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The precarious state of our planet’s environmental health and the profound suffering that is caused by environmental destruction requires that we rethink our relationships to place and community and that we enact new patterns of behavior based upon these reimagined connections. This course seeks to do this by exploring the relationship between literature and place as it is revealed in the American nature writing tradition and in the work of international writers whose work enriches our understanding of this subject. The reading and writing assignments for this class have been selected in order to assist you in examining these connections from differing conceptual and cultural perspectives. By the end of the course, you should have a clearer understanding of the rich and varied relationship between literature and place, a more nuanced understanding of the place you inhabit, and a more compassionate and committed ethical orientation towards this place and its inhabitants.
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