EH 105: Freshman Honors Composition
From Forest to City: The Politics of Ecology
Whether or not you believe in global warming, our world faces ecological crises of pollution, overpopulation, and sheer space, among others. Humanity's whole history—political, cultural, religious—has been bound up in its relationship with the environment. Rather than focus on a specific period or nation's environmental literature, we will look broadly at the engagement of humans and other animals with Nature from the earliest known literary text, The Epic of Gilgamesh, to the science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Along the way, in order to avoid the naivety of an anthropocentric (man-centered) perspective, we will explore through various literary and other texts not only mankind's linkage to the land but also his enmeshment in a larger field of lifeforms, animal, vegetable, and mineral. We will critically engage these texts in order to shape original arguments and informed perspectives on the ecological encounters that have defined and continue to shape life on earth and, through our interdisciplinary approaches, to develop critical thinking, research, and argumentation skills necessary for your academic future.
****Before the first class please read Aristotle’s Politics excerpt (CANVAS), Virgil Eclogues I and IV (CANVAS)
Calendar
Aug. 17 Syllabus; Political Ecology
HW: Read Do Androids Dream… pp. 1-111
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Unit 1: What is Life? Where is the political?
Aug. 22 Do Androids Dream...
HW: Read Do Androids Dream… pp.112-165
Aug. 24 Do Androids Dream…
HW: Read Do Androids Dream… pp. 165-end; Read Freud, “The Uncanny” (CANVAS) (if you are interested, a link to the story, The Sandman, Freud discusses in the essay)
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Aug. 29 Do Androids Dream…
HW: Read Foucault, from History of Sexuality (CANVAS)
Aug. 31 Biopower
HW: Complete First Reading Response Paper
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Sept. 5 Labor Day no class
Unit 2: The Ecological Mesh
Sept. 7 Reading Response Paper Due; Food, Inc.
HW: Read Rachel Carson excerpt from Silent Spring and Mike Tidwell’s “Stop Going Green” (CANVAS) and They Say/I Say “What’s Motivating This Writer” (pp. 173-183)
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Sept. 12 Rhetoric and readings
HW: Read Acts Macbeth I-2
Sept. 14 Macbeth: natural and unnatural
HW: Read Macbeth Acts 3-5
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Sept. 19 Macbeth: natural and unnatural
HW:
Sept. 21 Macbeth: humans and other animals
HW: Review Sample Papers (Sent via CANVAS and stored in Files on CANVAS)
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Sept. 26 Sample Papers Discussion
HW: Read Courtney Martin’s “The Population Debate Gets Personal” and “Alan Weisman’s “Earth Without People”
Sept. 28 Second Reading Response Paper Due; Security, Territory, Population
HW: Read Gilgamesh Tablets I-VII (pp. 3-59)
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Unit 3: Questions of Stewardship
Oct. 3 Gilgamesh
HW: Read Gilgamesh Tablets VIII-X
Oct. 5 Gilgamesh
HW: Read Gilgamesh Tablets XI
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Oct. 10 Gilgamesh
HW: Read the Bible excerpts from Genesis 1, 11 and 6-9 and Quran excerpts from Suras 1-2 and 71 (CANVAS); The American Forests excerpt and Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (excerpt) (CANVAS)
Oct. 12 Stewardship and otherwise
HW: They Say/I Say “Introduction” and Part 1 (pp. 1-51) and Al Gore’s Nobel Lecture (link)
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Oct. 17 Argument Ecologies (centered around Gore’s speech)
HW: Read essay cluster on environmental policies “The Case For and Against Nuclear Power”; “The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence,” “National Security Consequences of Oil Dependence”(CANVAS)
Oct. 19 Argument Ecologies
HW: Complete Critical Analysis Papers; Read They Say/ I Say “I Say” (pp. 55-101) and “Tying It All Together” (pp. 105-138)
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Oct. 24 Critical Analysis Papers Due; Your Argument (review paper rubric); Examples of Academic Articles and Academic Form
HW: Read Frankenstein pp. 3-64
Oct. 26 Frankenstein
HW: Read Frankenstein pp. 65-91
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Unit 4: The Milieu: Land, Life, and Law
Oct. 31 Frankenstein
HW: Read Frankenstein pp. 92-158
Nov. 2 Frankenstein
HW: Read Frankenstein pp. 159-end (179)
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Nov. 7 Frankenstein
HW: Read God, Adam, and Satan (in Frankenstein book pp. 301-322)
Nov. 9 Frankenstein
HW: Read Khiabany, “Refugee Crisis” (CANVAS) and “The Journey” from The Guardian
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Nov. 14 Landscapes, Refugees, Globalization: What Counts as Human?
Nov. 16 paper conferences
HW: complete research papers
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Nov. 21 paper conferences
Nov. 23 no class
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Nov. 28 Paper final points; surveys; Final Research Paper Due by midnight
