Teaching
Like my research, my teaching explores the relationships among human communities, nonhuman environments, and circulating media. In my courses, students wrestle with the differences that divide and define our planet; thus, in my seminar on “Latinx Cultural Politics,” they read Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands / La Frontera (1987) alongside an ICE officer’s oral history. Just as importantly, students track these differences across space and over time; therefore, in my introduction to “Literature and the Environment,” they use the “Economy” chapter of Walden (1854) to contrast an Ancient Greek word—oikonomia, or “household management”—and a contemporary capitalist concept. Whether they conduct research in the library stacks or on the Hispanic American Newspaper database, my students come to understand our inequitable yet intertwined pasts. However, they also imagine new futures—in my seminar on “Reimagining and Reshaping North American Environments,” they use 16th- and 17th-century exploration media as inspiration for their own hand-made maps and ambisonic field recordings. With these pedagogical principles, I offer courses in US literary and cultural studies, Latinx literary and cultural studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and the environmental humanities.
Nature, Race, and Indigeneity in the US
“Nature” is one of the weirdest words in the English language—it can refer to human trait (“it is in her nature”), a nonhuman environment (“we walked in nature”), a divine power (“mother nature”), or a biological process (“nature calls”). Despite—and indeed, because of—these ambiguities, nature has played pivotal roles in the territory that has come to be known as the United States. In various guises, nature has inspired pilgrims, pioneers, and tourists. At the same time, nature has staged struggles between settlers and Natives, whites and racialized peoples, upper classes and working classes. In this writing-intensive first-year seminar, we will learn how nature has brought us together and torn us apart. By engaging with a variety of media—from colonial-era captivity narratives to nineteenth-century abolitionist texts to contemporary Kumeyaay poetry—we will recover conflicting ideas of nature. And by reading in the environmental humanities—including history, anthropology, and literary criticism—we will discover how these ideas have impacted human and more-than-human worlds. While our inquiries will take us from prehistory to the present, they will converge on the future; now that we are destroying our ecosystems, extinguishing our fellow species, and altering our atmosphere, is there still such a thing as nature? During the semester, we will navigate this tricky terrain both collectively and individually, with each student completing a four- to five-page close-reading essay, a five- to six-page theoretical essay, and a nine- or ten-page research essay.
For a full syllabus, click here. For an older version of the course, entitled “Wilderness in the North American Imagination,” click here.
Introduction to Latinx Studies
In the US, Latinxs are often treated in quantitative terms—as checkmarks on census forms, or as data points in demographic surveys. However, Latinxs have always been more than mere numbers: while some have stayed rooted in traditional homelands, and while others have migrated through far-flung diasporas, all have drawn on and developed distinctive ways of imagining and inhabiting the Americas. In this course, we will explore a wide range of these Latinx lifeways. Through readings in the humanities and social sciences, we will learn how Latinxs have survived amidst and against settler colonialism and racial capitalism. Meanwhile, through the study of literature and art, we will see how Latinxs have resisted and/or reinforced these social systems. With our interdisciplinary and intersectional approach, we will determine why Latinidad has manifested differently in colonial territories (especially Puerto Rico), regional communities (especially the US–Mexico borderlands), and transnational diasporas (of Cubans, of Dominicans, and of a variety of Central Americans). At the same time, we will understand how Latinxs have struggled with shared issues, such as (anti-) Blackness and (anti-)Indigeneity, gender and sexuality, citizenship and (il)legality, and economic and environmental (in)justice. During the semester, we will practice Latinx studies both collectively and individually: to enrich our in-class discussions, each student will complete a reading journal, a five-page paper, a creative project, and a digital timeline.
For a full syllabus, click here.
Introduction to the Environmental Humanities
Climate scientists have come to a consensus that the planet has passed into the Anthropocene—a geological epoch in which human societies have a dominant and even determining influence on their nonhuman environments. As these scientists have analyzed the Anthropocene’s material traces (from radionucleotides trapped in tree-rings to chemicals frozen in ice cores), other academics and activists have explored the epoch’s cultural causes and consequences. Aware that our precarious condition necessitates new forms of cognition, these thinkers have begun breaking boundaries that have long separated fields such as anthropology, history, and literature. Through their new approaches to the humanities, they have started redefining humanity, linking decade- and century-long conflicts over gender, race, and class to the thousand- and million-year cycles of biology, geology, and chemistry. Joining these thinkers in the environmental humanities, we will spend the semester experimenting with methods from different academic disciplines—and, in the process, elucidating all-too-human struggles for a more-than-human planet. While we will range back to the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, we will focus on the fallout of 1492, when Europeans began both a genocide against Native North and South Americans and a trade in enslaved Africans, which together fueled the rise of carbon-intensive capitalism. Engaging these events via colonial-era journals, nineteenth-century slave narratives, contemporary Indigenous poetry, and other media, we will try tounderstand why some humans have become so destructive—and how others have remained so resilient. Throughout, we will work both collectively and individually: to enrich our in-class discussions, each student will complete a four- to five-page theoretical essay, a twelve- or thirteen-page research essay, and a small creative project.
