WR-593 Ecopoetics

3 Credits

Human language use is an inherently ecological practice in that it participates in forming the way we think, write, and act in regards to the world we share with other living things. As such, language can be used as a force for imagining and establishing new ways of living together, but it must also be scrutinized for the ways in which our past and presents linguistic concepts and strategies have contributed to a history of unsustainable attitudes and practices. In this course, we will read across a broad spectrum of poetry, philosophy, and history-as well as looking at a number of works in other media (film, video, image, and earthworks)-in order to contextualize contemporary ecolinguistic practices. We will also write: in the spirit of experiment and serious play, our poems and essays will test some of the ideas, concepts and orientations we discover along the way.