Special Topics: Ecopoetics - Experimental Poetry in the Anthropocene
ENGL 340
Spring 2020
| 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 ecopoets 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 experimentation, exploration, and interrogation in an attempt at reorienting our attention and intention as inheritors of this planet.
This is a workshop for students committed to developing an understanding of ecopoetry's place in the more-than-literary world, as well as developing a personal ecopoetics from which to write, read, and live. Students will choose an environmental topic to research and write in service of for the semester and, by the end of the semester, each student will have written a project-centered collection of ecopoems. There will be bi-weekly presentations on the poetry collections we read, in-class writing experiments, and intensive workshops of one another's work. The class will culminate in an ecobook arts project and reflective essay. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ENGL |
| Course Format: Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| 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
Forrest Gander and John Kinsella: REDSTART: AN ECOLOGICAL POETICS
Jorhie Graham: SEA CHANGE
Lynn Keller: RECOMPOSTING ECOPOETICS
Joanna Macy: ACTIVE HOPE
dg nanouk okpik: CORPSE WHALE
Angela Rawlings: WIDE SLUMBER FOR LEPIDOPTERISTS
Evelyn Reilly: STYROFOAM
Ed Roberson: CITY ECOLOGUE
Craig Santos Pérez: FROM UNINCORPORATED TERRITORY [LUKAO]
Juliana Sphar: THE CONNECTION OF EVERYONE WITH LUNGS
Joan Retallack: "WHAT IS EXPERIMENTAL POETRY & WHY DO WE NEED IT?"
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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.
This course contributes to the Creative Writing concentration as a Special Topics course as well as the Theory & Literary Forms concentration of the English major." |
| Instructor(s): Vogel,Danielle Times: .....F. 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: ALLB304; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 12 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | 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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