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Undergraduate | LTU-ENG3WCE-2023

Writing, Culture and Ecology

Study method

On-campus

Assessments

100% online

Entry requirements

Prior study needed

Duration

12 weeks

Start dates

  • 31 July 2023

Price from

$515

Upfront cost

$0

HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available

About this subject

What you'll learn

Identify key debates in the field of ecocriticism and cultural ecology.

Demonstrate understanding of the ways literary texts engage with their literary, biomaterial, political, and historical contexts.

Formulate arguments based on critical analysis of a range of texts in environmental literature.

Reflect critically on the practical and ethical role of literature in communicating ideas about the relationship between societies and environments.

    • • Lyrebirds and poetry.
    • • Silent Spring and ecological polemic.
    • • Elegy and extinction.
    • • The Mushroom at the End of the World, mycology and literature.
    • • Blade Runner 2040 and eco-apocalypse.
    • • Things Fall Apart.
    • • False Claims of Colonial Thieves.
  • This subject asks how writing has shaped relationships between 'culture' and 'nature' from the beginning of the Anthropocene in the late 1700s to the present. You will explore key literary scenes that have dramatically reimagined 'nature', 'the environment', and the future of life: from the poetry of untameable nature produced alongside the mass urbanisation of the Industrial Revolution; to the mode of ecological polemic that coincides with the rise of environmentalism as a political movement in the 1960s and 70s; to Indigenous story-telling as a caring for country through the violence of settler colonization; to writing in our present moment, with an awareness of what to many seems a foreshortened future. Literature has not always been a benign force in the relationships between people and the more-than-human world; what role does it have in understanding and storying the present and future of that relationship?

    • LMS Workshops: short-answer responses to online tasks (1200 words equivalent) (30%)
    • Textual analysis: 1200 words. (30%)
    • Research project: 1800 words. (40%)
  • For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).

  • The third university established in Victoria, La Trobe University has a diverse community of more than 38,000 students and staff. Its commitment to excellence in teaching and research prepares students to make a bold and positive impact in today's global community. La Trobe provides Open Universities Australia with its core tenets, entrepreneurship and sustainability.

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    Times Higher Education Ranking 2023: 16

Entry requirements

Others

Prerequisites: Students must have completed 60 credit points of Level two subjects.

Additional requirements

No additional requirements

What to study next?

Once you’ve completed this subject it can be credited towards one of the following degrees

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UndergraduateLAT-TEC-DEG

Bachelor of Information Technology

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UndergraduateLAT-BUS-DEG

Bachelor of Business

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UndergraduateLAT-ART-DEG

Bachelor of Arts

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UndergraduateLAT-PYS-DEG

Bachelor of Psychological Science

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UndergraduateLAT-CYS-DEG

Bachelor of Cybersecurity

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