English 57 - Spring, 2024

Literatures of Climate Change

Class Information

Instructor: Menely, Tobias
CRN: 57400
Time: MW 2:10-3:30pm
Location: 3218 TLC
 

Description

ENL 57: "Imagining Climate Futures"

In this course, we'll read literature from around the world that represents the near future transformed by climate change. We'll read work by writers from China, Mexico, Australia, Thailand, India, Botswana, the Marshall Islands, and the United States in order to ask how culture shapes climate storytelling and how climate change is reshaping nations. We'll consider how literary fiction, as it seeks to depict plausible futures, draws on and diverges from scientific modeling and scenario planning. We'll ask how future narratives incorporate probability and uncertainty, choice and necessity, individual and collective agency. We'll discuss the ways writers craft resonant stories in which particular places and people intersect with complex geopolitical and geophysical systems. We'll consider reproductive choices and intergenerational conflict, climate migration and international climate governance.

This course fulfills the Arts & Humanities (AH) and World Cultures (WC) general education requirements.
 

Grading

In addition to the readings, assignments will include short in-class writing activities, five online discussion posts, and a collaborative scenario planning project.