bring to the text (from personal experience, other reading, etc)? What questions do they leave you with?
English 2141A – Raine – Winter 2010 Some Key Questions and Concepts for Environmental Literary Studies 1) Questions to ask when reading a text ecocritically (any kind of text—nature writing, argumentative essay, fiction, or poetry): * What does this text show, suggest, or argue (explicitly or implicitly) about nature, or about our relationship to nature? What does the writer want readers to notice, think, or do? * What cultural values and beliefs about nature (conscious or unconscious) does the writer hold, and how do they inform his/her argument? What are the benefits and drawbacks of viewing nature this way? (Cronon’s list may be a useful starting point here; see #3 below.) * Is the text anthropocentric in orientation (viewing nature merely as a symbol for human meanings or emotions, or considering nature only in terms of its value to human beings), or does it try to be ecocentric (to consider nonhuman nature as valuable and interesting in its own right)? (see Buell) * What writing strategies does the writer use to persuade readers to view nature in a particular way? How do those strategies affect you as a reader? How might other readers respond differently? What do you think are the benefits and drawbacks of those strategies? * What do you think of what the text is saying and how it says it? What values and beliefs about nature underlie your reaction? What do you think we gain by reading this text, and why? What does it help us to notice, realize, consider, or reconsider—or what valuable questions does it raise? And/or, why do you think this text is problematic and needs to be critiqued? 2) Common characteristics of nature writing (aka environmental writing) * can be used broadly to refer to any literary text (fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction) that deals with environmental themes, but generally means creative nonfiction, especially the personal essay; often collected into a series of essays, sometimes arranged according to the cycle of the seasons (e.g. Henry David Thoreau’s Walden [1855], Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac [1949], Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek [1974]) * tries to persuade people to pay more attention to nonhuman nature, for reasons that might be practical/ political, ethical/philosophical, aesthetic, or emotional/spiritual (or a combination) * often based on the idea that sharing personal experiences of nature will create an emotional connection in readers, which in turn will motivate them to take action (to help protect threatened environments or work toward more sustainable or ethical ways of using/inhabiting/consuming nature) * tends to privilege personal, firsthand experience over scientific knowledge, though is often informed by scientific work; often combines detailed description with personal or philosophical reflection, and sometimes with explicit argument about how we should inhabit or interact with nonhuman nature * tends to emphasize the local and particular rather than the general and abstract * often incorporates scientific information (grows out of tradition of natural history writing, and now often overlaps with science writing); on the other hand, some nature writers view modern science as complicit with our technological exploitation of nature and hence with environmental destruction, and try to promote emotional, ethical, aesthetic, or spiritual experience as a better alternative or a necessary corrective to the scientific approach * can be conservationist in orientation (emphasizing ethical and sustainable human use of nature) or preservationist (viewing nature something that needs to be protected from human intervention) * partly thanks to ecocritics like Buell, there is now a proliferation of nature writing anthologies: e.g. Norton Anthology of Nature Writing, and new Library of America volume American Earth ; also interesting series called Best American Science and Nature Writing that comes out in paperback every year * traditionally, nature writing has focused on wilderness or on pastoral spaces, and tended to view nature and human nature as universals; more recently, nature writers have begun to explore urban nature, technologically altered nature, and questions of environmental justice, and to consider how social and cultural factors (e.g. gender, race, and class) shape our relationships to the natural environment over
3) Cronon’s (partial) list of some common (North) American ways of viewing nature: 1) Nature as naïve reality (nature as simple, self-evident fact—Cronon argues against this one because it doesn’t acknowledge that nature is partly a human construction) (34) 2) Nature as moral imperative (assumption that anything natural is good, anything unnatural is bad) (36) 3) Nature as Eden (a perfect, ideal place that human action has destroyed) (36) 4) Nature as artifice (a place designed to embody an ideal of natural beauty, order, harmony) (39) 5) Nature as virtual reality (43) (or virtual reality as nature: simulated systems that become so complex & unpredictable that they resemble natural ones; also, nature as something that we can understand fully only through virtual means, e.g. global warming or the ozone hole as understood through computer simulations and other technologies (47)) 6) Nature as commodity (nature as resource to be bought, sold, used, and consumed by humans) (46) 7) Nature as avenging angel (a force that punishes or takes revenge on those who disregard its laws) (48) 8) Nature as contested terrain (a field of struggle between competing definitions of nature) (51) 9) Nature as radical otherness (nonhuman reality apart from human values & beliefs—which we can never really know, because our knowledge is always shaped by our values & beliefs) (52) * and we can add more, such as: 10) Nature as community (see Leopold, Snyder) 11) Nature as static backdrop for human action (see Buell) 12) Nature as dynamic process (see Buell) 13) Nature as _______? (other ideas not mentioned so far?) 4) Buell’s list of criteria for environmental writing: [I’ve shortened his list from four to three; you may have different criteria of your own] 1) Nature is presented as a subject or agent in its own right, not just as a backdrop for human action or a symbol for human ideas and emotions 2) Nature is presented not as a static given, but as a dynamic process interacting with human history 3) Concern and responsibility for nonhuman nature is part of the text’s ethical orientation; i.e., the text is considers the needs, rights, or perspective of nonhuman life, not just those of human beings