Thomas Munro (Yale Environmental Humanities Working Group)

As we continue to navigate the rapidly changing natural and built environments we inhabit, and their intersections and interrelations with human communities, we turn to the humanities to interpret  these shifting landscapes. Humanities scholars have an opportunity to reshape how we think about environmental problems and “the environment” itself. In order to foster this work, Literature, Arts and the Environment (LAE) Colloquium and the Yale Environmental Humanities Program are sponsoring an Environmental Humanities Working Group. This working group hopes to provide an interdisciplinary space in which graduate students and faculty may discuss works-in-progress that engage with environmental questions and themes.

 

This session will feature a work-in-progress by Thomas Munro (Yale Department of Classics). In his paper, Thomas examines the applicability of an ecocritical methodology based on Guattari’s Three Ecologies to ancient literature. As well as providing a case study - a close reading of Catullus’ 64th poem - he demonstrates that using a methodology such as this in the ecocriticism of ancient literature is not only desirable, but necessary, not only allowing us (perhaps counterintuitively) to overcome potential charges of anachronism in approaching pre-modern texts ecocritically, but also opening up a wider range of such texts to ecocritical analysis.

 

Please email abigail.fields@yale.edu to be on the EH working group mailing list (if you are not already included on the list) and to receive Zoom links for our meetings. ***This working group is open to Yale affiliates only. We welcome all members of the Yale community, including faculty, staff, fellows and associates, and students.***