Engl 3050 Literature and the Environment, Fall 2022


[ Policies ] [ Calendar ] [ Online Readings ]


Online Readings
last update: August 24, 2022

 

Notes:

- Here are various texts and sites that will interest students in this class. These are not necessarily assigned readings. For week-by-week reading assignments, see "Calendar," above.

- I will update this site periodically throughout the semester. If you have any suggestions for additional links, please send me an email. -- KOD, instructor --odonnell@etsu.edu

 

I. Book Reviews

- "Fighting Deforestation and Capitalism: How a Woman’s Refusal to Leave a Tree Helped Preserve the Redwoods" [review of The Legacy of Luna, by Julia Butterfly Hill, 2000]. By Amanda Nicholson. Written for Engl 3050 Lit & Environment, Spring 2015.

- "Book World: Barbara Kingsolver’s novel approach in ‘Flight Behavior’." By Ron Charles. The Washington Post, October 30, 2012.

- "The Butterfly Effect: ‘Flight Behavior,’ by Barbara Kingsolver." By Dominique Browning. The New York Times, Sunday Book Review, November 9, 2012.

www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/books/review/flight-behavior-by-barbara-kingsolver.html

 - "Couple Creates an Empire by Felling Trees and Anyone in Their Way" [review of Serena]. By Janet Maslin, The New York Times, October 5, 2008. www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/books/06masl.html

- "The Heroes of This Novel Are Centuries Old and 300 Feet Tall" [review of The Overstory by Richard Powers]. By Barbara Kingsolver. New York Times Book Review, April 9, 2018. (Click here for a cached version.) 

- "The Homer of the Ants" [review of Anthill: A Novel, by E. O. Wilson]. By Margaret Atwood. The New York Review of Books 57, 6 (April 8, 2010). www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/apr/08/the-homer-of-the-ants/

- "The Man Who Thinks Trees Talk to Each Other" [review of The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben]. The Guardian [Manchester UK], September 12, 2016. www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/peter-wohlleben-man-who-believes-trees-talk-to-each-other

- "Mother Nature as a Hothouse Flower." [Review of Bill McKibben's The End of Nature.] By David Graber. The Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1989. articles.latimes.com/1989-10-22/books/bk-726_1_bill-mckibben

- "The Sky is Melting" [review of Bill McKibben's The End of Nature]. By Nicholas Wade. The New York Times, October 8, 1989. www.nytimes.com/1989/10/08/books/the-sky-is-melting.html

- "The Songs of Trees by David George Haskell; review – looking and listening in the forest." By Caspar Henderson.  The Guardian, July 7, 2017.  www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/07/songs-of-trees-david-george-haskell-review

- "The Tragedy of the American Wolf, Up Close; Plus two more books we're reading this month" [review of American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee]. By Christopher Keyes. Outside Magazine Online, Oct 30, 2017. www.outsideonline.com/2255766/leader-pack

 

II. Recent Nonfiction

- "The Insect Apocalypse is Here." By Brooke Jarvis. The New York Times Magazine, November 27, 2018. (Click here for a cached version.)

- "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change." By Nathaniel Rich. Photographs and Videos by George Steinmetz. The New York Times Magazine, August 1, 2018.

- "How Republicans Are ‘Weaponizing’ Public Office Against Climate Action." By David Gelles. The New York Times, August 5, 2022. (Click here for a cached version.)

- "A Burning Planet: Should the climate movement embrace sabotage?" By Thea Riofrancos. The Nation, July 25, 2022. (Click here for a cached version.)

 

III. Various Articles Related to Course Texts

- "Meddling With Monarchs." By Margaret Renkl. The New York Times, October 5, 2017. www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/monarch-butterfly-migration-extinction.html

- "Visiting Our Past: Logging dangers filled our hills." By Rob Neufeld. Asheville Citizen-Times, May 10, 2020. faculty.etsu.edu/odonnell/readings/logging_smokies.pdf 

- "Carolina Panthers." By Dan Lazar, Director of Education, Western North Carolina Nature. 2010. www.wildwnc.org/education/naturalists-notes/carolina-panthers

- "Global Warming and Flowering Times in Thoreau's Concord: A Community Perspective." Abraham J. Miller-Rushing and Richard B. Primack. Ecology 89, 2 (February 2008): p332-341. www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/07-0068.1

- Julia Butterfly Hill profile on NBC Dateline News Magazine, Feb 14, 1999 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFRdy7o3DPE&feature=related

- "Margaret Atwood: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, 50 years on." By Margaret Atwood. The Guardian [Manchester, England]. Friday, December 7, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/07/why-rachel-carson-is-a-saint

- "Ron Rash Feature." Ten poems by Rash. Story South dot com, Summer 2002. www.storysouth.com/summer2002/rashfeaturepoems.html. Accessed January 2018.

- "Serena: The Story Behind the Book" [Ron Rash's comments on how he wrote the book, posted at the site of his literary agent; no date]. http://www.rusoffagency.com/authors/rash_r/serenat/behind_serena.htm

- "Wendell Berry pulling his personal papers from UK: Writer protesting coal's influence." By Cheryl Truman. The Lexington Herald Leader, June 23, 2010. www.kentucky.com/2010/06/23/1319383/wendell-berry-pulling-his-personal.html

 

IV. Authors Online

- Horace Kephart: Revealing an Enigma. Hunter Library Special Collections and the Mountain Heritage Center, Western Carolina University. www.wcu.edu/library/digitalcoll/kephart/

- "John Muir Writings" at Yosemite Online, an unofficial Yosemite website. www.yosemite.ca.us/john_muir_writings/

- "The John Muir Exhibit," at sierraclub.org. vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/default.aspx

 

- The Canons of the Colorado (first paper: Down the Green River), by John Wesley Powell, Scribner's Monthly 9, 3 (January 1875): 293-311

- The Canons of the Colorado (second paper), by John Wesley Powell, Scribner's Monthly 9, 4 (February 1875): 394-409

 

VII. Materials to Use in Class

- B. Kingsolver, Flight Behavior, discussion questions. At "lit lovers" web site: www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/8988-flight-behavior-kingsolver?start=3