BA Film Studies and English Literature / Course details

The aim of this course is to study the variety of forms and perspectives being used by writers from different regions of the world to explore the climate emergency. Our starting point is to ask: how can texts portray the enormous scale and gravity of this crisis? Furthermore, can texts help us to identify the origins of the crisis and develop strategies of adjustment and mitigation? We look at contemporary novels, poems, thrillers and speculative fictions that address climate change and related forms of ecological depredation. Our goal is to think not so much about the cultural ramifications of the climate crisis but rather about how cultural texts of various kinds shape our relations with the living world in a moment of crisis and help us to imagine different kinds of future.

The aims of this course are:

- to introduce students to important texts and issues that address the contemporary climate crisis;

- to examine the multiplicity of texts, genres, forms and media that portray or otherwise respond to this crisis;

- to consider the formal and technical challenges presented for writers and other artists by anthropogenic global warming;

- to analyse the numerous ways in which texts explore the origins and implications of climate crisis;

- to examine the role played by imaginative texts in developing strategies of adjustment and mitigation;

- to consider the intersection between global warming and issues like empire, gender and race

- to analyse the ways in which texts explore and interrogate the category of ‘the human’ 

- to engage critically with selected theoretical and political writings on climate crisis.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

- apply and evaluate different critical and theoretical approaches to texts that address climate crisis and in so doing formulate their own distinctive approaches;

- recognise and grasp some of the various features and innovations of these texts at the level of form and theme;

- demonstrate an understanding of the multiple forms and genres used by writers and other artists to address the climate crisis;

- demonstrate a thorough understanding of the key themes of crisis, ecology, the human, literary form and fossil fuel consumption.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

- make informed critical judgments about how texts (particularly those that address the climate crisis) mediate vital questions of ecological, social and political change;

- analyse course texts in a comprehensive as well as socially, politically and ecologically informed manner;

- identify and outline key problems and issues in contemporary world literature;

- synthesise and analyse information about the climate crisis;

- evaluate arguments advanced by critics, literary theorists, activists and practitioners.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

- articulate reasoned critical positions in speech and writing on the climate crisis and on the ways in which its origins and ramifications are shaped by texts;

- plan and execute independent research on the topic;

- make good use of library, electronic, and online resources pertaining to the course;

- interpret and summarise information from different kinds of text;

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

- retrieve, sift, organise, synthesise and critically evaluate material from a range of different sources, including library, electronic, and online resources;

- produce written work that collects and integrates evidence in order to formulate a critical argument;

- demonstrate good teamwork skills by acknowledging the views of others and working constructively with others;

- develop and complete an effective research project.

We will read novels such as Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island, Jeff Murray's Melt, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future and Annie Proulx’s Barkskins. We look at poetry too, including work by Alice Oswald, Les Murray and Kathleen Jamie. Recent theoretical and political work on the new geological epoch characterised by destructive human intervention in the living world (referred to as the Anthropocene or, less often, as the Capitalocene) will be studied, including work by Naomi Klein, Andreas Malm, Amitav Ghosh and David Wallace-Wells. Critical work on the cultural dimensions of anthropogenic climate change by critics like Adam Trexler and writers in the ‘energy humanities’ will also be examined.