Literature, Thought and Climate Change

Colt 620, Fall 2009

Literature, Thought and Climate Change

Professor: Karen Pinkus

Taper Hall 153

Phone: 0-0104, email:

Office hours: Wednesday 9:30-10:30, Thursday 3-4 and by appointment

8/27: Definitions and introductions: Discussion of keywords: crisis, solution, energy, climate, environment, local, global, sustainable, anthropogenic, etc. Introduction to course goals.

Thorsteinn Sigfusson, “A Letter from Casablanca,” p. 3-6, in Planet Hydrogen. The Taming of the Proton.

9/3: Technology, Energy Systems, the Humanities

Readings: 1) Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology” [available at: http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com/Anno/Heidegger%20The%20Question%201954.htm] 2) Robert Henson, The Rough Guide to Climate Change, part 1: The Basics--all; part 3: The Science: “Keeping Track” pp. 171-192.

Suggested Secondary readings: 1) Samuel Weber, “Upsetting the Setup: Remarks on Heidegger’s ‘Questing After Technics’” in Mass Mediarus, pp. 55-75 (ER); 2) Richard Rojcewicz, The Gods and Technology. A Reading of Heidegger; 3) Martin Heidegger, “Language” (in Poetry Language Thought);

9/10 Mining, Temporality, Fossil Fuels

Readings: 1) Henson, part 2, The symptoms--all; part 3: “The Long View: A Walk Through Climate History” 193-226; 2) E.T.A. Hoffman, “The Mines of Falun” [available at: http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0353.pdf]; 3) start reading Zola, Germinal

Suggested secondary readings: 1) Bernard Steigler, Technics and Time, I; 2) Richard Beardsworth, “From a Genealogy of Matter to a Politics of Memory: Stiegler’s Thinking of Technics”

9/17: No Class

9/24: Coal/Mining

Readings: 1) Emile Zola, Germinal

Suggested secondary readings: 1)Mussio, Thomas E. “Anticommunity and Chaos. The Role of Free Indirect Discourse in Zola’s Germinal,” in Thesing, William, ed. Caverns of Night. Coal Mines in Art, Literature, and Film. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2000: 71-88 (Electronic Reserve); 2) D.H. Lawrence, “The Odour of Chrysanthemums”; 3) D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers; 4) Upton Sinclair, King Coal

10/1: Fossil fuels, the persistance of petroleum

Readings: 1) start reading Upton Sinclair, Oil! (chapters I-IX); 2) Henson, part IV: Debates & Solutions--all

Film clips in class

10/8: Fossil fuels, the persistance of petroleum

Readings: 1) Upton Sinclair, Oil! (chapters X-XXI)

10/15: Biofuels, Narrative and Alchemy

View in Class: National Geographic Sao Paolo recycling clip

Readings: 1) Khosla, Vinod. “My Big Biofuels Bet” [available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/ethanol_pr.html]: 2)Spencer Weart, “Radioactive Hopes” from Nuclear Fear, pp. 3-16 (ER)

10/22: wind, solar, other renewables:

Readings: 1) begin reading Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (part I) 2) Martin Heidegger, “Memorial Address,” pp. 43-57 from Discourse on Thinking (ER)

10/29: “free” energy, right-to-energy

Reading: 1) Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (Parts II-III)

11/5: adaptation: carbon sinks, sequestration; realism and practicality

View in class: Michelangelo Antonioni, Red Desert (1962). Readings: 1) Henson

“Circuits of Change: Modelling the Future Climate” 227-244.

Short paper on keyword due

11/06: Workshop

11/07: College Commons Bus trip: Human Time/Geological Time: Discrepancies and Adaptations. Co-organized by David Bottjer (Environmental Science) and Karen Pinkus

11/12 Sustainability, local and global

Readings: 1) David Harvey, “What’s Green and Makes the World go Round?” pp. 327-355 from The Cultures of Globalization, eds. Jameson and Miyoshi (ER)

Suggested secondary readings: 1) Clark, Nigel. “Ex-orbitant Globality,” Theory Culture Society V. 22 (5) (2005): 168-185; 2) David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism; 3) Special issue of Places. A journal of Environmental Design on “Climate Change and Place.” (vol. 20, n. 2 [2008]) (AFA periodical stacks).

Seminar paper outline due

11/19: poetic dwelling? Land and environmental Art

Readings: 1) Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking” (in PLT); 2) Brian Wallis, “Survey,” from Land and Environmental Art (ER); 3) Robert Smithson, “Entropy Made Visible” from Collected Writings (ER)

Recommended: 1) Heidegger, “The Thing” (in PLT); 2) “….Poetically Man Dwells….” (in PLT)

12/3: u/dystopian endings?

