Activism – Module description 

      The Literature, Environment, Activism module explores the creative and quietly subversive political performances of environmental writing-as-advocacy, within a predominantly North American context. This module explores how nature and environmental writing can be politicised in defence of local, state, and federal land protections — whether by writers themselves, or by conservationists, activists, policymakers, and others. We will study the intersections of page and place through a selection of nonfiction environmental texts from the mid-nineteenth century onwards that have informed and moulded on-the-ground land conservation practices, or contributed to environmental regulation and legislation. We will also look at how fiction — such as climate fiction, speculative fiction, and graphic novels — has emerged as another platform for commentary on the environmental condition. This module offers geographical approaches and tools to help students explore the contributions of environmental writing to conservation campaigns, and its place in wider environmental activism and protest narratives. We will ask questions of ‘literature,’ ‘environment,’ and ‘activism,’ and the intersections between them.