Lahore University of Management Sciences

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1 ENGL Thinking like a Mountain: Literature and the Environment Instructor Saba Pirzadeh Room No. 137 Office Hours saba.pirzadeh@lums.edu.pk Telephone 2137 Secretary/TA TA Office Hours Course URL (if any) Course Basics Credit Hours 4 Lecture(s) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Recitation/Lab (per week) Nbr of Lec(s) Per Tutorial (per week) Nbr of Lec(s) Per 2 Duration 110 min Duration Duration Course Distribution Core Elective Open for Student Category No Yes All Course Description This course introduces students to key concepts and common concerns within environmental literature. Drawing upon a wide variety of texts picaresque novel, memoir, poetry, children s literature, postcolonial novel and dystopian fiction we will explore different conceptions and treatment of the natural world. Our readings will be supplemented by secondary sources such as documentaries and contemporary critical theory. Using tools of literary analysis, we will closely study the form and content of selected works to ask the following questions What role does literature play in deepening our understanding of the environment? In what ways does ecocritical discourse complicate our notions of race, class, gender, colonialism, nationalism and neoliberalism? How does the non-human world enter into human narratives? How does literature influence ecological thought and action? By addressing these questions (among others), the course will encourage students to critically think about environmental issues beyond the immediate scope of the classroom.

2 Course Evaluation Class participation 10% Quizzes 20% Group Presentation 15% In-class midterm exam 25% Research Essay 30% Required texts Rudyard Kipling. Kim. US: Dover Thrift Edition, Henry David Thoreau, Walden. US: Dover Thrift Edition, J.M Coetzee, The Lives of Animals. New Jersey: Princeton UP, Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide. UK: HarperCollins, * Ship Breaker, textual excerpts and critical essays will be in the course pack. Additional reference books will be put on reserve in the library. I. Commons vs. Standing Reserve: Varying Conceptions of Land II. Texts/Reading 1. Introduction. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (excerpt), Clip from An Inconvenient Truth (2005) 2. Rudyard Kipling, Kim, pg Kim pg , Robert Marzec, "Enclosures, Colonization, and the Robinson Crusoe Syndrome: A Genealogy of Land in a Global Context." boundary 2 Vol 29.2 (2002): Kim pg , Presentation

3 III. 5. Kamala Markandaya, Nectar in a Sieve (excerpt), Intizar Hussain, Basti (excerpt) 6. Gyan Prakash, "Science "Gone Native" in Colonial India." Representations 40 (1992): Quiz IV. Senses, Sites and Affect 7. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854) pg Henry David Thoreau, Walden pg , Presentation V. 9. Henry David Thoreau, Walden pg , Leonard N. Neufeldt and Mark A. Smith "Going to Walden Woods: Walden, Walden, and American Pastoralism." Arizona Quarterly 55.2 (1999): Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (excerpt), Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place, (excerpt), Saadat Hassan Manto, Toba Tek Singh, Quiz VI. Anthropocentrism and the nonhuman world 11. Midterm exam 12. Ted Hughes, The Jaguar, Pike, The Horses ; Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book (excerpt), Clip from Blackfish (2013) VII. 13. J.M Coetzee, The Lives of Animals, pg. 1-80, Presentation 14. The Lives of Animals, pg , Kelly Oliver, What Is Wrong with (Animal) Rights? The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 22.3 (2008): Quiz VIII. Conservation and coercion 15. Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, pg The Hungry Tide, pg

4 IX. 17. The Hungry Tide, pg , Presentation 18. The Hungry Tide, pg X. 19. The Hungry Tide, pg , Presentation 20. The Hungry Tide, pg , Pramod K. Nayar, "The Postcolonial Uncanny; The Politics of Dispossession in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide." College Literature 37.4 (2010): XI. Ecological collapse and precarity 21. Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker, pg Ship Breaker, pg , Presentation XII. 23. Ship Breaker, pg , Presentation 24. Ship Breaker, pg , Quiz XIII. Representing (local) eco-crises XIV. 25. Rob Nixon, Introduction. Slow Violence and Environmental of the Poor. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, Footage of Pakistani environmental disasters (2005 earthquake and 2010 flood), Sabir Khan,"Geographies Of Disaster." Log 7 (2006): Daanish Mustafa. "Structural Causes of Vulnerability to Flood Hazard in Pakistan." Economic Geography 74.3 (1998): ; Paul J. Smith, "Climate Change, Weak States and the "War on Terrorism" in South and Southeast Asia." Contemporary Southeast Asia 29.2 (2007): Concluding remarks

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