Duration
30h Th
Number of credits
Lecturer
Coordinator
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
"Climate Change and the Literary Imagination"
In his essay about "climate change and the unthinkable", entitled The Great Derangement (2016; University of Chicago Press), the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh argues that contemporary artists - just like politicians - have revealed a deep-lying inability to grasp the scale and the likely consequences of global warming, so that the theme tends to be underrepresented in high-brow literary culture. Based upon Ghosh's insights, we shall try to fathom the formal characteristics of a few contemporary novels in English which do tackle the theme of climate change, whether or not they do so in the manner prescribed by the Indian author. We shall pay special attention to the following:
Barbara Kingsolver, Flight Behavior (2012; HarperCollins)
Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island (2019; John Murray)
Richard Flanagan, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams (2020; Chatto & Windus).
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
1. Enhance the students' capacity for textual analysis and interpretation.
2. Encourage the students to militate for a reduction of the consumption of the world's resources initiated by their parents and forebears.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
The course is taught in English.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Heuristic seminars.
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
By arrangement with the students, but probably Tuesdays 1-3 pm.
Recommended or required readings
See above.
Assessment methods and criteria
The students will be requested to write a personal essay, on a related topic of their choice, followed by an oral debriefing with the teacher.
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
The course is organized in the first term.
Contacts
Prof. Marc Delrez, marc.delrez@uliege.be