Literature and Film in the Era of Environmentalism

Professor Stephanie LeMenager

2-3:15pm T-R

Girvetz 1116

This course approaches environmentalism as an aspect of culture and imagination as well as a political movement. Our archive for the course includes novels, films, memoirs, and our everyday lives. I date contemporary environmentalism to nuclear-fallout anxieties of the 1950s, although the course does not follow a chronological trajectory. We will watch two feature-length films that ignite environmental concerns. The aims of the course are to: 1) familiarize you with twentieth and twenty-first century environmental media, namely films and literature; 2) assist you in effectively analyzing this media as art, rhetoric, and political discourse; 3) encourage you to engage creatively with the world around you, to write or tell your own environmental stories. I ask for strong participation from students as co-authors not only of this class but also of the meaning of environmentalism as a philosophy, ethical practice, and creative endeavor.

The course project is the central assignment of the quarter, requires teamwork as well as independent research, and will culminate in a presentation to the class along with individual (6-8 pp.) papers written by team members. See course project hand-out for specific details.

You are required to take a tour of UCSB’s Coal Oil Point Reserve http://coaloilpoint.ucnrs.org/ sometime this quarter. Scheduled tour dates/times are listed on the above website. I also arrange a group tour for our class on one Saturday of the quarter, TBA. The field-trip lasts approximately three hours. To receive credit, you will write a one-page analysis of the reserve tour as a performance, taking into account the “scripts” used to describe the reserve, how views were crafted by the tour guide, and what may have been deliberately left out of the tour experience.

The take-home midterm offers an opportunity to respond to course readings, lecture, and discussion. You will be asked to identify and analyze passages from texts we have read and reflect on terminology we’ve used in the course. The exam should take approximately one course period (1 hour and 15 minutes) to complete. Due 11/6.

9/27 Introduction

10/2

Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

Bill McKibben, “The End of Nature” (1989) in READER

Naomi Oreskes, “The Truth about Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong?” (2007)
10/11

Student Moderated Discussion of The Island President (Dir. Jon Shenk, 2012)

Every student brings a question about the film to share with the class
CONSERVATION AND PRESERVATION

10/16 Edward Abbey, “Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks” (1968) in READER

Excerpts from The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (dir. Ken Burns, 2009)
10/23 E.O. Wilson, “Berhardsdorp,” “The Bird of Paradise,” “The Right Place,” “The Conservation Ethic” in Biophilia (1984)
10/25 Continue focal chapters in Biophilia

Peter H. Kahn, “Children’s Affiliations with Nature: Structure, Development, and the Problem of Environmental Generational Amnesia” (2002) in READER

10/30 Conservation/Preservation Project
ANIMAL –HUMAN RELATIONS

11/1 Gail F. Melson, “Reaching Across the Divide” and “Learning from Animals” (2005) in READER

Begin In-Class Viewing of Project Nim (dir. James Marsh, 2011)

“Hamburger,” “French Fries,” “Cola,” from Stuff (1997)

1. 
   Conservation/Preservation Project. Your team will consider local coastal conservation and preservation efforts in Santa Barbara and/or Ventura counties. Some team members may want to offer an historical narrative of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969, or the development of Channel Islands National Park, while others might discuss specific conservation and preservation projects underway at UCSB (such as the Coal Oil Point Reserve) or local activism by groups like SurfRider. Your paper may include personal reflection on your participation in coastal activities such as surfing, kayaking, bird-watching, sunbathing, bonfire parties, Floatopia, and swimming. You may also speak to damage/pollution you personally have noticed or created. Team presentation due 10/30. Papers due within five days after presentation.
   

2. 
   Animal-Human Relations Project. Your team might approach local area animal shelters, veterinarians, animal trainers, pet boutiques, science labs, farms, or zoos to gain a better sense of how we culturally produce and consume animals—or, in a more positive light, how we develop familial and companionate bonds with them. Your research might consist primarily of interviews, or description of observation (eg. you do a “reading” of the local zoo). Alternately, you may choose a topic that can be researched in the library—for example, how the animal rights movement developed in the US. Your essay may also include personal reflections upon your own or your friends’ relationships with animals. Team presentation and papers due 11/13. Papers due within five days after presentation.
   