For a full syllabus, click here.
Cultures of the US-Mexico Borderlands
In recent years, the US has built a multi-billion-dollar wall along the Mexican border. While the wall may appear to be an anomaly, it rests on longstanding legacies of settler colonialism and racial capitalism. In this seminar, we will look at these legacies through the eyes of the Natives, Latinxs, whites, and others who have lived in the US-Mexico borderlands. Within the confines of literature, we will read novelists like Willa Cather, playwrights like Cherríe Moraga, and poets like Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo). Meanwhile, across the more capacious category of culture, we will engage with promoters who encouraged whites to claim homesteads, periodistas who emboldened Latinxs to protect pueblos, and leaders who helped Natives fight for sovereignty. By blending literary studies and ethnic studies, we will gain a thorough grasp of the territories that have taken shape since the US-Mexico War (1846-48), especially the ones that we currently call Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. From these concrete contexts, we will ask and answer more abstract questions: What are borders—are they physical boundaries, or are they psychosocial conditions? Similarly, what are nations—are they stable and homogeneous groups, or are they flexible and diverse communities? Ultimately, what are human beings—can they be branded as illegal aliens, or do they have inalienable rights? During the semester, we will work through these questions both collectively and individually: to enrich our in-class discussions, each student will complete a four- to five-page close-reading paper, a fourteen- to fifteen-page research paper, and a multimedia borderlands map.
For a full syllabus, click here.
Exploring the Environmental Humanities (Graduate Seminar)
Climate scientists have come to a consensus that the planet has passed into the Anthropocene—a geological epoch in which human societies have a dominant and even determining influence on their nonhuman environments. As these scientists have analyzed the Anthropocene’s material traces (from radionucleotides trapped in tree-rings to chemicals frozen in ice cores), other academics and activists have examined the epoch’s cultural causes and consequences. Aware that our precarious condition necessitates new forms of cognition, these thinkers have begun breaking boundaries that have long separated fields such as anthropology, history, and literary studies. Through their new approaches to thehumanities, they have started redefining humanity, linking decade- and century-long conflicts over gender, race, and class to the thousand- and million-year cycles of biology, geology, and chemistry.
Joining these thinkers in the environmental humanities, we will spend the semester experimenting with methods from different academic disciplines—and, in the process, elucidating some of the struggles that have shaped our planet. While we will range back to the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, we will focus on the fallout of 1492, when Europeans began both a genocide against Native North and South Americans and a trade in enslaved Africans, which together fueled the rise of carbon-intensive capitalism. Engaging these events primarily through scholarship but also through literature, visual art, and other media, we will try to understand why some humans have become so destructive—and how others haveremained so resilient. With any luck, such conversations about our past will cast new light on our present—on the problemsand possibilities that make us so (in)human.
We will begin our time together by tracing the environmental humanities to two points: the critique of “nature” that crested in the 1990s and 2000s, and the arguments about the Anthropocene that have animated the 2010s and 2020s. After analyzing these interdisciplinary debates, we will move into and out of five disciplinary milieu, exploring how the environmental humanities have shaped and been shaped by literary studies, history, anthropology, geography, and capital-T Theory. In this context, we will be able to cultivate what William Cronon might call the “uncommon ground” among theseand other fields, so in the second half of the semester, we will discuss how the environmental humanities have redefined five keywords, “Colonialism,” “Extraction,” “Infrastructure,” “Media,” and “Justice.”
Because the environmental humanities bring together so many academic, artistic, activist, and other endeavors, we will do two types of work. On the one hand, we will wrestle with common readings: over the course of each week, we will create 500-700-word responses, and at the start of each session, we will articulate key concerns in 1-2-minute presentations. On the other hand, we will pursue independent projects, which could involve writing a 25-30-page seminar paper, revising an existing paper for publication, crafting a comprehensive exam list (or, if you are not at that stage, a summer reading list), or any number of other things; depending on enrollment, the last 45-60 minutes of each meeting will be devoted to helping one or two people with their projects.
Through these two types of work, we will come to appreciate the theoretical, methodological, and historiographical advances that have characterized the environmental humanities. More broadly, we will hone the reading, writing, speaking, and thinking skills that are essential to all academic fields. Most importantly, we will gain insight into the ways our all-too-human societies have reimagined and reshaped our more-than-human planet—sometimes for better, but often for worse.