Clips in class from AI (S. Spielberg); The Day After Tomorrow (R. Emmerich) History Channel, Life After People series.

Readings: 1) Lee Edelman, No Future, chapter 1, “The Future is Kid Stuff” pp. 1-32. (ER); 2) Bernard Stiegler, “The Becoming-Astral of Man and the Power of Man as Self-Destruction” from Technics and Time, pp. 88-91 (ER)

12/21: final essays due by 9 am [Electronic submissions are preferable; please send as a Word document with your name in the file name]

Course requirements:

You are expected to come to each class prepared to discuss the readings. You may be asked to give informal presentations and/or introductions to readings as appropriate. Each student will be responsible for one short paper (maximum five pages) on one of the course keywords (that is, either a specific form of energy, a technology or a critical concept). You will also be responsible for a longer seminar paper due on December 21. You should choose a topic that helps advance your own work. You may choose to work on a literary text or texts, on a philosophical problem, a cultural phenomenon, or on a technical/scientific system, for instance.

I have ordered several books for this course at the University Bookstore:

Emile Zola, Germinal

Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

The Rough Guide to Climate Change (although not an academic book, this is an up-to-date publication)

Upton Sinclair, Oil!

You may also wish to purchase:

Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought
Selected List of Related Works:

Agamben, Giorgio. The Open: Man and Animal. Trans. Kevin Attell. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 2004.

_____. Potentialities. Ed. and Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1999.

Alexander, Brian. Atomic Kitchen. Gadget and Inventions for Yesterday’s Cook. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2004.

Anderson, Judy and Curtis. Electric and Hybrid Cars. A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005.

Andrews, Thomas G. Killing For Coal. America’s Deadliest Labor War. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2008.

“Architecture for the Atom,” Architectural Forum Vol. 110 (May 1959): 152-7.

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958.

“Atomic Architecture” Progressive Architecture. Vol 39, Nove. 1958, 101-148.

Ayris, Ian and Shane Gould. Colliery Landscapes. An Aerial Survey of the Deep-mined Coal Industry in England. London: English Heritage, 1995.

Bail, Eli. From Railway to Freeway. Pacific Electric and the Motor Coach. Glendale, CA: Interurban Press, 1984.

Bate, Jonathan. Romantic Ecology. Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition. London and New York: Routledge, 1991.

Beardsworth, Richard. “From a Genealogy of Matter to a Politics of Memory: Stiegler’s Thinking of Technics.” Tekhnema: Journal of Philosophy and Technology. Issue 2 (Spring 1995): 85-115.

Bell, Jonathan. Carchitecture. When the Car and the City Collide. London: August Press, 2001.

Boyle, Godfrey and Bob Everett and Janet Ramage, Eds. Energy Systems and Sustainability. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Luis Campos, “The Birth of Living Radium,” Representations 97 (Winter 2007): 1-27

Clark, Nigel. “Ex-orbitant Globality,” Theory Culture Society V. 22 (5) (2005): 168-185.

Coal. British Mining in Art 1680-1980. London: Arts Council of Great Britian, 1982.

Colamina, Beatriz. Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.

Corn, Joseph J. and Brian Horrigan. Yesterday’s Tomorrows. Past Visions of the American Future. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ., 1984.

Coupe, Laurence. The Green Studies Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 2000. On line

Da Rosa, Aldo Vieira. Fundamentals of Renewable Energy Processes. Amsterdam and London: Academic Press, 2009.

Debeir, Jean-Claude, et al.. In the Servitude of Power. Energy and Civilization Through the Ages. London, Zed Books, 1991.

Denes, Agnes. Projects for Public Spaces. Essay by Eleanor Heartney. Edited by Dan Mills. Bucknell, PA: Samek Art Gallery, 2003.

Dimendberg, Edward. “The Will to Motorization: Cinema, Highways, Modernity,” October V. 73 (1995): 91-137.

“Does Atomic Radiation promise a building revolution?” Architectural Forum. Vol. 101, (September 1954): 94-103.

Douglas, B.C., M.S. Kearney, and S.P. Leatherman. Sea Level Rise: History and Consequences. San Diego: Academic Press, 2001.

Edelman, Lee. No Future. Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 2004.

