ENGL 2076 - Climate Fiction: Introduction to Literary Studies

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture 3
Course Description: This college literature course intended for all students focuses on the analysis and exploration of climate fiction, also known as Cli-Fi. This genre includes both realistic present-day fiction and speculative fiction about humans’ impact on climate and environment and climate’s impact on humans, in other words life in the Anthropocene, the epoch characterized by the impact of human activities on the earth. Realistic, dystopian, and visionary elements will be explored. Authors may include Margaret Atwood, Paulo Bacigalupi, Octavia Butler, Amitav Ghosh, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Karen Russell.
MnTC Goals
Goal 6: The Humanities and Fine Arts

Goal 10: People and the Environment

Prerequisite(s): Course placement into college-level English and Reading OR completion of ENGL 0950 with a grade of C or higher OR completion of RDNG 0940 with a grade of C or higher and qualifying English Placement Exam OR completion of RDNG 0950 with a grade of C or higher and ENGL 0090 with a grade of C or higher OR completion of ESOL 0051 with a grade of C or higher and ESOL 0052 with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: ENGL 1020  with a grade of C or higher OR ENGL 1021 with a grade of C or higher.

Major Content

1. Characteristics of climate fiction genre: novel and short story forms, realism, science fiction, magical realism, dystopia, speculation
2. Applicable literary critical approaches to climate fiction, particularly eco-criticism and tropes therein
3. Social, political, cultural values in the Anthropocene
4. Environmental conditions in the Anthropocene
5. Adaptations to changes in interrelationships of bio-cultural and social-cultural systems as expressed in climate fiction
6. Using secondary sources

1. identify major critical frameworks to analyze climate fiction at an introductory level.
2. employ major critical frameworks to analyze climate fiction at an introductory level.
3. perform close analysis of climate fiction at an introductory level.
4. describe the scope and variety of works in climate fiction as expressions of individual and human values within a historical and social context. 
5. incorporate and document secondary sources at an introductory level. 
6. articulate informed, critical personal reactions to climate fiction.
7. analyze cause-effect relationships or patterns between human institutions and natural ecosystems and non-human animals.

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