Post-Colonial Ecologies

This course will examine the emergent conversations and mutual blindspots between postcolonial studies and ecocriticism. How does contemporary concern about planetary ecological crisis intersect with postcolonial studies’ interest in political, economic, social and epistemological inequality on a global scale?  We will consider how the emerging subfield of postcolonial ecocriticism is reading transnational histories of social and ecological injustice back into nature-focused literary study.  We will also look back to earlier moments and alternative geneaologies in considering the question of nature in colonialism, liberation theory, mid-20th century decolonization, and contemporary neoliberal globalization.  What is the role of literature (imagined most broadly) and the discipline of literary studies in the face of global environmental crisis? (And what are the rhetorical stakes of crisis talk…?)