English 727: Environmental Writing and Social Justice in a Global Context

Prof. Rob Nixon,
Rachel Carson Professor of English

Spring 2005
Mon 10-12.30

This is a new interdisciplinary graduate seminar jointly sponsored by the Borders and Transcultural Studies Research Circle and the English Department. The course will engage four issues of urgent global concern: the environmental legacies of war; water conflicts; the international politics of oil (especially in relation to indigenous peoples); and deforestation.
We will be reading work by writers, activists, and scholars from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America.

A focal objective of the course will be to explore the diverse strategies that writer-activists use to extend the reach of their environmental writings beyond the academy. The course will also have a strong emphasis on the politics of environmental resistance in an age of globalization.
Several guest lecturers (from other disciplines and from outside the university) will lead classes. Writers whom we'll be reading will include some of the following: Martin Amis, Rachel Carson, Amitav Ghosh, Jamaica Kincaid, Michael Klare, Amitava Kumar, Wangari Maathai, Abdelrahman Munif, Oscar Olivera, Arundhati Roy, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Rebecca Solnit, and Anna Tsing.