Week 1

pluralizing the anthropocene, an introduction

Steve Mentz, Break Up the Anthropocene (2019)

WEEK 2

ANTHROPOCENE

Primary Readings: Thinking the Anthropocene with the Early Moderns

Steve Mentz, “Enter the Anthropocene, Circa 1610” in Anthropocene Reading in Geologic Times (2017): 43-58.

Philip John Usher, “Untranslating the Anthropocene.” diacritics, vol. 44, no. 3 (2016): 56-77.

Vin Nardizzi, “Environ” in Veer Ecology. Eds. JJ Cohen and L. Duckert (2017): 183-195.

Primary Readings: Thinking the Anthropocene

Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 35, no. 2 (2009): 197-222.

Stacy Alaimo, “Your Shell on Acid: Material Immersion, Anthropocene Dissolves” in Anthropocene Feminism. Ed. R. Grusin (2017): 89-120.

Donna Harraway, “Introduction” and “Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene” in Staying with Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016): 1-4, 30-57.

Kyle Whyte, “Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene.” English Language Notes, vol. 55, no. 1-2 (Fall 2017): 153-162.

Robert Macfarlane, “Desecration phrasebook: A litany for the Anthropocene.” New Scientist, Dec. 15, 2015. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830523-200-desecration-phrasebook-a-litany-for-the-anthropocene/

WEEK 3

GREEN DESIRE

Primary Readings

Thomas Hill, The gardeners labyrinth containing a discourse of the garden life, in the yearly trauels to be bestovved on his plot of earth, for the vse of a garden (1577)

William Lawson, New Orchard or Garden… Countrie Housewifes Garden (1631)

Hugh Plat, The Garden of Eden, or, An Accurate description of all flowers and fruits now growing in England (1654 edition)

Thomas Tusser, Fiue Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry Vnited to as Many of Good Husewiferie, First Deuised [and] Nowe Lately Augmented with Diuerse Approued Lessons Concerning Hopps [and] Gardening (1574 edition)

Critical Readings

Rebecca Bushnell, Green Desire: Imagining Early Modern English Gardens (2003)

• Introduction: 1-11

• Chapter 1 “Composing Gardens”: 13-48

• Chapter 4 “The Ladies’ Part”: 108-131

Leah Knight, Of Books and Botany in Early Modern England (2009)

• Epilogue (read the epilogue first): 133-134

• Chapter 2 “The Bookish Nature of Botanical Culture”: 13-28

Marjorie Swann, “Vegetable Love: Botany and Sexuality in 17th Century England” in The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature. Eds. J. Feerick and V. Nardizzi (2012): 139-158.

Hillary Eklund, “Introduction: Toward a Renaissance Soil Science” in Ground-Work: English Renaissance Literature and Soil Science. Eds. H. Eklund (2017): 1-15.

Patricia Seed, “Houses, Gardens, and Fences: Signs of Possession in the New World,” in Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640 (1995): 16-40.

Suggested

• Botanical Arts and Artists: https://www.botanicalartandartists.com/herbals.html

• Biodiversity Heritage Library: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

DUE: Cross-Pollination Session (5%)

Dig into any one of the early modern Gardens that interests you (linked & in Moodle).

Pluck something from your Garden that relates to a reading above.

Prepare a single slide to introduce us to what you’ve dug up & why.

Pollinate. You’ll have 3 minutes to cross-pollinate with ideas in the critical readings by way of your Garden.

WEEK 4

The Botany of Race

Primary Readings

Ovid, Metamorphoses, “Procne and Philomela” (Book 6)

Raymond Williams, “Nature” in Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society

William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus

Critical Readings

Jean Feerick, “Economies of Nature in Shakespeare.” Shakespeare Studies, vol. 39 (2011): 32-42.

_____, “Botanical Shakespeares: The Racial Logic of Plant Life in Titus Andronicus.” South Central Review, vol. 26, no. 1-2 (2009): 82-102.

