French Eco-Fictions

The climate crisis challenges us to rethink our relation to the environment beyond extractive goals. How can literary arts help us reflect upon traditional perceptions of nature and enable new ways of relating to nonhuman beings? In this course we will study the role of the environment in French-language fictions from the start of the industrial revolution to the present. We will explore how writers from a variety of geographical and cultural backgrounds (France, the Caribbean, Québec) make us attentive to the multiple ways in which humanity interconnects with the nonhuman world. Different strategies of representation will be discussed from wilderness narratives to activist prose and post-apocalyptic fiction. Writers include: Rousseau, Lamartine, Giono, Saucier, Volodine, Roumain, Chawaf, and Damasio. (FREN 0220-0232 or by waiver) 3 hrs. sem.