ATS2427 - Earthworks: Literature and environment - 2017

6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Arts

Organisational Unit

Literary Studies

Coordinator(s)

TBA

Not offered in 2017

Synopsis

This unit will introduce students to the new field of ecologically oriented literary and cultural studies, or 'ecocriticism'. It will critically examine various cultural constructions of 'nature' and 'the body' in a range of texts exemplifying different discourses of nature (e.g. mythological, philosophical, scientific) and literary genres (e.g. drama, narrative, poetry) from a range of different geographical and historical contexts. In addition, consideration will be given to the development of a number of distinct approaches within the field of current environmental literary and cultural studies.

Outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will have:

  1. Developed an understanding of some of the implications of ecological thinking with regard to literary and cultural studies;
  2. Enhanced their ability to recognise and discuss critically the cultural assumptions about 'nature' and 'the body' informing a variety of significant (religious, philosophical and creative) texts in different genres from a range of geographical and historical contexts;
  3. Familiarised themselves with a number of distinct theoretical approaches within ecocritical literary and cultural studies and learnt to apply at least one of these;
  4. Continued the development of their skills in the areas of research, textual analysis and interpretation in the field of environmental literary and cultural studies;
  5. Demonstrated their ability to apply ecocritical perspectives to the analysis and interpretation of one or more texts in the form of a logically ordered written argument.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

TBA

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Prerequisites

Twelve credit points of first-year Arts units.