In this course, we will examine literary and artistic responses to the scientific genre of the field guide. Field guides are a portable type of publication—a book, a pamphlet, an app—that are typically assist in species identification for a particular region. Despite their factual reputation, they sometimes include jokes, poetry, recipes, elements of memoir, and other literary qualities, and always anticipate a reader to whom they sometimes directly address. Field guides also assume a corresponding relationship between text and image, which could include photography or drawings that are designed to highlight particular features. Scientific field guides have inspired literary responses that situate species identification in relation to broader ecologies that include human beings, climate change, the histories of colonialism and Middle Passage, ecological disasters, sexual diversity, and more. We will examine how the field guide has been taken up creatively as an instructional form that is also oriented towards experimentation, future practices, and action. As a final project, students will each contribute one well-researched and/or creative entry to a class project: a literary field guide to UCSB.

*This course will satisfy the UD seminar requirement*

*This course will satisfy one of the courses needed for the Literature and the Environment Specialization*