3. 
   Garbage Project. Your team will look at garbage, from multiple perspectives. Topics include tracing the life of garbage at it moves from various UCSB units (dorms, classroom buildings, etc.) to its final destination, tracing recycled materials as they leave UCSB to discover where they end up, conceiving more efficient or sustainable treatments for UCSB garbage, investigating how students or building maintenance workers or faculty members think and feel about their garbage, and looking at why garbage has been a favorite subject of art, in poems like Walt Whitman’s “This Compost,” films such as Wall-E, and photography by contemporary environmental photographers such as Edward Burtynsky. You might also want to visit the local landfill, interview garbage pickers in Isla Vista, or research alternative “green” waste systems. Team presentation and papers due 11/29. Papers due within five days after presentation.
   

4. 
   Local Food Project. Your team’s project will be to raise awareness about local food options—or lack thereof—in and around UCSB while considering food as a crucial link between nature and culture. Team members might interview area markets or restaurants that use local food providers or look into UCSB’s efforts to bring local food into campus foodservice. You could do a story on one community garden or local food producer, such as Fairview Gardens in Goleta; you might write a brief narrative history of the Slow Food movement and interview some Slow Food practitioners in Santa Barbara—or host a Slow Food dinner and reflect upon that experience. You might practice locavorism, or look into “local” food arts movements, such as Fallen Fruit. In all cases, consider how food contributes to ordinary people’s understanding of their place in non-human systems and a particular human culture. This team presentation will correspond with a party where class members are invited to bring in recipes (and dishes) made with local foods. Team presentation due 12/6. Papers due within five days afterwards.
   

The first meeting of your research team will include a dividing of research tasks among team members, some of whom will do on-the-ground research such as interviews with local people and others who will visit our campus libraries to conduct more traditional research. Web research may also be necessary. I will share with you my knowledge about useful sources in a handout I give to each group. UCSB’s research librarian for Environmental Studies and local, California issues is Janet Martorana. You may contact her via email to set up an appointment at: martoran@library.ucsb.edu. The following web guides for conducting interviews may be useful. Be sure to ask permission to take notes or record any interview!!

Websites on effective and ethical interviewing:

http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/tip11.html

http://www.nt.armstrong.edu/effective-interviews.htm

Your 6-8 page essay should address an aspect of your project that particularly engrosses you, as an individual—but also an aspect that you would like to share with a larger public. In other words, this isn’t a project about yourself in an introspective sense, but rather about what interests you as a citizen of a larger community. We will not attempt to publish these papers, but consider them as if they were to be published for UCSB’s undergraduate community. Here is a rough guide for how to begin: First, pick a theme or problem within the team project that excites you. Second, do the research necessary to speak in an informed manner about that topic. You should use at minimum THREE sources for your research: sources may include interviews, academic or journalistic writings, and respected Internet sources (ask if doubtful!!). Use the MLA Style Guide for Research Papers to cite your sources appropriately. Include a Works Cited page with your paper. Once you have done your research, develop a statement of argument or “angle” on the research—also known as a thesis statement!—and carefully organize a set of points to back it up and develop it. Finally, don’t be afraid to use the word “I” in this essay and to allow your feelings about what you have researched into the argument. Your essay should recount an aspect of environmental history or a current environmental problem accurately but with the added intention of moving your reader. This means that direct appeals to the emotions and senses, through statements of feeling or descriptions that evoke a sense of “being there,” are encouraged. This is a research paper PLUS your point-of-view, your creative edge, your passion.

Presentations should draw from team members’ collective research to create the most comprehensive treatment of the project theme that can be communicated to the class in an entertaining 60-minute presentation. Your goal is to inform and to excite emotions and sensations. The team should elect different members to speak in class and to collaborate on visual aids such as posters, PowerPoint slides, or photo-essays. Elect an official time-keeper to be sure you’re on track as you perform the presentations.