For a full syllabus, click here.
Reimagining and Reshaping North American Environments
Climate scientists have come to a consensus that the planet has passed into the Anthropocene—a geological epoch in which human societies have a dominant and even determining influence on their nonhuman environments. Although these scientists still disagree about the Anthropocene’s starting date—their proposals range from the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution to the post-WWII Great Acceleration—they all see the significance of 1492, when Europeans began both a genocide against Native North and South Americans and a trade in enslaved Africans, which together fueled the rise of carbon-intensive capitalism. As these scientists continue to analyze the Anthropocene’s material traces (from radionucleotides trapped in tree-rings to chemicals frozen in ice cores), environmental humanists are starting to study its cultural causes. To draw on and develop these efforts, our course will explore how all-too-human imaginaries (such as “the frontier,” “the wilderness,” and indeed “the environment”) have contributed to and/or conflicted with more-than-human realities (from air pollution to ocean acidification to global warming) in the territory that has come to be called the United States. Through our readings of colonial-era journals, nineteenth-century slave narratives, contemporary Indigenous poetry, and many other media, we will try to see this territory in its full complexity: a scene of countless crimes, it is also a source for resilient and respectful ideas. During the semester, we will navigate this tricky terrain both collectively and individually: to enrich our in-class discussions, each student will complete a four- to five-page theoretical essay, a thirteen- to fourteen-page research essay, and a natural history mini-exhibit or other small creative project.
For a full syllabus, click here.
Literature and the Environment
In the last two hundred years, our planet has changed at an unprecedented rate: humans have extinguished other species, toxic chemicals have poisoned ecosystems, and greenhouse gases have altered our very atmosphere. In this writing-intensive general-education seminar, we will study Anglo American, Asian American, Black, Latinx, and Native authors who have engaged with these transformations. On the one hand, we will ask a range of literary questions: How have novels, essays, poems, and other forms depicted more-than-human worlds? How have images, symbols, settings, and other devices portrayed (un)natural places? On the other hand, we will pursue a series of historical inquiries: How have literary texts reinforced the ideologies that allow us to (ab)use our environments? Conversely, how have literary texts critiqued destructive policies, illuminated ecological crises, and inspired environmental movements? Throughout, we will pay close attention to the relationships between social conflict and ecological change, and indeed, the indivisibility of these processes; how, we will ask, have gender, race, and class shaped the ways we write and think about environments? Authors include William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, Solomon Northup, Willa Cather, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ana Castillo, Octavia Butler, Helena María Viramontes, Tommy Pico, Amitav Ghosh, Lauren Redniss, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil, supplemented by readings in ecocriticism and the environmental humanities.
For a full syllabus, click here.
Literature Humanities
Since 1937, Columbia faculty and students have come together in a course known variously as “Masterpieces of Western Literature and Philosophy,” “Literature Humanities,” or “Lit Hum.” Even after all these years, those teaching or taking the course still pursue the same fundamental project: by engaging influential examples of what has come to be called “Literature,” we still hone the aesthetic, conceptual, and ethical tools that comprise the “Humanities.” Amid crises both chronic (like climate change) and acute (like COVID-19), some might say this project is self-indulgent or even irrelevant. Yet in our time together, we will ask and answer questions that could not be any more urgent: On the one hand, how have authors as distant as Virgil and Virginia Woolf created cultures that have ever more efficiently exploited themselves, each other, and the planet? On the other hand, how have texts as diverse as The Iliad, The Inferno, and The Metamorphosis drawn attention to these problems—and how, in all their peculiar power, have they paved the way to possible solutions?
When Lit Hum was still in its infancy, the German Jewish critic Walter Benjamin underscored this very urgency, suggestingthat “there is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism.” Following Benjamin, wewill spend this semester appreciating Greek, Roman, and other ancient “civilizations” in their full ambivalence. Most concretely, we will consider how poets such as Sappho and priestesses such as Enheduanna wrought words that havefascinated and/or frustrated generations upon generations. More broadly, we will explore why these words have taken precedence over so many others—and in the US, why these words have been wielded against those racialized as Asian, Black, Latinx, or Native. Finally, we will discuss how these words have drawn on, diverged from, and otherwise related to what Benjamin called “barbarism,” whether in the seafaring empires of the past or the gas-guzzling empires of the present.
It should go without saying that these tasks are all but impossible: even in the best-known texts, there will always beunknowable tensions, and even in the longest-running debates, there will always be new interpretations. Instead of striving for mastery, we will therefore try to tolerate and even celebrate mystery: through our open-ended conversations, we willseek a better (but never the best) understanding of literature—and of humanity.
For a full syllabus, click here.