| Lerninhalte |
In the United States, "national sacrifice areas" are sites used for resource extraction and waste disposal. While the term "sacrifice" bears the trace of the Indigenous peoples’ regard of nature as sacred, it also indicates where those precarious areas are located – on Indian reservations, in Black ghettoes and in other poor neighborhoods inside and outside the US. In this class, we will look at some literary responses to the environmentally damaging practices of American extractive culture and explore the colonial logic of "sacrifice areas" well beyond the national limits of the US, i.e. in the Global South. In addition to selections from poetic works, we will discuss four novels by an Indigenous, an Asian American, an Indian, and an African American writer. Be prepared for corruption, death, and disaster – and some beautiful nature poetry!
Students are required to download a Reader and purchase the following primary texts:
- Linda Hogan, Mean Spirit (1991; Ivy Books) ISBN-13: 978-0804108638
- Karen Tei Yamashita, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest (1990, Coffee House Press) ISBN-13: 978-1566894852
- Indra Sinha, Animal’s People (2007; Simon & Schuster) ISBN-13: 978-1416526278
- Imbolo Mbue, How Beautiful We Were (2021, Canongate) ISBN-13: 978-1838851378
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