Seminar for Majors (301-3-20)
Instructors
Robert Orsi
847 4675175
Crowe Hall, 1860 Campus Drive, 4-141
Meeting Info
Kresge 5531 Comp Lit. Sem. Rm.: Tues 3:00PM - 5:50PM
Overview of class
Imagining the end of the world is an ancient human enterprise, at once political, psychological, and religious. But in the last decade it has become a strategic imperative. Amid converging political and climate crises, humans everywhere are compelled to reconsider how they will live in an apocalypse that is already now. The course begins with Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement and ends with Camus' The Plague. In between, we will consider the things humans are doing—and the stories they are telling, to themselves and each other—in the U.S. today and around the world. Readings to include Lisa Wells, Believers: Making A Life at the End of the World; Richard Lloyd Parry, Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone; Kate Brown, A Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future; selections from Estes and Dhillon, eds., Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NODAPL Movement; Barbara F. Walters, How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them;
Learning Objectives
Students in this class will have the opportunity to read and discuss a variety of reports on life in the end times, with a view to shaping projects of their own, not to undertake during the quarter, but looking ahead towards the thesis they will be asked to write in their senior year as American Studies majors. This is not to say that they will all work on a topic related to this class, but they will have the chance to 1) practice coming up with research topics; 2) prepare prospectuses; and 3) strategize research methods and approaches. As they deepen their understanding of our present global moment, they will be invited 4) to pay attention to the ways that climate catastrophe affects them, emotionally and intellectually, as young people alive now, practicing a kind of autoethnography.
We will 5) consider the kind of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual challenge the climate crisis is, 6) how others are responding to it, and 7) how students might want to engage it as a topic themselves. We will 8) examine how different genres of cultural production attempt to address the crisis. Students will also get further practice in seminar discussions.
Class Materials (Required)
Camus, Albert, The Plague (ISBN-13 978-0679720218)
Estes, Nick and Jaskiran Dhillon, (eds.) Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NODAPL Movement (ISBN-13
Ghosh, Amitav, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
(ISBN-13 978-0226526812)
Hochschild, Arlie Russell, Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning On the American Right, A Journey to the Heart of Our Political Divide (ISBN-13 978-1620973493)
Sherrell, Daniel, Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (ISBN-13 978-014313653-8)
Wells, Lisa, Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World (ISBN-13 978-1250849380)
Class Attributes
Department Majors Only
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration -- Reserved for American Studies Majors until the end of preregistration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone.