ENGL 3771

Contemporary Literature and Crisis

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2026-2027 Catalog.

Crisis is a rupture, break or perceivable shift in what is ‘normal’. Terms like the ‘Permacrisis’ or the ‘crisis ordinary’ attempt to explain our global heightened awareness about impending danger. In this class we will read widely across the 20th and 21st centuries in a variety of genres from fiction to poetry to drama. Topics will vary but may include literary responses to political, social, psychological, theological or climate crisis, aesthetic responses to moral or societal panic, war and migration/trauma, disease, as well as any links between identity and crisis in literature and the visual (photography, film, fine art). We will consider how the framing of crisis as an affective moment or event shapes how we think about chronologies of literary response and its social uses.

Distribution Requirements (SCD-AS)

Last 4 Terms Offered (None)

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