ALL381 - Literary Ecologies: (Re)Imagining Our Place in the World
Unit details
| Year | 2018 unit information |
|---|---|
| Enrolment modes: | Trimester 1: Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong), Online Trimester 3: Burwood (Melbourne), Online |
| Credit point(s): | 1 |
| EFTSL value: | 0.125 |
| Unit chair: | Emily Potter |
| Prerequisite: | One Literary Studies unit at any year level |
| Corequisite: | Nil |
| Incompatible with: | Nil |
| Contact hours: | Campus: 1 x 1 hour Class plus 1 x 2 hour Seminar Cloud (online): Learning experiences are via CloudDeakin |
Content
This unit explores the complex relationship between humans and their ecologies, and the role of literature in both producing and critiquing these relationships. Starting with a critical survey of the ways in which environments and non-human animals have been constituted in the Western imaginary and literary tradition, the unit will move through various sites for re-imagining human/ecological entanglements in a literary context: from the city, to ‘the end of nature’, to non-human animals and the post-human world. The unit encourages students to critically consider key concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘environment’, ‘animal’ and ‘human’ as historically and culturally contingent, and to understand the ways in which literary texts – including fiction, non-fiction and film – generate, contest and perform these concepts. The unit places the literary text at the heart of the critical ethical project that all humans currently face in our ecologically-challenged present.
Assessment
Critical essay, 2000 words 50%
Creative essay, 1600 words, 40%
Participation task, 400 word equivalent 10%
Unit Fee Information
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