ENGL 374 | Writing Climate Justice

This course considers how imaginative writing can intervene in the most existential of neoliberalism's myriad catastrophes: the climate crisis. Through the reading of contemporary novels, poetry, nonfiction, and ecocritical theory, course participants will explore literature's ability to illuminate the environmental injustices of the present perilous moment and to help realize a just and sustainable future for all. Emphasizing writing as a form of activism, ENGL374 studies the work of authors from around the globe, including Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Nnedi Okorafor, Cherie Dimaline, and Camille Dungy. Discussion of course readings encompasses a range of topics essential to understanding climate justice, including Indigenous rights, immigration justice, ecofeminism, and queer ecology. The course has three main assignments: an essay in which students place an ecocritical concept and a literary text in conversation; a creative writing assignment in which students themselves produce a short piece of climate change literature in a genre of their choosing; and a collaborative, student-designed final project that uses the skills and knowledge developed during the semester to engage the climate crisis beyond the classroom.