ENGL3358 · English
Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences
How do we tell stories about a crisis that is becoming ever more ordinary?This course explores how writers and filmmakers have addressed the Great Acceleration: a sharp, post-1945 turn within the Anthropocene--the proposed geological epoch defined by human impact upon the earth--witnessing exponential growth in human populations, economies, and resource consumption that has pushed earth systems into dangerous unsustainability.Together we will analyze fictions that take up urgent questions of this moment,for instance how nature is conceptualized differently over time, how capitalism becomes naturalized through the working of the land, and how we understand the paradox of natural disasters as a term.Works may include novels such as Carlos BulosansAmerica is in the Heart(1946), Thomas PynchonsThe Crying of Lot 49(1966), Octavia ButlersThe Parable of the Sower(1993), and Tommy OrangesThere There(2018), and films such asChinatown(1974),The Day After Tomorrow(2004), andSorry to Bother You(2018).
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Fall 2023
1 section