English 5650-001 Advanced Seminar Literary Study: Petroculture

English 5650-001 Advanced Seminar Literary Study: Petroculture

Summer 2018 (second session: Friday, June 22—Wed. August 1)

LNCO 2875 MWF 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

Professor [Robert] Stephen TatumOffice: LNCO 3413 Office Hours: MWF 12-1 p.m.

About this Course:

This advanced seminar will study "petro" or "oil culture" through a focus on selected literary and visual culture (cinema; photography) texts that illustrate how--in the 150 years since the advent the petroleum industry--petrocapitalism is as much a cultural phenomenon as it is an economic necessity, political force, and environmental concern. Broadly conceived, petroculture encompasses or indexes: the emergence of corporate capitalism on both national and transnational scales; the triumph of automobile or car culture and, as a consequence, the transformation of the nation's transportation system and urban design (think freeways and commercial/residential sprawl); the hegemony of “plastic” and “vinyl” products in everyday life; and apocalyptic anxieties associated with both ecological disasters and a dystopian post-petrocapitalism future. Our textual focus will primarily be national and hemispheric, though seminar participants may want to sample such transnational petroculture through such films as The Wages of Fear (set in Mexico) and the novel Oil on Water (set in Nigeria). Our readings will include both fiction (novels and short stories) and nonfiction texts, including creative nonfiction works based on true events and autobiographical experiences. Along with the list of texts below, we will read shorter selections from selected secondary reading from books and articles discussing petroculture. In terms of writing outcomes, there will be a series of weekly short critical essays of the primary texts that will require some selected research into critical discourse on the material.

Probable primary texts for this seminar:

Prose Nonfiction: Alexandra Fuller, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant (2008)

Prose Fiction: Helena María Viramontes, Their Dogs Came with Them (2008)

Cinema: There Will Be Blood (2007); Crude Awakening (2007) [documentary]

Photography: Richard Misrach, Petrochemical America (2014); Chris Jordan, Midway

Plus secondary critical readings uploaded to the “Files” section of the Canvas course page.

For example, short story by Ray Bradbury; essay on “Plastics” by Jennifer Egan; Indigenous voices on the Alberta Tar Sands and Dakota Pipeline Access projects; Stephanie Lemanager on the aesthetics of petroleum.

Written requirements: weekly critical essays on readings.

Oral requirements: leading a student roundtable; seminar participation