Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Summer 2025 - ENGL 413W D100

Seminar in Literature and Environment (4)

Nature, Place & Identity in Enviro Imagination

Class Number: 2296

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    May 12 – Aug 8, 2025: Mon, 1:30–5:20 p.m.
    Burnaby

  • Prerequisites:

    45 units or two 300-division English courses.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Advanced seminar on selected literary works as they intersect with and are shaped by environmental and ecological issues. May be organized by theme, critical approach, historical period, or individual author. This course may be repeated for credit if a different topic is taught. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

Nature, Place, and Identity in the Environmental Imagination

This course focuses on place in literature by locating ourselves and the texts we read here where we live. Reflecting critically on our place as readers we will ask: how might we situate ourselves as we read texts from here in conversation with texts from there, somewhere elsewhere? Framed by a heightened sense of our location at SFU Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations, this course aims to develop relational and comparative ways of reading by considering intersections between place, identity, mobilities, and environmental histories. Applying decolonial and ecological approaches to literature, we will bring an awareness of our place as readers to explore writing by contemporary Indigenous authors such as Janet Rogers, Jordan Abel, and Deborah Sparrow in conversation with nineteenth-century British writers William Wordsworth, John Clare, and Mary Shelley. We will challenge ourselves to address colonial and confederation poets of the emergent settler nation of Canada in dialogue with Indigenous and post-colonial writers, including Jane Johnston Schoolcraft and Pauline Johnson as well as Leanne Simpson, Rita Wong and Juliana Spahr. We will also consider how the environmental imagination has been formed within and against colonial imperatives while also generating new temporalities of place. In this way, we will embark on the ecological journey Potawatomi scholar-activist Kyle White calls “going back to the future.”

Grading

  • Discussion Posts 15%
  • Presentation 20%
  • In-class writing assignment 25%
  • Final paper, includes proposal and annotated bibliography 40%

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

All other texts will be available through the course Canvas site.

REQUIRED READING:

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818, Broadview 3rd ed--any edition is fine.
ISBN: 9781554811038

Tomson Highway, The Rez Sisters, Fifth House, 1988
ISBN: 978-0920079447

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies. Anansi
ISBN: 9781487007645

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.

Department Undergraduate Notes:

IMPORTANT NOTE Re 300 and 400 level courses: 75% of spaces in 300 level English courses, and 100% of spaces in 400 level English courses, are reserved for declared English Major, Minor, Extended Minor, Joint Major, and Honours students only, until open enrollment begins.

For all On-Campus Courses, please note the following:
- To receive credit for the course, students must complete all requirements.
- Tutorials/Seminars WILL be held the first week of classes.
- When choosing your schedule, remember to check "Show lab/tutorial sections" to see all Lecture/Seminar/Tutorial times required.

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.