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Explorations in American Environmental Writing

Washington College | English Department | Professor Meehan

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature.  [Thoreau]

The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. [Dillard]

This site tracks an earnest exploration of American environmental writing, begun in the Spring of 2009. Collected here are resources and assignments and notes from English 394 as well as links to student blogs: for links, look to the categories and tags to the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Course Focus:

The course will combine intensive reading and analysis of important texts in American environmental writing, from the founding of the genre (for example, Thoreau’s Walden) to recent variations in literary ecology and eco-criticism (for example, Couturier’s The Hopes of Snakes; this writer will be visiting with the class), with extensive writing in the field of study. This field study will culminate in a substantial essay in the practice of environmental writing that students will develop and model on writers and topics of their choosing. Paying attention is a hallmark of environmental writing—being aware and awake to one’s environment. We will put this to the test in this course by becoming more aware of our surroundings on the Eastern Shore (journal observation, field study), give greater attention to the interdisciplinarity of our study that is crucial to the notion of ecology (interaction with the sciences and environmental studies), as well as engaging that awareness in the environment of our reading and writing. What does it mean to be a literary ecologist (a more recent phrasing for nature writer) in America? We will roll up our sleeves and dip into the currents of the past and tide pools of the present as we explore an answer.

Course Texts:

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Lisa Couturier, The Hopes of Snakes: and Other Tales from the Urban Landscape

Finch and Elder, eds, The Norton Book of Nature Writing.

 

Course Work:

Journal writing and blogging; research/presentation on an author; short essays in response to reading; substantial nature essay or piece of eco-criticism.