CLIMATE AND TIME

The goal of this writing seminar is to support the pursuit of topics related to climate change through readings, research, and writing. We will also confront some of the emotional challenges associated with doing work on the environment, especially in these particularly dynamic times. Over the course of the semester, students will create a research portfolio for creative work on a climate-related topic and practice integrating climate-related issues into works that are not explicitly climate focused. One key theme we will explore in concert with climate issues is the concept of time and how it should be framed in our narratives. Time factors into how we recognize the present era, and it also informs our sense of urgency where there is crisis. As the climate crisis continues to unfold, we face new conflicts with time: ice is melting faster than expected, sea levels rising faster than expected, fires happening more frequently than expected, marine level die-offs happening faster than expected, etc. The urgency with which the facts are now being revealed keeps changing the timelines we must confront, and yet, if we do not understand time—beyond our biological relationship to it—we may miss the opportunity to engage in meaningful work. By studying texts engaged in observational practice in the fields of geology, botany, geography, climate studies, animal studies and anthropology alongside literary works, we will forge a creative practice that integrates current research with established arguments and/or new narratives. The final work is a creative writing project based on this research. All literary genres welcome. Some of the texts we will cover may include: Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains by Lucas Bessire; Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleenman; Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Lauren Rush; The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli; The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert; The Yellow House by Sarah Broom; and Fire Weather by John Valliant.