ECOLOGY AND LITERATURE

The course is part of:
- the Interdisciplinary activities [C] for the the English Studies curriculum of the Master's Degree Programme in European, American and Postcolonial Languages and Literatures (LLEAP) degree and the Joint European Master Degree in English and American Literary and Cultural Studies.
- the Interdisciplinary activities [C] for the Master’s Degree in Environmental Humanities (EH).
- the Core educational activities [B] of the Master's Degree Programme in Language and Civilisation of Asia and Mediterranean Africa (LICAAM - South Asian Curriculum)

The main objective of the course is to enable students to address the relationship between literary/cultural texts and ecological issues from a theoretical perspective in a largely self-directed or autonomous manner.

Advanced reading, speaking and writing knowledge of English

This course explores the multiple ways in which literature represents, illuminates, mediates the relationship between the human and the more-than-human, or, in more conventional terms, ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. We will be guided by the international scientific consensus warning of a planetary environmental crisis and by Amitav Ghosh’s fundamental observation that “The climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus of the imagination.” We will be exploring diverse literary works, ancient and modern, Western and non-Western, fiction and non-fiction, poetry, mythology, and religion, asking whether we can read the Bible, Shakespeare or Leopardi differently from an ecocritical perspective and if these same texts can help us read the world differently and perhaps transform it, while facing all the emotions – anxiety, fear, hope – connected to our anthropocenic condition.

The bibliography will be finalized at the beginning of the course and all the texts will be made available on the course Moodle page.

The final written examination will include four open questions based on all assigned readings and class discussion. Students will be asked to briefly summarize the main ecocritical issues, and to recognize and define key concepts and terms associated with them. Students unable to attend classes (“non frequentanti”) are advised to see the instructor during his office hours or by appointment (not via email) for additional bibliography. The exam will contain specific questions for non-attending students.

Lectures and class discussion. Students are expected to attend regularly and to complete assigned readings before each class.

English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Climate change and energy" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development