ENVS 059A. Religion and Nature in the African Diaspora: Wonder Signs & Portents

Cross-listed with RELG 041B
Wonder is the province of the wide-eyed child in the woods, and the wild-eyed scientist in the lab. Wonder at the world is prompted by the odd and uncanny, the strange and novel, the transcendent and sublime, as well as encounters with the monstrous and horrific. This course centers the experience of natural wonder and awe as a primary religious impulse of the African Diaspora. Through an affect theory frame that approaches religious experience through embodied emotions, this course chronicles several spectacular cosmic-planetary events across the African Diaspora that so overwhelmed their observers they formed the basis for religious expression. Additionally, students will contextualize these events and interpret their religious expressions as an ecocritical commentary upon the Black Diasporic experience. Topics covered include: Annular Solar Eclipse of 1831, Meteor Storm of 1833, the Great Comet of 1910, the 2010 Haitian earthquake, Atlantic basin hurricanes, etc.
Humanities
1 credit.
Eligible for ENVS
Spring 2025. Padilioni.
Catalog chapter: Environmental Studies
Department website: Environmental Studies

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