ENG4430 – Environmental Literature in English

Schedule, syllabus and examination date

Course content

This M.A. seminar will explore the significance of literary and cultural texts that engage with environmental issues, problems, and challenges, including human relations with nonhuman animals and environments. The texts and topics will vary by semester, but genres may include fiction, nonfiction, nature writing, poetry, film, and other media. Specific emphasis may be given to topics such as climate change, species extinctions, toxic environments, and pollution, as well as questions about sustainable models for interacting with nonhuman animals and environments. Individual writers to be studied will vary, but will be drawn mostly from U.S. and other Anglophone contexts. Critical and theoretical contexts will be drawn from academic fields such as ecocriticism, environmental humanities, ecofeminism, environmental justice, multispecies studies, human-animal studies, animality studies, and posthumanism.

Learning outcome

After completing this course you:

  • can explain and analyze the significance of literary and cultural texts engaging with environmental issues, problems, and challenges, including human relations with nonhuman animals and environments;
  • can understand and engage with theoretical developments in academic fields such as ecocriticism, environmental humanities, ecofeminism, environmental justice, multispecies studies, human-animal studies, animality studies, and posthumanism;
  • can analyze literary and cultural texts in relation to discourses of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability, environment, and species;
  • can situate literary and cultural texts in relation to particular historical and cultural contexts.

Admission to the course

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

This course is for students admitted to the master programmes?European Languages (master)?and?Lektorprogrammet (masterspesialisering i engelsk).

Students enrolled in other Master`s Degree Programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.