Courses

Contemporary portrayals of extinction often suggest the novelty of its occurrence and progress. Yet extinction has been a consistent and defining phenomenon in the American hemisphere since its colonization, unfolding in various modalities: as an historical narrative, an affective haunt, an ecological danger, and a colonial practice. This course will seek to make sense of the importance of extinction as both a foundational narrative and a lived reality of the "New World." We will examine how extinction in multiple forms was necessary for the establishment of early colonial societies, and chart an alternative history of the American democracy through literary records that bear witness to how settlers' claims of possession wreaked dispossession for other humans, animals, and plants on unparalleled scales. When extinction is imposed by forces of colonization, racism, sexism, anthropocentrism, and war, what possibilities of evasion or survival are there? What forms of remembrance can be had for extinguished lives? How does the idea of extinction push us to rethink how we understand life itself? No prerequisites.