Literary Histories (200-0-20)
Topic
The Matter and Metaphor of Energy
Instructors
Govind Ponnuchamy
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-425: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
What are the politics of driving a car? What social choices do we make when we charge our phones? Are there philosophical and historical undertones to productivity vlogs on youtube? Even as these day-to-day acts of consumption might seem unrelated to each other, they are all connected by one critical concept: Energy. This course explores the social, political, and literary valences of energy to unearth the term's numerous and vastly divergent meanings. Over the quarter, we'll read texts ranging from Victorian novels to present day science fiction, tracking different understandings of energy that blur the line between scientific and imaginative ways of thinking. In our class discussions we'll enquire how literary authors use energy as a metaphor to name a variety of social dynamics like race, gender, class, empire, nature, and god. Reading literary texts alongside a social history of science, we'll use short writing tasks and class presentations to ask: how does the science of energy make its way through literature into our imaginations about the world? We will spend time with literary artefacts and study them with the premise that energy is both a force materially vital to life on earth and a vast imaginative resource for the worlds and societies we seek to build. Through a grading contract that rewards your labor and treats your energies as inherently valuable, we will focus on writing process, time management, and improvement over the course of the quarter.
Evaluation Method
Short Writing, Reflection, Creative Projects Designed by students, In-class Presentation.
Class Attributes
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area