AP/HUMA 3662 3.00

Ecocritical Approaches to Black Literature and Film

This course applies concepts of ecocriticism to cultural production, literature and film, of Africa and its Diaspora. The course will examine and highlight the role of land and landscape in the literary compositions of the selected writers and filmmakers, and how their works are informed by ecocritical tenets such as naturecultures, animals and animal activism, ecotourism, the local versus the global, food, water, weather patterns, waste disposal and recycling etc. Ecocriticism was and is a literary approach and movement that sprang to existence in the early 1990s as a response to environmental crises that were threatening and still threaten the world. In an era of potential environmental apocalypse and anthropocene, do African and African Diasporic writers and filmmakers demonstrate environmental awareness in their works? Or, what might exploring their work through these lenses reveal? Given the urgency of climate change and its impact, the course gives students the opportunity to consider how environmental issues are depicted and taken up by black artists over the past 50 years. They will become familiar with ecocriticism as an analytical tool, learn to observe and foreground aspects of texts that they might not otherwise notice, and unpack how these works speak to critical contemporary issues.