Environmental Ethics in Literary Culture
Code: 45367 ECTS Credits: 5| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| English Studies: Linguistic, Literary and Sociocultural Perspectives | OP | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- David Owen
- Email:
- david.owen@uab.cat
Teachers
- David Owen
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
-Predisposition and interest in reading literary texts in English
-Knowledge and previous readings of literature in English
Objectives and Contextualisation
How do we define the relation between human and nonhuman beings? What is our ethical responsibility towards nonhuman as well as human others? These questions might seem especially timely in our world today, but they have been posed in literary culture for centuries.
The texts chosen in this subject will invite students to consider the environment not just as a "natural" space but also as a complex field where human and nonhuman interact. The subject offers a range of ecocritical approaches to the literary culture of the anglophone world, through the poetry of British Romanticism and through a close reading of selected short stories by one of the most significant C19 British writer, Thomas Hardy, renowned for his tracing of the decline of the rural world in the wake of creeping industrialisation.
On completion of this subject, students will be able to demonstrate a good understanding of literary texts in English and of the ethical and environmental questions that emerge from them; to generate literary criticism through weekly commentaries and two essays; and to use bibliographical resources related to the material studied.
Learning Outcomes
- CA16 (Competence) Formulate research proposals that demonstrate how literary texts can be used as creative elements to tackle social and ecological challenges.
- CA17 (Competence) Independently develop academic and professional proposals that apply the most suitable and innovative approaches to the study of eco-criticism in English literature.
- KA17 (Knowledge) Define the relationship between the human and the non-human, as well as the ethical issues involved in this relationship, as represented in literary texts.
- KA18 (Knowledge) Identify the various eco-critical and ethical approaches to English literature.
- SA23 (Skill) Apply ecocriticism to the analysis and interpretation of literary texts of different genres.
- SA24 (Skill) Analyse the relationship between the human and the non-human based on various literary proposals.
- SA25 (Skill) Demonstrate how the environment is related to the intersection between class, ethnicity, gender, and national origin in the formation of social identities based on an eco-critical and ethical approach
- SA26 (Skill) Write creative and critical texts based on a cultural exploration of the relationship between the human and the non-human.
Content
PART 1: Ecopoetics in British Romantic Literature
The Poetry of Blake, Wordsworth & Coleridge
1. Technology versus Trees: The Conflict between The Enlightenment and Romanticism
2. Britain on the Cusp of Industrialisation & the Rise of Romanticism
3. William Blake and the Rejection of the Modern World
4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mystical Nature
5. William Wordsworth and Nature Sublime
PART 2: Ecopoetics in the C19 British Novel
The Short Stories of Thomas Hardy
6. From Fields to Factories: The Vanishing Rural World
7. Ecology and the Supernatural: Nature’s Moral Residue
8. Haunted by the Land: Memory, Myth, and Place
9. Love, Loss, and Rootedness: Emotional Ecology
10. Hardy and the Afterlife of Romanticism
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Attendance, Participation | 30 | 1.2 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Oral Commentaries, Tutorials | 5 | 0.2 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading and Studying | 55 | 2.2 |
This subject is based on the exchange of ideas between the teachers and students, as well as among the students themselves. This will necessitate a high level of preparation and active participation from everyone. Additionally, students will be expected to submit written commentaries in advance of each class and to defend and debate their ideas during class (oral commentaries).
In addition to mandatory attendance, it is assumed that students have thoroughly read both the primary and secondary materials. This course primarily focuses on literary culture, but it also requires a commitment to developing a theoretical and philosophical understanding of environmental ethics.
All information regarding primary and secondary readings will be published on the Virtual Campus.
