“Planet in Peril: Global Ecohorror & Environmental Crisis”
This seminar will examine the global horror sub-genre of ecohorror, which explores humans’ fears and anxieties about the more-than-human world. We will consider works of ecohorror that subvert the self/world, nature/culture, and human/animal binaries in order to explore how ecohorror can promote an ethics of ecological entanglement appropriate to the complexities of our current era of transnational, planet-scale ecological crisis. Throughout, we will foreground several questions urgent to this effort: What does it mean to be ecologically aware, and why does it necessitate rethinking classical Western understandings of the “human”? What does it mean to exchange the Western concept of the “human” for one of intimacy and co-constituency with the nonhuman plants, animals, and environments with whom we coexist? Drawing on contemporary research in the environmental and post-humanities that underscores that ecological entanglement in an era of planet-scale environmental crisis is often unsettling and frightening, we will consider how ecological ethics in the Anthropocene must, as horror does, come to terms with what is ugly, violent, and cruel in intercultural and interspecies coexistence. Throughout, we will assess what horror can offer toward this effort to recognize the dangers of our current ecological situation, to move beyond anthropocentrism, to cultivate a planetary as opposed to nation-centric mindset, and to imagine more ethical and sustainable ecological futures for all species. Readings will be drawn from global ecohorror traditions, including Western and non-Western ecohorror, and will include literature, film, critical theory, and philosophy. All texts will be taught in English translation.
Dr. Brittany Roberts
Thursdays, 5:30 – 8:30
Face to face
Course poster for ENG 5910, World Literature: "Planet in Peril: Global Ecohorror & Environmental Crisis," Spring 2027 with Dr. Brittany Roberts, showing Alexis Rockman's painting Spheres of Influence, in which birds, a sunken plane and ships meet beneath a stormy waterline.
