Encountering the More-than-Human World: 

Questions for a Thriving Planet:

Course Description

Within its definition, the word “Encounter” holds multiplicities:

: to come upon face-to-face

: a coming into the vicinity of a celestial body

: a meeting between hostile factions or persons : a sudden often violent clash

: a brief chance meeting, esp. with an old friend

In this class, we will explore how each of these modes of encounter shapes the ways in which we open ourselves to the world around us, and in turn, how it opens to us. How is it that we extend ourselves to the more-than-human world, and what traditions and bodies of knowledge inform our approach?

Throughout this course, we will cultivate what poet C. D. Wright describes as “a sense of wakefulness, of being present for what you’re looking at to reveal itself in more absolute terms.” We will use our words and our minds to reach towards the wild earth, in the hopes that through this reaching we might discover something essential about our own being.

We will follow the streams that braid between the built and natural; human and animal; mind, memory, moss, and song. We will ground our inquiry in an ethic of reciprocity—not that we ‘discover’ the wild world, but that we cross paths with it. To do so, we might adopt a version of R. W. Emerson’s “transparent eyeball,” and endeavor to see our own selves through the world around us. A sounding and surrounding.

Our course of investigation will be far-ranging; it will transcend genre and discipline. We will look towards modern and ancient texts, art, philosophy, film, music, dance, and science. Our efforts will allow us to fundamentally reimagine our modes of encounter, the occasions for which will often occur outside the classroom. We might find ourselves on the banks of the Poudre, wandering through a cemetery or museum, or among a herd of horses.

We will grow curious about the nature and quality of our attention; how is it that our minds attend to the complexities of our past, current, and future worlds—those internal and external ecosystems situated in a moment of both great urgency and transformative possibility? Through our pursuit of this inquiry, we will hope to come closer to experiencing the root of the word ‘tend’: to care for, to promise, to give into safekeeping.