Note: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commentaries | 20 | 5 | 0.2 | CA16, CA17, KA17, KA18, SA23, SA24, SA25, SA26 |
| Essay 1 | 40 | 15 | 0.6 | CA16, CA17, KA17, KA18, SA23, SA24, SA25, SA26 |
| Essay 2 | 40 | 15 | 0.6 | CA16, CA17, KA17, KA18, SA23, SA24, SA25, SA26 |
1) CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT
CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT IS BASED ON:
- Written and Oral Commentaries: students will be expected to submit a written commentary in advance of each session and to defend their ideas in class = 20%
- Essay 1: students will choose one (or two) of their commentaries from the first five sessions to develop into a critical essay=40%
- Essay 2: students will choose one (or two) of their commentaries from the final five sessions to develop into a critical essay=40%
PLEASE, NOTE:
- All the exercises are COMPULSORY
- The submission of any of the exercises invalidates the student to get a “Not assessed/Not submitted” course grade
- On carrying out each assessment activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
2) SINGLE ASSESSMENT
THE PROCEDURE FOR SINGLE ASSESSMENT IS BASED ON:
- 3 Evaluated items to be done in a single in-class exam:
- Item 1: Integrating critical sources into a literary commentary (30%)
- Item 2: Writing a critical essay (45%)
- Item 3: Oral Presentation (25%)
REASSESSMENT:
- Re-assessment for this subject requires a content-synthesis test for each module component.
- Component 3 is not eligible for re-assessment.
- The definitive grade awarded for a re-assessed item will be 5.
VERY IMPORTANT: Students must learn to respect the intellectual property of others, identifying any source they may use, and take responsibility for the originality and authenticity of the texts they produce.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Irregularities refer, for instance, to copying in an exam, copying from sources without indicating authorship, or a misuse of AI such as presenting work as original that has been generated by an AI tool or programme. These evaluation activities will not be re-assessed.
Important note for exchange students (Erasmus, etc.) on exams and other tests
Erasmus students who request to bring forward an exam or any other type of assessment activity must present the teacher with an official document from their home university justifying their request.
Use of AI
This subject allows the use of AI technologies exclusively for support tasks such as bibliographic or content-based searches, text correction, etc.
The student must clearly (i) identify which parts have been generated using AI technology; (ii) specify the tools used; and (iii) include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and final outcome of the activity.
Lack of transparency regarding the use of AI in the assessed activity will be considered academic dishonesty; the corresponding grade may be lowered, or the work may even be awarded a zero.
In cases of greater infringement, more serious action may be taken.
Bibliography
Required Primary Reading:
William Blake, selected poetry
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, selected poetry
William Wordsworth, selected poetry
Hardy, Thomas, Wessex Tales. Ed. King, Kathryn R. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2009) [1888] (Recommended edition)
———————, Life's Little Ironies. Ed. Manford, Alan and Norman Page. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2024) [1894] (Recommended edition)
Please note: a PDF will be provided for all the poetry studied in the course, and Hardy's short stories are widely available online (Gutenberg, etc.). However, particularly for Hardy, a reliable edition with notes and introductory comment is particularly recommended.
Secondary/Theoretical Reading:
Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press, 2010.
Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by James T. Boulton. Routledge, 1958.
Clark, Timothy. The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DeLoughrey, Elizabeth and George B. Handley, editors. Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment. Oxford University Press, 2011.
Derrida, Jacques. The Animal That Therefore I Am. Edited by Marie-Louise Mallet ; Translated by David Wills. Fordham University Press, 2008.
Edwards, Justin D.,et al., editors. Dark Scenes from Damaged Earth: The Gothic Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press, 2022.
Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, editors. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. University of Georgia Press,1996.
Hutchings, Kevin. “Ecocriticism in British Romantic Studies”. Literature Compass 4 (2007), 172-202.
Iovino, Serenella, and Serpil Oppermann, editors. Material Ecocriticism. Indiana University Press, 2014.
Morton, Timothy. Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence. Columbia University Press, 2016.
Morton, Timothy. “Here Comes Everything: The Promise of Object-Oriented Ontology”. Qui Parle, 19.2 (2011), 163-190.
Parham, John and Louise Westling, editors. A Global History of Literature and the Environment. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Soper, Kate. “The Idea of Nature.” The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism, edited by Laurence Coupe. Routledge, 2000.
Weinstein, Josh A. “Humility, from the Ground Up: A Radical Approach to Literature and Ecology.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 22.4 (2015), 759–77.
Software
N/A
Groups and Languages
Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (TEm) Theory (master) | 1 | English | second semester | morning-mixed |