Farrell, Jim and Cheryl. Ford Design Department. Concept and Show Cars. 1932-1961. 1999. LoC: 99-094911. ISBN: 0967242800

Finlay, Ian Hamilton. Woodpaths. Little Sparta : Wild Hawthorn Press, [199-?] (Getty special collections)

Friedman, Kenneth S. “Words on the Environment,” Art in the Land, ed. Alan Sonfist. New York: Dutton, 1983. 253-6.

Gevorkian, Peter. Sustainable Energy Systems Engineering. New York: McGraw Hill Professional Publishing, 2006.

-----. Sustainable Energy Systems in Architectural Design: A Blueprint for Green Building. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2005.

Gere, Charlie. Art, Time and Technology. Histories of the Disappearing Body. London: Berg, 2005.

-----. “Breaking the Time Barrier.” Culture and Organization. Vol 10, Issue 1 (2004): 53-60.

Gipe, Paul and Martin Pasqualetti and Robert Righter. Wind Power in View: Energy Landscapes in a Crowded World. San Diego: Academic Press, 2002.

Glotfelty, Cheryll and Harold Fromm. The Ecocriticism Reader. Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Hack, John. Prehistoric Coal Mining in the Jeddito Valley, Arizona. Cambridge: Peabody Museum, 1942.

Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper and Row, 1971.

-----. Parmenides. Trans. André Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.

Heier, Siegfried and Rachel Waddington. Grid Integration of Wind Energy Conversion Systems. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley, 2006.

Geoffrey Hindley. A History of Roads. London: Peter Davies, 1971.

Hirokawa, Taishi. Still Crazy. Nuclear Power Plants Seen in Japanese Landscapes. Kyoto: Korinsha, 1994.

Denise Giardina: Storming Heaven and Unquiet earth.

Inslee, J. And B. Hendricks. Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2008.

Jaccard, Mark. Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Jackson, John. A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1996.

Jakle, John and Keith Sculle. The Gas Station in America: Creating the North American Landscape. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2002.

Jan Jennings, ed. Roadside America: The Automobile in Design and Culture. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Press, 1990.

Karlsson, Håkan. Re-Thinking Archeology. Gothenburg: Department of Archeology, 1998. (thesis)

Kastner, Jeffrey and Brian Wallis. Land and Environmental Art. London and New York: Phaidon, 1998

Knapp, Bernard, and Vincent C. Pigott and Eugenia Herbert Eds. Social Approaches to an Industrial Past: The Archeology and Anthropology of Mining. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

Kockelmans, Joseph. Heidegger on Art and Art Works. Dordrecht, Boston and Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985.

Kollins, Michael. Pioneers of the U.S. Automobile History. Detroit: Society of Automobile Engineers, 2001.

Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe. Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry. Trans. Jeff Fort. Urbana and Chicago, Univ. of Illinois Press, 2007.

Lailach, Michael. Land Art. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2007.

Latour, Bruno. Aramis or the Love of Technology. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1996.

Lerup, Lars. After the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.

Lhamon, W.T. Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s. Smithsonian 1990.

Lippard, Lucy. Six Years. The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.

Malpas, Jeff. Heidegger’s Topology. Being, Place, World. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.

Manwell, James. Wind Energy Explained: Theory, Design and Application. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2009.

Matheson, Whitney. Atomic Home. A Guided Tour of the American Dream. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2004.

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Daniel Miller, ed. Car Cultures. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2001.

Mom, Gijs. The Electric Vehicle. Technology and Expectations in the Automobile Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1984.

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Rojcewicz, Richard. The Gods and Technology. A Reading of Heidegger. Albany: SUNY Press, 2006.

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Schneider, Eric D. and Dorian Sagan. Into the Cool. Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Selden, Paul and John Nudds. Evolution of Fossil Ecosystems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Sharr, Adam. Heidegger’s Hut. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.

Shnayerson, Michael. The Car That Could. New York: Random House, 1996.

Smithson, Robert. The Collected Writings. Edited by Jack Flam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Steigler, Bernard. Technics and Time, 1. The Fault of Epimetheus. Translated by Richard Beardsworth and George Collins. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.

-----. Technics and Time, 2. Disorientation. Translated by Stephen Barker. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Stewart, Susan. Poetry and the Fate of the Senses

Thesing, William B. Caverns of Night. Coal Mines in Art, Literature and Film. Columbia, S.C.: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2000.

Tidwell, Mike. The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities. New York: Free Press, 2006.

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Virilio, Paul. Ce qui arrive. Paris: Fondation Cartier, 2002.

Vivien, Didier and Eric Wawrzyniak. Archéologie de la Mine. Sallaumines, France: Marval, 1994.