ENGL170M PO - Black Ecologies

When Offered: Last offered Fall 2023.
Instructor(s): C. Sherrard-Johnson
Credit: 1

Following the working definition of ecology as the study of the often-intertwined experience of relationships among humans as well as among humans and nonhuman nature, this course examines Black literature that directly engages with natural and built environments. We will read, write, and engage with writing, film, and visual art with a particular emphasis on the creative efforts of Black world-makers to expose racial capitalism and pursue environmental justice. We discuss the cost/benefits of applying ecocritical, ecopoetic, and/or ecofeminist readings across intersectional and diasporic geographies. Writers such as Octavia Butler, Zora Neale Hurston, Randall Kenan, Ross Gay, Toni Morrison, and Jesmyn Ward will be read alongside scholarship of Lauret Savoy, Katherine McKittrick, Audre Lorde, Christina Sharpe, and Saidiya Hartman, to name just a few.

Satisfies the following General Education Requirement(s), subject to conditions explained in the Degree Requirements section of this Catalog:
Area 1