American Literature & the Environment

Harvard FAS

What are the natural worlds that define America? How did these landscapes – the towering redwoods of California, the uncanny geysers of Yellowstone, the vast plains of Nebraska – attain their status as symbols of the American nation? How have racial and ethnic identities historically mapped onto landscape? And how do relationships with nature evolve across time and space, and now into an era of climate change? These are some of the questions our course will seek to answer. Across nearly four…