EN233

Literature of Rural Life and the Environment

TUES/THURS. 9:40 to 11:10 a.m.

INSTRUCTOR: Ursula McTaggart

This course will examine American literature’s historical love for and fascination with the natural landscape. We will study texts that focus on wilderness, agriculture, and rural spaces. We will think about the ethics of how we should treat the environment and the animals in it, contemplating the role of humans in the larger ecological world. We will also explore the ways that race and gender shape the ways we experience the environment. Texts will include John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Alan Moore’s comic book series The Swamp Thing, and essays by Winona LaDuke.

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