ENG32750 Resources,Environment,Climate

Academic Year 2022/2023

This Stage 3 module introduces students to debates on environmental politics in contemporary literature and culture. It focuses on the extraction, consumption and exhaustion of natural resources in the context of the climate crisis. The module will be structured around three key topics that will vary each year. These may include water, oil, food, animals, energy, plantations, metals, minerals, and waste. The module will cover a range of forms, potentially including novels, drama, poetry, short stories, graphic novels, and
film. Students will learn about the different ways in which contemporary authors and creatives have represented resource extraction and use, and the social, political, economic and environmental effects of these processes. Module discussions will be grounded in current theoretical debates in the environmental humanities, including scholarship from petrocriticism, the energy humanities, and the blue humanities. The module will be interdisciplinary, and students will also read work in cultural geography, political ecology, science and technology studies, and anthropology.

Texts and films studied may include:
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night; Agustina Bazterrica, Tender is the Flesh; Paolo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife; Ganzeer, The Solar Grid; Basma Ghalayini, Palestine+100; Helon Habila, Oil on Water; Matthew Henderson, The Lease; Linda Hogan, Solar Storms; Ogaga Ifowodo, The Oil Lamp; Tabitha Lasley, Sea State; Layli Long Soldier, Whereas; Joe Sacco, Paying the Land; Ken Saro-Wiwa, A Forest of Flowers; Rita Wong, undercurrent; There Will Be Blood; Mad Max: Fury Road