Jennifer Munroe, “Is it Really Ecocritical if it isn’t Feminist?” in Ecological Approaches to Early Modern English Texts. Eds. J. Munroe et al. (2015): 37-47.

Week 5

ECO-ENTANGLEMENTS: RUIN, GRAFTING, STRATIFICATION CA. 920-2020

Graduate Conference, Co-Organized by Melissa Hudasko and John Yargo

Saturday, February 22, 2020. 9am at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies

Click here for conference details.

Primary Readings

Anthropocene Reading: Literary History in Geologic Times. Eds. T. Menely & J. Oak Taylor (2017)

• Tobias Menely and Jesse Oak Taylor, “Introduction”: 1-24

• Jeffery Jerome Cohen, “Anarky”: 25-42

Veer Ecology: A Companion for Environmental Thinking. Eds. JJ. Cohen & L. Duckert (2017)

• Tim Ingold, “Whirl”: 421-433

Readings from Jean Feerick

David Macauley, “Introduction” and “Part II: Elemental Theories” in Elemental Philosophy: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water as Elemental Ideas (2010): 1-9, 103-251.

Week 6

WOR/L/DS

Primary Readings: Eco-Philology in Practice

Jack Turner, “Another Extinction: Words We Use to Describe the Natural World.” Our World, Jan. 19, 2016. https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/another-extinction-words-we-use-to-describe-the-natural-world

Veer Ecology: A Companion for Environmental Thinking. Eds. JJ. Cohen & L. Duckert (2017)

• Introduction: 1-15

• pick a single word you wish to read in relation to your interests

• pick word from the list of “Errata” to veer into as you wish: 477

Prismatic Ecology: Ecotheory beyond Green. Ed. JJ. Cohen (2013)

• Forward by Lawrence Buell: ix-xii

• Introduction, “Ecology’s Rainbow” by Jeffery Jerome Cohen: xv-xxxv

• “Greener” by Vin Nardizzi: 147-169

• Onward, “After Green Ecologies: Prismatic Visions” by Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann: 328-336

An Ecotopian Lexicon. Eds. M. Schneider-Mayerson & BR. Bellamy (2019)

• Forward by Kim Stanley Robinson: xi-xiv

• Introduction by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson and Brent Ryan Bellamy: 1-14

• Visit the Portfolio & Artist Statements exhibition (between pages 152-153) & read corresponding word entries in the lexicon

Primary Readings: Early Modern Experiments in Eco-Philology

John Baret, An Alveary or Triple Dictionary, in English, Latin, and French (1580)

• Title Page; “To the Reader”; Prefatory poems

John Thorie, The Theatre of the Earth (1599)

• Title page; “What is performed in this Booke”

Roger Williams, A key into the language of America, or, An help to the language of the natives in that part of America called New-England (1643)

• Title page; “To my dear…”

• “Directions for the use of the Language”

• “Helpe to the native Language of that part of America called New England” & “Observations” that follow

Critical Reading

Mel Y. Chen, “Language and Mattering Humans” in Animacies: Biopolitical, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect (2012): 23-55.

DUE: Online Forum “ECO-PHILOLOGY,” Monday at Noon (See Moodle for prompt)

WEEK 7

ICE

Primary Readings

Shakespeare Sonnets: 2, 6, 18, 33, 73

& SHORT SELECTIONS FROM:

George Best, A true discourse of the last voyages of discouerie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northvveast, vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher (1584)

John Davis, The Worldes Hydrographical Discription [sic] (1595)

Thomas Ellis, A True Report (1578)

Critical Readings

Robert Markley, “Summer’s Lease: Shakespeare in the Little Ice Age” in Early Modern Ecostudies: From the Florentine Codex to Shakespeare. Eds. T. Hallock et al. (2008): 131-142.

Frances Dolan, “Biodynamic Viticulture, Natural Wine, and the Premodern” in Premodern Ecologies in the Modern Literary Imagination. Eds. V. Nardizzi and TJ. Werth (2019): 121-149.

