On the Beach
Melbourne
:
Heinemann
,
1957
Z125153
1957
single work
novel
science fiction
(taught in 3 units)
'After the war is over, a radioactive cloud begins to sweep southwards on the winds, gradually poisoning everything in its path. An American submarine captain is among the survivors left sheltering in Australia, preparing with the locals for the inevitable. Despite his memories of his wife, he becomes close to a young woman struggling to accept the harsh realities of their situation. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from the United States and the submarine must set sail through the bleak ocean to search for signs of life.'
Source: Publisher's blurb (2009 Vintage ed.).
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road.
Marvell, Andrew. “The Garden”
Safran Foer, Jonathan. Eating Animals
Shakespeare, William. King Lear
Wish : A Biologically Engineered Love Story
Pymble
:
Angus and Robertson
,
1995
Z119536
1995
single work
novel
(taught in 1 units)
'Born to deaf parents, John James ("JJ") has always been more at home in Sign language than in spoken English. Recently divorced, he returns to school to teach Sign. His pupils include animal liberationists Clive Kinnear and Stella Todd, foster-parents to a very unusual daughter who is not deaf, but dumb. It's not long before JJ meets the beautiful, sensitive and highly intelligent 'Eliza', and is drawn into a bizarre chain of events..' (Publication summary)
Recent findings in the biological and physical sciences pose complex questions not just for those who work in the lab, but for philosophers, scholars, artists and students of literary theory. In this course we consider the cultural reverberations of ecological awareness—focusing on literature, cinema and visual art. Eco-criticism is a relatively young field of study in the humanities, developed in response to twin crises: actual environmental degradation, and a breakdown in intellectual categories of ‘the natural’ brought on by technology and politics. This course provides an opportunity to reflect on a number of key tropes in ecological thinking including wilderness, pollution, animals, food and apocalypse. Learn about a philosopher who survived a crocodile attack, the beach at the end of the world, how to prepare and eat Australian moths, and why the Large Hadron Collider is a metaphysical machine. Principle texts in this course include American and Australian novels, films and documentaries, read alongside supplementary sources in literary, audio and artistic mediums. We ask how literature—one of the richest arenas for the practice of human imagination—does, has, or could shape environmental thought and action. How does the non-human world enter into human artforms? What are the historical and structural obstacles to admitting different forms of consciousness into text? What literary genres and styles are called forth by the huge ecological challenges of our times?
