Lahore University of Management Sciences
ENGL 2111 - Thinking like a Mountain: Literature and the Environment
Instructor
Room No.
Office Hours
Email
Telephone
Secretary/TA
TA Office Hours
Course URL (if any)
Saba Pirzadeh
137
[email protected]
2137
Course Basics
Credit Hours
Lecture(s)
Recitation/Lab (per week)
Tutorial (per week)
Course Distribution
Core
Elective
Open for Student Category
4
Nbr of Lec(s) Per
Week
Nbr of Lec(s) Per
Week
Nbr of Lec(s) Per
Week
2
Duration
110 min
Duration
Duration
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.
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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, 2005.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden. US: Dover Thrift Edition, 1990.
J.M Coetzee, The Lives of Animals. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 2001.
Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide. UK: HarperCollins, 2004.
* Ship Breaker, textual excerpts and critical essays will be in the course pack. Additional
reference books will be put on reserve in the library.
Week
Texts/Reading
I.
Commons vs.
Standing Reserve:
Varying
Conceptions of
Land
1. Introduction. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (excerpt), Clip from An
Inconvenient Truth (2005)
2. Rudyard Kipling, Kim, pg. 1-90
II.
3. Kim pg. 91-171, Robert Marzec, "Enclosures, Colonization, and
the Robinson Crusoe Syndrome: A Genealogy of Land in a Global
Context." boundary 2 Vol 29.2 (2002): 129-156.
4. Kim pg. 171-240, Presentation
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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): 153-78. Quiz
IV.
Senses, Sites and
Affect
7. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854) pg. 1-70
8. Henry David Thoreau, Walden pg. 71-141, Presentation
V.
9. Henry David Thoreau, Walden pg. 142-206, Leonard N. Neufeldt and
Mark A. Smith "Going to Walden Woods: Walden, Walden, and
American Pastoralism." Arizona Quarterly 55.2 (1999): 57-86.
10. 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. 81-136, Kelly Oliver, “What Is Wrong with
(Animal) Rights? The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 22.3 (2008):
214-224. Quiz
VIII. Conservation
and coercion
15. Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, pg. 1-70
16. The Hungry Tide, pg. 71-141
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IX.
17. The Hungry Tide, pg. 142-212, Presentation
18. The Hungry Tide, pg. 213-283
19. The Hungry Tide, pg. 284-354, Presentation
X.
20. The Hungry Tide, pg. 355-400, Pramod K. Nayar, "The Postcolonial
Uncanny; The Politics of Dispossession in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry
Tide." College Literature 37.4 (2010): 88-119.
XI.
Ecological
collapse and
precarity
XII.
XIII.
Representing
(local) eco-crises
XIV.
21. Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker, pg. 1-80
22. Ship Breaker, pg. 81-151, Presentation
23. Ship Breaker, pg. 152-232, Presentation
24. Ship Breaker, pg. 222-323, Quiz
25. Rob Nixon, “Introduction.” Slow Violence and Environmental of the
Poor. Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 2011. 1-45.
26. Footage of Pakistani environmental disasters (2005 earthquake and
2010 flood), Sabir Khan,"Geographies Of Disaster." Log 7 (2006): 11118
27. Daanish Mustafa. "Structural Causes of Vulnerability to Flood
Hazard in Pakistan." Economic Geography 74.3 (1998): 289-305; Paul J.
Smith, "Climate Change, Weak States and the "War on Terrorism" in
South and Southeast Asia." Contemporary Southeast Asia 29.2 (2007):
264-85.
28.Concluding remarks
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