Writing Places Nativism Ecology Politics

This course examines the writings on place from the 1930s onward. It explores the changing focus and meaning in the literary or cinematic rendering of different locales. While a place can be the anchor of identity, site of cultural memory and practice, and refuge for dwelling, such meanings are not given but very much the work of cultural imagination and creation. How do literature and cinema contribute to creating a sense of place and confer an identity on a place, under what circumstances and to what political and cultural effects? As the deepening environmental crises increasingly ravages our natural world, how do the writings on places document environmental degradation? How do their otherworldly portrayals - be them industrial, postindustrial, heterotopic, dystopic, etc. - shed light on our collective reality and engage our senses and intellect to promote possible social change? These are the important questions we will discuss in this course.