Elective

CLIT7025 Special Topics in Eco-criticism

In our times, places like the Netherlands/the Rhine Delta, and Hong Kong/the Pearl River Delta, reveal the crises of the contemporary in very different ways. Located at the opposite sides of the Eurasian continent, formed by very different (geological, meteorological, humanistic) powers, their realities show many differences, but also unexpected similarities. Doing scientific and artistic research at both locations, this course aims to help students to be familiar with the complexities of these 21st century crises, how they are reflected in social, political and environmental uncertainties, and how they lead to civic action. It engages issues such as: how to negotiate on what challenges the current state of academic knowledge and call upon all of our creative and speculative capacities to imagine society differently, to question its Modernist or Capitalist systems of production and consumption. It is important to stress that all of this will be done by placing centre not the human being, but the entire Delta with its multiple networks: its human and non-human inhabitants, the elements, and all of the powers engaged in its complexity. Teaming up with a series of technological and artistic initiatives in both sites, it engages with local communities and stakeholders, and searches for ways to involve them actively in the research that we undertake. This course is a unique transdisciplinary, transnational and inclusive program, firmly rooted in the urgent matters of today.