Lowell Duckert, “Shivering, Wet” and “Going Glacial” in For All Waters: Finding Ourselves in Early Modern Wetscapes (2017): xi-xxvi, 97-149.

_____, “Speaking as the North” blog in The Sundial.

Christopher Heuer. “Introduction” and “Savage Episteme” in Into the White: The Renaissance Arctic and the End of Image (2019): 9-25, 81-120.

Suggested: Watch Ice on Fire (HBO) Documentary; and visit https://icebergfinder.com/

Week 8

SEA

Primary Readings

Myth: Ovid, Metamorphoses, Story of Ceyx’s shipwreck (Book 11)

Poetry: John Donne, “The Calm” & “The Storm”

Andrew Marvell, “Bermudas”

Narrative: your choice of any one ‘travel narrative’ Mentz discusses in Chapter 3. “Isle of Tempests”

Critical Readings

Stacy Alaimo, “Unmoor” in Veer Ecology. Eds. JJ. Cohen and L. Duckert (2017): 407-420.

Steve Mentz, Shipwreck Modernity: Ecologies of Globalization, 1550-1719 (2015)

• Two Prefaces “Theoretical Preface, Narrative Preface”: ix-xxxiv

• Chapter 3 “Isle of Tempests”: 51-76

• Chapter 6 “Sea of Poetry and Maritime Crisis”: 131-159

• Three Short Epilogues: 177-181

Naomi Klein, “Let Them Drown: The Violence of Othering in a Warming World” in London Review of Books, Jun. 2, 2016. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n11/naomi-klein/let-them-drown

Week 9

Wetlands

Primary Readings

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book1 (339-54); “Iphis and Ianthe” in Book 9; “Acis and Galatea” in Book 13.

John Lyly, Galatea (1588). Revels Edition.

Critical Readings

Patricia Badir, “Coastal Squeeze: Environmental Metamorphosis and Lily’s Linconshire” in Ovidian Transversions (2019): 191-212.

Michael Johnson, “The Coastal Squeeze: Changing Tactics for Dealing with Climate Change.” Greater Atlantic Region, Habitat Conservation Division in NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (June 2019). https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/coastal-squeeze-changing-tactics-dealing-climate-change

Hillary Eklund, “Wetlands Reclamation and the Face of the Local in 17th Century England” in Ground-Work (2017): 149-170.

Optional (for Drama Lovers)

Richard Brome, Sparagus Garden

Week 10

American Environment

Note: This is a heavy reading week. Your goal is to work your way through this broad cross-disciplinary range of materials focused in various ways on settler colonialism. As you read, pluck primary materials you may wish to return to in your projects. Consider: how do various disciplines constitute their research subject(s) & what methodologies — implicit or explicit — are valued"?

Critical Readings

Janet Tamalik McGrath, “Sila” in Ecotopian Lexicon. Eds. M. Schneider-Mayerson and BR. Bellamy (2019): 256-265.

McGrath holds a PhD in Canadian Studies and Political Economy & grew up between Inuit traditional and modern influences in the 1970s Canadian Arctic.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, “ Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol. 3, no. 3 (2014): 1-25.

Simpson is a writer, activist, and faculty member inFaculty of Arts at Ryerson University (Toronto) & member of Alderville First Nation, Ontario, Canada.

Peter C. Mancall, Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic (2018).

Mancall is a historian and anthropologist of the early modern Atlantic.

Susan Scott Parrish, “The British Metropolis and its ‘America’” in American Curiosity: Cultures of Natural History in the Colonial British Atlantic World (2006): 24-76.

Parrish is an early Americanist and professor of literature.

Strother E. Roberts, “Hunting Beaver: The Postdiluvian World of the Fur Trade” in Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy: Transforming Nature in Early New England (2019): 21-57.

Roberts is a historian of the environment and economy of early modern North America.

