Special Topics: Ecopoetics - Experimental Poetry in the Anthropocene
ENGL 340
Spring 2024
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
ENVS 330 |
How do poets speak for and from a world in flux and crisis? How do poets register and attempt to restore the degradation of the planet through language? How might altering the boundaries of conventional language use "through poetry" alter the bounds of conventional thinking and behaving, thus leading to more engaged and sustainable modes of living? This course, in part, will serve as a tour of contemporary eco-poets invested in looking at and caring for the current state of our planet through poetry. We will read poems that reflect the most critical environmental concerns of our time, and we will learn to see how these poems resist closure and are instead guided by exploration and interrogation in an attempt at reorienting our attention and intention as inheritors of this planet.
This is an advanced workshop for students committed to developing an understanding of eco-poetry's place in the more-than-literary world, as well as developing a personal eco-poetics from which to write. Students will choose an environmental topic to research and write in service of for the semester and, by the end of the semester, will have a project-centered collection of poems. There will be bi-weekly presentations on the poetry collections we read, in-class writing experiments, in-the-field experiments, and intensive workshops of participants' work. The class will culminate in an eco-book arts project and a reflective essay.
Special attention will also be given to cultivating community and the benefits of sustaining an embodied artistic practice during extreme times and how doing so may benefit the health of the whole artist. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: (ENGL216 AND ENGL336) OR ENGL337 |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (ENGL)(ENGL-Creative W)(ENVS-MN)(ENVS) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Lynn Keller, RECOMPOSTING ECOPOETICS
Joanna Macy, ACTIVE HOPE
Juliana Sphar, THE CONNECTION OF EVERYONE WITH LUNGS
Fahima Ife, MAROON CHOREOGRAPHY
Aja Duncan, VESTIGIAL
Angela Rawlings, SOUND OF MULL
Brian Teare, DOOMSTEAD DAYS
Ed Roberson, ASK WHAT HAS CHANGED
Cecilia Vicuna, ABOUT TO HAPPEN
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Examinations and Assignments:
There will be bi-weekly presentations on the poets we read, in-class writing and reading experiments, and class discussions and workshops of one another's creative work. The class will culminate in an installation of eco-book arts projects as well as a final reflective essay. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
The course prerequisites are ENGL216--Techniques of Poetry and a 300 level creative writing course such as Intermediate or Advanced poetry workshop or a Special Topics course. Please request a prerequisite override if you feel you qualify for the course but have not taken the prerequisites.
Contributes to fulfillment of ENGL major requirements: CW requirement, CW 300-level course, and CW upper level CW workshop, elective.
The English department highly recommends that students be enrolled in only one CW course in a semester. If you are admitted to more than one CW course, the department requests that you choose one and let the instructors know during Adjustment Period. By doing so you will be considerate of instructors and other students. |
| Instructor(s): Vogel,Danielle Times: .....F. 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: CRT285; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 12 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 1 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 1 | JR non-major: 1 | SO: 1 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 1 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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