EWP 311 Urban Environmental Literature

“There is a growing body of cultural criticism engaged with urban ecology that tends to reject mainstream ecocriticism’s focus on the genres of nature writing and pastoral, insisting on the incapacity of those genres to represent the complex interactions between political choices, socio-economic structures, and the densely-populated ecosystems that shape urban environments.” 
 Michael Bennett, Long Island University, Brooklyn

“Urban ecocriticism confronts us directly with the interconnections between environmental degradation and issues of race, class, and gender.” 
 Karla Armbruster, Webster University

“Sixty percent of all Indians live in urban areas but nobody’s writing about them.” 
Sherman Alexie

Cities were once thought to be apart from, separate from nature. Historically, the city was seen as a sanctuary from evil wilderness. More recently, urban sprawl has been constructed as a threat to nature. Recent trends in ecocriticism demand that we include urban areas as part of the total environment. The city is the place where the ecological crisis becomes evident -- and the study of environmental literature can no longer ignore this. Urban areas in the United States occupy 3.5 percent of the country but hold 75 percent of the population. They are 27 percent tree-covered. Urban forestry is the fastest segment of forestry growing nationwide.

Urban nature does exist, whether poets write about it or not. The city is the place where the borders between nature and culture fluctuate constantly. Urban literature often includes a critique of the social, political, and economic factors that threaten the health of our planet -- and as such, ought to be considered part of the canon of environmental literature.

In this course, we will look at:

1) Urban nature writing. Poets and essayists write about the flora and fauna of an urban ecosystem, the wildness that grows in gardens, parks, and backyards, the effects of wildlife and weather, the trees and birds, the cut flowers and the baking bread, and the various ways city dwellers connect to nature. We will analyze the ways in which the canon of nature literature has privileged rare and endangered species over the more abundant urban creatures and plants: cockroaches, pigeons, dandelions, maples. We will examine the relationship between literature and the physical environment, the ways in which humans interact with and write about the cityscape, and the attachment to place that roots city dwellers. A special focus in this section will be on writings about city parks, natural places which are also cultural products that reflect the ideologies of those who create them. For many writers, urban parks challenge the polarity of culture vs. nature.

2) Urban ecocriticism exposes the interconnections between environmental degradation and issues of race, class, and gender. Inner cities have often been constructed as racially demarcated urban wilderness areas. Such movements as ecofeminism and the environmental justice movement examine the ways in which the ecological crisis can be linked to other forms of domination. We will look at literature which makes these links and argues for change.

3) Environmental literature must ultimately address questions about the future: urban planning, the role of technology, and ways in which humans in urban areas can live in a community of plants and creatures. We will look at literature that regards the city as an ecosystem that includes hydrological systems, predator-prey relationships, and energy transfers. We will look at urban literature from an environmental perspective and see if we can find the ecological component that is often missing from a cultural analysis of the city.