The Literature of Sustainability & Resilience

Time & Location

MWF per. 4, Turlington 2333
Office hours (Spring 2026): 4105 Turlington Hall, M, 2–4 PM, and by appt.

“Dystopia is for losers” – Doug Henwood*

This course takes as its founding premises two unassailable facts. First, we live in a time of increasing environmental instability, mass extinction, food insecurity, forced migration, and social and political unrest fostered by climate change. Second, the human literary, artistic, and ethical imaginations are among our species’ most powerful and adaptive responses to the planetary realities of the twenty-first century and the possibility of a more just, sustainable, and resilient future for all living beings.

We will read widely from an established and emerging canon of literary nonfiction, fiction, memoir, and poetry that addresses the perils and vitality of the late Anthropocene, the geological epoch marked by the influences of humans on the Earth’s planetary ecosystems.

This course qualifies as a 3-credit Humanities core course for UF’s Bachelor of Arts in Sustainability Studies.

* From his foreword to Sasha Lilley, et al., Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth. PM Press, 2012.