Christoph Irmscher

ENG-L780/AmSt G-751

Ecocriticism (Spring 2009)

Office: Ballantine 417

Tu Th 2:30-3:45, LI 851

office hours: Tu Th 11:30-12:30, and by appointment

cirmsche@indiana.edu

cell: 443-622-3277


Ecocriticism emphasizes issues of environmental interconnectedness, sustainability, and justice in cultural interpretation. It borrows liberally from those and other interpretive modes to produce a polymorphous set of possible strategies, which are not united by a single method but orbit around issues of cultural-environmental concern. This course is conceived as a broad introduction to the theory and practice of ecocritical work; we will not focus on any specific period or national tradition. The basic narrative of the course will follow Lawrence Buell’s The Future of Environmental Criticism (Blackwell), supplemented by essays from The ISLE Reader, ed. Michael Branch and Scott Slovic (Georgia). We will trace the stages of ecocriticism’s development, map the shifting theoretical terrain inhabited by ecocritics and their alliances with other disciplines, and attempt to define the relationship of the movement with ecofeminism, environmental justice, and science studies. Primary readings will be drawn from texts by John James Audubon, Susan Fenimore Cooper, Barbara Gowdy, H.D. Thoreau, and others.


Course requirements:

Active participation in class discussions, weekly responses to a text (or a secondary reading) to be discussed, and one in-depth preparation of a reading from our list will constitute your class participation grade (30% of your entire grade). Responses are to be posted as blogs to a site I have created for our class—go to http://bloomingtonecocriticism.blogspot.com/. I will send you instructions on how to sign up.

Writing assignments include a 20-25 page seminar paper, which may include archival research and should eventually be in a format ready for submission to a journal (50%). I will also ask each participant to prepare a brief teaching presentation on a text or a theme derived from our readings and to design either a unit or his/her own course that he/she could teach at the college level (20%). This teaching presentation will require research that goes beyond our readings in class; in its written form, it should consist of a short narrative (approximately 5 pages) and a syllabus (or part of a syllabus).

I will also ask you to make time for additional meetings at the Lilly Library.

Texts:

Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (Beacon)

Branch, Michael, ed. The Isle Reader (University of Georgia Press)

Buell, The Future of Environmental Criticism (Blackwell)

Cooper, Rural Hours (University of Georgia Press)

Heaney, Beowulf (Norton)

Gowdy, The White Bone (Metropolitan)

Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (Oxford)

Sanders, Scott, Staying Put

Thoreau, Walden, 3rd ed. (Norton)

Mapping out the Territory

Week 1

Jan. 13 Introduction

Jan. 15 Buell, The Future, chapter 1-2

Week 2

Jan. 20 Buell, chapter 3-4

Jan. 22 Gaston Bachelard, Poetics, chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 9

Week 3

Jan. 27 readings from ISLE Reader: Sayre, “If Thomas Jefferson…” (102); Lindholdt, “Literary Activism” (243-257); Kern, “Ecocriticsm” (258-281)

Jan. 29 Tallmadge, “Toward a Natural History of Reading” (282-295); Bennett, “From Wide Open Spaces” (296-317)

The Roots (the American Tradition)

Week 4

Feb. 3 John James Audubon (“The Ruby-throatd Hummingbird”; “The Black Vulture”; “The Passenger Pigeon”; excerpts from Ornithological Biography; Oncourse)

Feb. 5 Visit to the Lilly Library (Audubon material)

Week 5

Feb. 10 hunting narratives (to be selected); Robert Penn Warren (oncourse) “Audubon: A Vision”; Marshall, “Tales of the Wonderful Hunt” (ISLE Reader, 188-202)

Feb. 12 Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

Week 6

Feb. 17 Susan Fenimore Cooper, Rural Hours

Feb. 19 Susan Fenimore Cooper, Rural Hours

pp. 4-13 (introduction; Spring);pp. 45-55 (May; in praise of wildflowers); pp. 59-67 (Summer; the problem of “weeds”); pp. 71-81 (hummingbirds; the art of gardening); pp. 82-93 (naming American flowers; the cultivation of American landscapes); pp. 107-115 (Native Americans appear in Cooperstown; “changes in the land”); pp. 125-135 and 138-139 (American forests and the problem of deforestation); pp. 148-151 (the death of the fawn); pp. 155-157 (insects; the battle between the wasp and the spider); pp. 168-170 (forest fires); p. 173 (Cooperstown in the moonlight); pp. 174-177 (American flowers); pp. 197-199 (beginning of Autumn); pp. 202-213 and 215 (in praise of “noble” Autumn); pp. 250 (fences); pp. 264-266 (the “bald eagle”; patriotism); pp. 282-290 (the lake in winter); pp. 291-294 (beginning Saturday, 27th: “Yankeeisms”); pp. 299-309 (American place names); pp. 310-314 (Tuesday, 13th: changes in the land; depletion of wildlife); pp. 315-316 (absence of flowers in the winter); pp. 326-327: last entry

Oncourse: excerpts from Buell, The Environmental Imagination; Johnson, Patterson (oncourse)


Week 7

Feb. 24 Visit to the Lilly; Thoreau, Walden (“Economy”; “Where I Lived…”; “Reading”; “Sounds”; “Solitude”; “Visitors”; “The Bean-Field”)

Feb. 26 Thoreau, Walden (“The Village”; “The Ponds”; “Baker Farm”; “Higher Laws”; “Brute Neighbors”; “House-Warming”; “Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors”; “Winter Animals”; “The Pond in Winter”)

Week 8

March 3 Walden, cont. (“Spring”; “Conclusion”)

March 5 Thoreau criticism: Marx, Cavell, Johnson, Walls, Buell (from Norton edition, but also posted as pdfs to oncourse)

The Branches

Week 9

March 10 Heaney, trans. Beowulf

March 12 Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Oncourse); additional reading: Mc Kusick, from Green Writing; Nandina Batra, “Dominion, Empathy, and Symbiosis” (in ISLE Reader, 155-72)


March 17 Spring Break

March 19 Spring Break


Week 10

March 24 contemporary eco-poetry (excerpts from Scigaj, Sustainable Poetry)

March 26 Syllabi due; discussion

Week 11

March 31 Gowdy, The White Bone

April 2 Gowdy, The White Bone

(Neta Gordon, “Sign and Symbol,” oncourse)


Week 12

April 7 Sanders, Staying Put

April 9 Scott Sanders, visit

Reaching Out

Week 13-15

April 14 Buell, The Future, chapter 5

April 16-28work on individual projects; daily meetings