Ecological discourse is first and foremost a crisis discourse, a discourse that seeks to address the question of human domination of nature and its consequences. The crisis, insofar as it is man-made, is cultural and, as such, ultimately a crisis in humanistic discourse. This course is structured around four main areas of interest: a) roots of our ecological crisis; b)environmental ethics, including such representative ecological positions as deep ecology, ecofeminism, environmental justice and social ecology; c) a sampling of nature writing, selected works from Dickinson, Leopold, Snyder, Berry and Dillard, etc.; d)concept of nature, a puzzling but crucial key word. These four areas are not separate, isolated islands, but a connected and unified continent.
A term paper, approximately 10 pages long, is due at the end of the semester. Students are encouraged to work on a project of their own. The project may be an investigation into an English or a Chinese text of an ecological nature.