WEEK 11

WOOD (OR, “NATURE”-AS-RESOURCE)

Primary Readings (Whirl back to where we began)

Ovid, Metamorphoses, “Daphne and Apollo” (Book 1)

Gerard’s Herball (refresh your memory)

Critical Readings

Vin Nardizzi, “Shakespeare’s Globe and England’s Woods.” Shakespeare Studies, vol. 39 (2011): 54-63.

_____, “Epilogue: The Afterlives of the Globe” in Wooden Os: Shakespeare’s Theaters and England’s Trees (2013): 136-138.

_____, “Wooden Slavery.” Editor’s Column PMLA, vol. 126, no. 2 (March 2011): 313-315.

_____, “Daphne Described: Ovidian Poetry and Speculative Natural History in Gerard’s Herball.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 98, no. 1-2 (2019): 137-156.

Vin Nardizzi and Tiffany Jo Werth, Introduction, “Oecologies: Engaging the World, From Here” in Premodern Ecologies in the Modern Literary Imagination. Eds. V. Nardizzi and TJ. Werth (2019): 3-24.

DUE: 3 co-authored seminar questions for Prof. Vin Nardizzi , Friday, April 10 by Noon

Upload in ‘Forum’: Nardizzi (Moodle)

Sunday: Vin will respond with a short reading drawn from his current work in progress.

Distributed on Moodle Sunday, read carefully for Tuesday.

Our Goals:

• to collaborate with Vin: generate a triangulated conversation next Tuesday not between ourselves, our readings, and Vin Nardizzi. Rather, together with us, Vin will puzzle through what answers lie in his new work that implicitly respond to questions that arose for us our of his previous work.

• to treat Vin’s new work as another ‘voice in the room.’ Your goal is to activate that voice to venture generous speculations and provisional answers to our collective questions.

• to welcome Vin warmly as the author not the authority.

Week 12

Welcome Vin Nardizzi

Ursula K. Heise, Afterward. “Environmentalism, Eco-Cosmopolitanism, and Premodern Thought” in Premodern Ecologies in the Modern Literary Imagination. Eds. V. Nardizzi and TJ. Werth (2019): 282-288.

_____, “From the Blue Planet to Google Earth” in Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global (2008): 50-63.

Week 13

Paradise/Wounded Earth

Primary Readings

John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book 1, Book 4, Book 5, and Book 9)

King James Bible, “Genesis,” 1-3

Critical Readings

EcoFeminist Approaches to Early Modernity. Eds. J. Munroe and R. Laroche (2011)

• Lynne D. Bruckner, “N/nature and the Difference ‘She’ Makes”: 15-35

• Jennifer Munroe, “First Mother of Science: Milton’s Eve, Knowledge, and Nature”: 37-54

• Wendy Furman-Adams and Virginia J. Tufte, “Ecofeminist Eve: Artists Reading Milton’s Heroine”: 55-83

Timothy Morton, “Introduction: Critical Thinking” and “Thinking Big” in The Ecological Thought (2010): 1-19, 20-58.

Listen: “Monsters, Marvels, and the Birth of Science” (an interview with Lorraine Daston)

Week 14

RuiN

Welcome Melissa Hudasko

Primary Readings

The Ruin (Old English Elegy) published during the 10th century. Please read this translation: https://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sechard/oeruin.htm. Melissa Hudasko will walk us through its particularities when she visits.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, “Deucalion and Pyrrha” (Book 1) and other stony metamorphoses of your choice

Secondary Readings

Heide Estes, “Ruined Landscapes” in Anglo Saxon Literary Landscapes (2017): 61-87.

Jon Beasley-Murray, “Vilcashuamán: Telling Stories in Ruin” in The Ruins of Modernity. Eds. Hell and Schönle (2010): 212-231.

J.J. Cohen, “Time: The Insistence of Stone” in Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman (2015): 75-126.

Andrew Hui, The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature (2016) - short selections

Ruin Porn “What ‘ruin porn’ tells us about ruins - and porn”:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/what-ruin-porn-tells-us-about-ruins-and-porn/index.html

Detroit as Ruin:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/08/16/detroit-ruin-porn/979984002/