AustLit

Recent findings in the biological and physical sciences pose complex questions not just for those who work in the lab, but for philosophers, scholars, artists and students of literary theory. In this course we consider the cultural reverberations of ecological awareness—focusing on literature, cinema and visual art. Eco-criticism is a relatively young field of study in the humanities, developed in response to twin crises: actual environmental degradation, and a breakdown in intellectual categories of ‘the natural’ brought on by technology and politics. This course provides an opportunity to reflect on a number of key tropes in ecological thinking including wilderness, pollution, animals, food and apocalypse. Learn about a philosopher who survived a crocodile attack, the beach at the end of the world, how to prepare and eat Australian moths, and why the Large Hadron Collider is a metaphysical machine. Principle texts in this course include American and Australian novels, films and documentaries, read alongside supplementary sources in literary, audio and artistic mediums. We ask how literature—one of the richest arenas for the practice of human imagination—does, has, or could shape environmental thought and action. How does the non-human world enter into human artforms? What are the historical and structural obstacles to admitting different forms of consciousness into text? What literary genres and styles are called forth by the huge ecological challenges of our times?