Modules

Writing for the Planet: Creative Writing as Activism in a Time of Climate Change and Ecological Decline (EASM182)

30 credits

This module invites you to address the potential for creative writing and publishing to have a social, political and cultural impact in addressing the most urgent problems of our era: climate change and ecological decline. Dynamic critical readings of some of the most important writers addressing these issues today will fuel new critical and creative writing of your own.

Together on this module we will address some central questions. To what extent can literary writing be an effective form of activism on political issues? What is its distinctive impact in comparison to other art forms and media? How can creative writing deal with the vast scientific complexity of climate change and ecological decline? Who are the best literary-activist writers and ecopoetic thinkers addressing these issues today? What key themes, forms, perspectives, and craft techniques make their texts effective – or less effective than it could be? Who is publishing these texts, and why does that matter?

By the end of the module, you will have read, discussed and debated a range of dynamic literary essays and writings on this this theme by diverse contemporary writers, and you will have produced: (a) a literary essay on this theme; and (b) a linked creative writing project.