ALL381 - Reading the End of Nature
Unit details
| Year: | 2020 unit information |
|---|---|
| Important Update: | Classes and seminars in Trimester 3, 2020 will be online. Physical distancing for coronavirus (COVID-19) will affect delivery of other learning experiences in this unit. Please check your unit sites for announcements and updates one week prior to the start of trimester. Last updated: 5 October 2020 |
| Enrolment modes: | Trimester 1: Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong), Online Trimester 3: Online |
| Credit point(s): | 1 |
| EFTSL value: | 0.125 |
| Unit Chair: | Trimester 1: Emily Potter Trimester 3: Emily Potter |
| Prerequisite: | One Literary Studies unit at second year level |
| Corequisite: | Nil |
| Incompatible with: | Nil |
| Typical study commitment: | Students will on average spend 150 hours over the teaching period undertaking the teaching, learning and assessment activities for this unit. |
| Scheduled learning activities - campus: | 1 x recorded online class per week, 1 x 2-hour seminar per week |
| Scheduled learning activities - cloud: | Online independent and collaborative learning activities including: 1 x recorded online class per week plus online discussion (equivalent 2-hours) per week |
Content
This unit responds to the current environmental crisis to critically consider the role of literature in both producing and responding to ‘the end of nature’. This ending relates to ways of seeing, thinking and writing about nature that have reached their historical limit and can no longer be sustained. Ranging across themes such as ‘the pastoral’, ‘the disaster’, ‘decolonisation’, ‘animals’ and ‘the post-human’, the unit encourages students to critically consider these and other concepts as historically and culturally contingent, and to understand the ways in which literary texts – including fiction, non-fiction and film across a range of genres – generate, contest and perform these concepts. Ultimately, students will be asked to reflect on what reading at the end nature might mean outside of the text, in a world facing what Swedish student activist Greta Thunberg calls ‘climate breakdown’, and how reading and political action might go hand in hand.
| These are the Learning Outcomes (ULO) for this unit At the completion of this unit, successful students can: | ||
| ULO1 | Critically evaluate how ecological concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘animal’ ‘human’ and ‘environment’ are constituted in Western imaginary and literary traditions, and explain the historical and cultural contingency of these | GLO1: Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities GLO4: Critical thinking GLO8: Global citizenship |
| ULO2 | Interpret critically and/or creatively the specifity of literary texts in the generation, contestation and performance of these concepts, and as creative contexts through which human seeks to understand, manipulate and relate to the non-human world | GLO1: Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities GLO4: Critical thinking GLO8: Global citizenship |
| ULO3 | Recognise the relevance of literary studies to the ethical project of human ecological inhabitation, and critically assess the challenges and debates currently emerging from ecological challenges of the present | GLO1: Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities GLO4: Critical thinking GLO8: Global citizenship |
| ULO4 | Express their ideas effectively, and construct and elaborate a cogent argument through textual examples and critical references, communicated in oral and written form | GLO1: Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities GLO4: Critical thinking GLO8: Global citizenship |
These Unit Learning Outcomes are applicable for all teaching periods throughout the year
Assessment
Trimester 1:| Assessment Description | Student output | Grading and weighting (% total mark for unit) | Indicative due week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assessment 1 (Individual) - Essay | 1500 words or equivalent | 40% | Week 5 |
| Assessment 2 (Individual) - Essay | 1500 words or equivalent | 40% | Week 11 |
| Assessment 3 (Individual) - Online quiz | 500 words or equivalent | 20% | Ongoing |
The assessment due weeks provided may change. The Unit Chair will clarify the exact assessment requirements, including the due date, at the start of the teaching period.
Learning Resource
The texts and reading list for the unit can be found on the University Library via the link below: ALL381 Note: Select the relevant trimester reading list. Please note that a future teaching period's reading list may not be available until a month prior to the start of that teaching period so you may wish to use the relevant trimester's prior year reading list as a guide only.
Unit Fee Information
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