ENG 302: Romanticism and Ecocriticism

 

Dr. Castellano 3 credits

          The British Romantics’ philosophical views and aesthetic practices foreground the importance of the natural world and, moreover, advocate the conservation of ecologically sustainable values in response to the industrializing world. This course will explore the ecocritical aspects of Romantic literature, including geobiography, intergenerational land ethics, and apocalyptic narratives of ecological destruction. We will also read contemporary eco-critical theories and “green” literature in order to analyze how the Romantic legacy continues to influence our ideas about the purpose of landscape, nature, and human identity. 

This course fulfills the Genre and Theory requirement for the English major.

Required Course Texts:
Shelley, Mary. The Last Man. Broadview
Clare, John. Selected Poems. Penguin
Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on Population. Norton Critical Edition
Coupe, Lawrence. The Green Studies Reader. Routledge
Berry, Wendell. The Art of the Commonplace. Shoemaker & Hoard
Ray, Janisse. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood. Milkweed Editions
Ferry, Luc. The New Ecological Order. U of Chicago Press
Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests. U of Chicago Press

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