Addressing the growing need for environmental awareness in an international humanities  curriculum, this special topics course GER 316 is cross-listed with ENG 389 and IDS 385 and  introduces students to environmental issues in both North American and German literature and  film. It offers an interdisciplinary investigation into the functioning of the natural world in both  English and (translated) German cultural documents to provide a critical and historical  understanding of current debates on climate change, pollution, urban development, and other  forms of nature-culture interactions. We will explore how writers have understood and written  about their environments historically, and how these depictions of nature have come to  influence current attitudes and understandings of the non-human world. 

As global warming expands to projections ranging from two to four degrees Celsius or more by  the year 2050, one forecast is certain. We are beginning to live in a fundamentally changed  world, a volatile and unknown environment we can neither control nor predict. If humankind,  as a geological force, has brought about a new climate regime along with other planetary  changes that characterize a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – then the humanities  must address this global environmental crisis. This course critically assesses the narrative  traditions that have accompanied, explained, and challenged our lives in the Anthropocene. It  will familiarize students with current debates in the environmental humanities, especially  concerning the Anthropocene, and investigate particular texts documenting climate change,  from early ecological thought to political critiques, from dystopian fiction to climate thrillers,  from the creative arts to disaster films.