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57151-01 - Seminar: Birds, Bees, and Trees: Literature and the Environment (3 CP)
| Semester | spring semester 2020 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Daniela Keller (daniela.keller@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Twenty-first-century fiction and literary criticism show a growing interest in materiality and this seminar will focus on novels, short stories and poems that respond to our physical environment by addressing climate change and/or the human-nonhuman borders. We will investigate how these concerns feature in texts that were written by, primarily, British/English authors and in the 2010s. We will engage with questions such as: How does climate change surface in these texts? How and why do these texts focus on the entanglement between the human and the nonhuman? And how can we combine the global issue of climate change with small-scale interactions between human beings, birds, bees, and trees? We will take a closer look at the ways contemporary fiction engages with the environment and will discuss these through the lenses of animal studies, ecocriticism and new materialism. |
| Learning objectives | Students must be willing to read theoretical texts in addition to fiction. We will explore animal studies, ecocritical and new materialist thinking, discuss the politics of literature and practice close reading skills. |
| Bibliography | Please purchase and read the following books which will be available at the Labyrinth bookstore (Nadelberg 17): Royle, Nicholas. "An English Guide to Birdwatching". Myriad, 2017. (ISBN 978-1-908434-94-4) Cocozza, Paula. "How to Be Human". Windmill Books, 2018. (ISBN 9780099510772) Lanchester, John. "The Wall". Faber & Faber, 2019. (ISBN 978-0-571-29873-0) Further reading will be made available on ADAM. |
| Weblink | ADAM |
| Admission requirements | This seminar is for BA students on the advanced level who have completed ALL three introductory modules (including the proseminar papers). |
| Course application | Please register via doodle https://doodle.com/poll/iznxyybgctyse82k and do not forget to sign up via MOnA. The doodle will open on the 31st January, 2020, 9am. Please note that places are limited to 25. Once the course is fully booked, you will need to sign up for one of the department's alternative offerings. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | Online, mandatory |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Advanced Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies (Bachelor's degree subject: English) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Regular attendance, active participation, and writing assignments. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft |