SUNY ESF
Courses

Tu/Th: 5:00 PM - 6:20 PM
Instructor: Jo Clark 
Fulfills SUNY Gen Ed: World History & Global Awareness.

How do the stories we’ve told for thousands of years shape our relationships with our environments? In this course, we will investigate and interpret folklore, legends, and mythology from around the globe to better understand why humans project our desires and likeness onto nature. Together, we’ll discuss all these questions and more: What does a “cursed” Albanian mountain range have in common with the Alpine glaciers and First Nations stories of the Alaskan panhandle? Why are we fascinated by drowned kingdoms, dragons, cryptids, and more? Monsters and heroes, tragic and transgressive—how and why do these figures carry over into our media, fiction, and art today? Readings will include classic myths, folklore, fairy tales, and modern interpretations of these stories (film, art, fiction, poetry).

M: 3:45 PM - 6:35 PM
Instructor: Jacob Gedetsis
Fulfills SUNY Gen Ed: World History & Global Awareness.

In collaboration with Syracuse Parks and Recreation & Write Out Syracuse, students will host environmental writing workshops at four local city parks encouraging Syracuse youth to engage with their own creative process and the environment. We'll study examples of engaged and public humanities projects across cultures and contexts, and practice ethical, reciprocal ways of working with partners off campus. Throughout the class we will ask how our own creative practice and community-centered pedagogy can support our shared communities, and how our stories, research, and creative work can respond meaningfully in times of social, environmental, and political change.

ASYNC
Instructor: Jacob Gedetsis 
Fulfills SUNY Gen Ed The Arts 

This asynchronous course gives you the space and time to work on your own creative projects. It will introduce the building blocks of storytelling across genres -- fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and digital storytelling-- while asking students to generate their own creative works. Perfect for students with a busy schedule looking for a creative outlet.

Tu/Th: 2:00 PM - 3:20 PM
Instructor: David Snyder
Fulfills SUNY Gen Ed: The Arts.

How do fiction writers make a world come alive for a reader? What makes the reader feel as if they are fully present, participating in the story alongside the characters? This creative writing  course explores how writers and artists use craft elements such as character, dialogue, conflict, point of view, image, and setting to pull readers into their stories. We will read and discuss short model works of fiction, engaging in frequent writing exercises to practice our fiction-writing skills. The course includes revision  and peer feedback components. Readings will include contemporary examples of ecofiction, climate fiction, and more. 3 credits. Applies to Environmental Writing & Rhetoric Minor.

M/W: 5:15 PM - 6:35 PM
Instructor: Dr. Addie Hopes Vincent
Required EWR Core Course

In EWP 300, we will encounter a wide variety of environmental writing, travelling across oceans and centuries. Beginning in the 13th-century with Japanese haiku and medieval bestiaries, we’ll then move through the age of empire and industrialization to examine the rise of "nature writing." From there, we’ll study the activist literatures of modern environmentalist and environmental justice movements, and we’ll end with Indigenous and post-colonial writers who wield literary form as a tool of resistance. Through critical discussions, short analytical writing, and a creative project, we’ll chart a timeline of eco-literary pasts and futures.

M/W: 3:45 PM - 5:05 PM
Instructor: Roxy Spano
Fulfills SUNY Gen Ed The Arts

This course focuses on the impact and analysis of films from cultural, historical, and political perspectives. Students will work together to form a definition for eco-cinema — an adapting genre in an ever-shifting media landscape. Students will watch staples of the genre, as well as make arguments for films that may be outside of the canon. The artistic process in filmmaking is emphasized, as well as the critic’s role. Background knowledge in film is not necessary, but do come ready to watch and discuss with an open mind. One film will be assigned each week, along with in-class activities and occasional supplemental reading.

Tu/Th 5:00 PM - 06:20 PM
Instructor: Dr. Susannah Sharpless 
Fulfills SUNY Gen Ed: U.S. History and Civic Engagement

Students will read influential works of environmental literature and nature writing and discuss how everyday words reflect ideas that span centuries. The novels, poems, autobiographies, speeches, and other types of literature we read will allow us to reckon with historically transformative moments of environmental, scientific, and political change from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Assignments will ask students to respond to texts in a variety of ways, including analytical, creative, and hybrid assignments.

W: 3:45 PM - 6:35 PM
Instructors: Tyler Dorholt & Jason Kohlbrenner

In this hands-on course students will engage with audio, photography, video, and other digital mediums through interactive demos, projects, and discussion. Through the use of audio recorders, cameras, editing software and other tools, students will work both collaboratively and independently to create photo essays, audio stories, and short films. Like writing, Digital Storytelling is concerned with a storyteller's intention and the audiences’ experience. This class will investigate the origins and tools of digital storytelling, while allowing students to learn and interact with the tools to create their own narratives.

Tu/Th: 9:30 AM -10:50 AM
Instructor: Christina Ciereck-Owens

In this collaborative course, students will study a variety of approaches to the genre known as “environmental journalism.” Students will learn about writing for broad publics while crafting their own stories for publication. Much of the course is spent researching, writing, and editing features that are developed and pitched by students. Students work in teams to help refine each other’s work and to engage in the editorial process.