This course explores literature as a response to scientific and technological change. It considers the ways that new scientific discoveries inspire new visions in literature and the ways, in turn, that imaginative writing inspires new approaches in science. It features literary works that contextualize past scientific and technological advances, interpret and critique changes happening in the present, and imagine the changes that might occur in the future.
| Distribution Area | Prerequisites | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities | 1 course |
Fall Semester information
Joseph Heithaus191A: Lit:Science,Nature&Tech
We live in a time that has been called the ¿anthropocene¿ or the ¿sixth extinction,¿ given the rapid decline and disappearance of living species at a time when the human species has passed 8 billion (at least 8 times more than a population that remained relatively stable for centuries, if not millennia). On the human side, only in the past 100 years, humans have experienced holocausts, mass migrations, pandemics, and the extinctions of many cultures and languages. Our class will explore films, fictions, non-fictions, and poetry that address such extinctions in the living world. Some of the writers we¿ll encounter: Margaret Atwood, Anthony Doerr, Camille Dungy, Witi Ihemaera, NoViolet Bulawayo, Hannah Arrendt, David Wojahn, Angela Pelster, David Quammen, and others.