CRWT 40.11 Nature Writing
This writing workshop provides an interdisciplinary exploration of literary works operating within the realm of Black environmental thought. Following Ed Roberson’s claim that “the world does not run the earth, but the earth does run the world” we will linger with the writings of those who have been forced to theorize from the underside of modernity, those who view black literary studies not only as an institutional enterprise, but as planetary thinking, as a commitment to care for the earth. Together, we will think critically about what it means to write at the intersection of race and environment in a social and political moment marked by climate catastrophe, and what’s more, put that thinking into practice within the workshop space by creating works of poetry and criticism in ensemble. All toward the aim of collaboratively engaging in what we might call—in keeping with the Combahee River Collective, Sylvia Wynter, Fred Moten and others—theory in black, black thought, black study.
Instructor
Bennett