ENVIR 495A
Literature, Culture & the Environment: The Human Animal
Professor Richard Block (blockr@uw.edu).
MWF: 11:30-12:30, Condon Hall 139.
VLPA (can perhaps be taken for “W” credit with approval of instructor)
Modernity’s unprecedented assertion of human rights has been an equally unprecedented disaster for our fellow creatures. Never before have humans so systematically slaughtered and tortured the other animals on the planet in service of their own needs. To boot, human-caused global warming threatens the survival of as much as 65 percent of the known species on the planet. How is it that we have come to be at war with our animal nature?
Course format: Lecture and discussion
What You Can Expect to Learn in This Class:
- How the current environmental crisis can be traced to our changed relations with the animal kingdom;
- How to historicize texts and refuse naturalizing the present;
- How to read closely and compose a coherent and cogent essay based on those readings