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Lehrende/r: Sarah Wegener
Veranstaltungsart:
Seminar/Proseminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
05.874.123
Semesterwochenstunden:
2
Credits:
6,0
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
- | 45
Anmeldegruppe: ELC 123
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie
Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007.
Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
Thorough preparation of all material and texts is a prerequisite for obtaining credits in this course. As part of their active participation, all students will be part of an expert group and lead a discussion.
Inhalt:
What is ecocriticism?
“Indeed, the widest definition of the subject of ecocriticism is the study of the relationship of the human and the non-human, throughout human cultural history and entailing critical analysis of the term ‘human’ itself,” writes Greg Garrard (5). As an academic discipline, ecocriticism more commonly frames “environmental approaches to textual analysis and cultural studies” (Slovic at al. 1). It reflects about how literature engages with ecology and ecological issues, such as climate change, pollution, natural disasters, or pandemics, and negotiates the place of the human in the natural environment. This undoubtedly places ecocriticism in the nexus between literary art, science and politics.
What will we study?
In this course, we are going to study a range of literary texts from an ecocritical perspective to find out how they respond to and represent ecological problems. We will also look at theoretical strands that will enable us to talk about eco-systems, materiality, environmental forces and the bodies within, among which posthumanism, ecofeminism, or New Materialism. The literary texts we will discuss will take us from Romantic ecologies and dystopian plagues through a London submerged in growing oceans to plant-growing teens and sentient robots in end-of-planet futures. Apart from a broad variety of ecocritical stories, we will also encounter different narrative strategies to tell them, e.g. via intertextuality or through multimodal representations in ecocritical picture books for children.
Required Reading:
Please obtain and read the following texts (preferably in the editions below):
- Ballard, JG. The Drowned World. Harper Perennial, 2010.
- James, Lauren. Green Rising. Walker Books, 2021.
- Winterson, Jeanette. The Stone Gods. Penguin, 2008.
In addition, we will look at a range of shorter texts and excerpts. Those will be made available via JGU-LMS at the beginning of term.
Empfohlene Literatur:
Recommended Reading: Students who wish to deepen their knowledge on the topic prior to the seminar may consult the following texts for introduction.
- Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. Routledge, 2011.
- Slovic, Scott et al. eds. Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication. Routledge, 2019.
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