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Root number
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519469 |
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Semester
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HS2026 |
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Type of course
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Seminar |
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Allocation to subject
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English Languages and Literatures |
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Type of exam
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not defined |
| Title |
Contemporary North American Ecological Literature (MA Seminar Literature) |
| Description |
Cultural Sustainability and the Environmental Humanities have emerged as new interdisciplinary fields and have become global intellectual movements in the Anthropocene. Many literary and cultural scholars have helped to shape the new fields and see their work as a challenge to the understanding of the environmental polycrisis as exclusively techno-scientific. By putting the spotlight on the role of culture, history, and the arts, scholars such as Ursula Heise highlight the important role of the humanities and the arts in shaping our understanding of the serious global environmental crises. Through the lenses of literary texts (see below), we will discuss how literature manages to negotiate different aspects of the environmental challenges (pollution, plastic waste, radioactive fallout, extreme weather conditions, etc.) and how it helps to shape ecological imaginaries and invites readers to engage with ethical questions. Anglophone narrative fiction and poems from different decades of the 20th and 21st centuries together with their ‘green’ aesthetics will be the objects of our investigations.
Required Reading: The primary texts must be read before the first session; your knowledge of it may be subject to examination.
A.S. Byatt’s “Art Work” (in: The Matisse Stories 1993); excerpts from Don DeLillo’s Underworld (1997); Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood (2009); Thomas King’s The Back of the Turtle (2014); Richard Powers’ Bewilderment (2021).
Please purchase Atwood’s, King’s and Powers’ novels; Byatt’s story and the excerpts from DeLillo’s novel – together with some theoretical material – will be uploaded on the ILIAS platform at the beginning of August 2026. We will also discuss a few poems which will be uploaded on our ILIAS platform in due time. |
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ILIAS-Link (Learning resource for course)
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Registrations are transmitted from CTS to ILIAS (no admission in ILIAS possible).
ILIAS
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Link to another web site
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| Lecturers |
Prof. Dr.
Gabriele Rippl, Institute of English Languages and Literatures ✉
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ECTS
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4 |
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Recognition as optional course possible
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No |
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Grading
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passed/failed |
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| Dates |
Monday 14:15-16:00 Weekly
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Rooms
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| Students please consult the detailed view for complete information on dates, rooms and planned podcasts. |
User:
Öffentlicher Bereich
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