ROMS 6000 - Landscape and Technology

(crosslisted) COML 6000, FREN 6000, ITAL 6000, SPAN 6000

Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

K. Pinkus.

The myth of landscape as a natural, external space for human contemplation, gradually ruined by technology, stubbornly refuses to die. How should we read works from a preindustrial past? Is there a precise moment in history when technology comes into what soil scientist Peter Haff calls the postcard picture of landscape? Reading in the original languages where possible, we will begin with foundational pastoral and bucolic texts from the classical, early modern, and Romantic periods before moving to contemporary science/speculative fictions. we will also read recent critical works on the “botanic turn,” terraforming, posthuman ruins, and infrastructure.