Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Spring 2025 - HUM 325 B100

The Humanities and the Natural World (4)

Themes for a Fragile World

Class Number: 4463

Delivery Method: Blended

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    Jan 6 – Apr 9, 2025: Tue, 2:30–5:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

    Jan 6 – Apr 9, 2025: TBA, TBA
    Burnaby

  • Exam Times + Location:

    Apr 23, 2025
    Wed, 3:30–6:30 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    45 units.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Study of the humanistic, scientific, political, and ideological discourses deriving from concerns with the natural environment. Uses classic and contemporary sources to examine the interaction of humans with the non-human world, and includes such topics as human communities and nature, the immersion of the individual in nature, animal worlds, nature and the human habitat. May be repeated for credit when a different topic is taught. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:


Humanities and the Natural World: Themes for a Fragile World

This course will introduce the environmental arts and humanities by exploring and assessing a broad range of values and cultural expressions of the human-nature relationship. We will examine contemporary and historical works of literary, visual, musical, performative, and media arts to see the role the expressive humanities have played and are playing today in shaping social-cultural attitudes toward nature and the human dilemma of depending on nature as source and sustenance.

Through readings, discussion, video viewing, class presentations, and written and creative work, students will gain exposure to artists and movements in the environmental arts and to pressing themes in environmental communication and expression. In addition to readings, students will choose an artist for in-depth analysis, and will apply course themes—such as animacy, pastoral, sublime, protest, and crisis/apocalypse—in the production of a creative work (which can be literary, visual, musical, theatrical, et al.) to be shared with the class.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

  1. Gain broad exposure to creative work and key themes and debates in the environmental arts and humanities, including environmentally themed literature, visual art, music, and film and media production.
  2. Demonstrate an understanding of common literary and artistic tropes depicting the relationship between people and the natural world.
  3. Demonstrate an ability to understand contemporary cultural practices through an ecocritical lens, employing conceptual and analytical tools found in such fields as environmental cultural and media studies, ecocritical literary studies, and environmental humanities writ large.
  4. Gain experience in personally and/or collectively engaging the creative process to produce a work of eco-art, literature, music, or media, to be shared with others in the class (and potentially in the SFU community).
  5. Show an ability to engage in contemporary debates on environmental ethics and politics.
  6. Gain proficiency in critical argumentation, research, and writing as appropriate to an upper-level Humanities course.

Grading

  • Attendance & participation (includes Canvas posts) 25%
  • Midterm exam (in-class) 20%
  • Artist profile & analysis 25%
  • Creative project (writing & multi-media) 30%

NOTES:

Office hours: Thursdays 11:30-12:30 at AQ 6197, or Zoom by appointment

This course fulfills the Global Humanities requirements for the  

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

All readings will be provided in Canvas. They will include poetry, literature, and nonfiction writing by Kalidasa, Li Po, Matsuo Basho, Walt Whitman, John Muir, Susan Griffin, Gloria Anzaldua, and Val Plumwood, as well as critical/theoretical writing by Carolyn Merchant, Linda Weintraub, and others. Students should expect an average of 30 to 40 pages of reading material, of varying difficulty, per week.

REQUIRED READING NOTES:

Your personalized Course Material list, including digital and physical textbooks, are available through the SFU Bookstore website by simply entering your Computing ID at: shop.sfu.ca/course-materials/my-personalized-course-materials.

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html

RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATION

Students with a faith background who may need accommodations during the term are encouraged to assess their needs as soon as possible and review the Multifaith religious accommodations website. The page outlines ways they begin working toward an accommodation and ensure solutions can be reached in a timely fashion.