Literature and environment: Text, genre, world

In this unit you will examine how literary texts frame and influence understandings of the natural world. You will explore texts from eighteenth-century Romanticism, through the era of industrialisation and empire, to the growth of environmentalism in the later twentieth century. Geographically, you will examine a range of European, Asian and settler-colonial contexts and the interplays between them. A core theme of the unit is how a creator's choice of medium (orality, print, digital technologies) influences the resulting text. You will read texts drawn from a wide array of literary genres (such as short- and long-form fiction, poetry, drama/performance, non-fiction, graphic narrative, multimedia and born-digital works) and consider how contemporary authors use genre to respond to twenty-first-century global challenges of the Anthropocene and climate crisis. You will critically assess the potential of literature's relationship to ecological awareness and environmental politics.

This unit will give you an excellent foundation in Literary Studies concepts, methods and theories to build upon in second- and third-year units. The unit does not require you to have any prior familiarity with literary or environmental topics.