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The crises of the Anthropocene compel us to confront environmental catastrophes through reflection, analysis and critique. This class will bring together issues of aesthetics, politics, and artworks that pivot around ecocritical perspectives in the discourse of Anthropocene. We will begin by exploring the key issues in environmental studies by reading Timothy Clark's Literature and the Environment. Moving on to the critical ecology of the Frankfurt School and Marx's ecology, the class will study critiques of anthropocentrism and capitalist production and examines their structure and practice of domination over nature and other humans. We will explore ecological insights by Walter Benjamin and Adorno, the revival of Marxist eco-critique of the metabolic rift of capitalism in John Foster and Brett Clark as well as Kohei Saito's revisionist perspective on Marx ecology. Our critique of anthropocentrism will address post-anthropocentrism as a form of posthumanism--the technologically mediated conditions beyond the human well-articulated by Ross Braidotti. We will explore further Asian environmental traditions of gongsheng (symbiotic, co-becoming) along with an inquiry into contemporary Chinese eco-critical literature and film, including Jia Zhangke's film Still Life. Chinese is not required. Students will do a 15-minute presentation on a reading (10% of grade) and participate in discussion (10% of grade). PhD students are required to write a term paper of 20 pages. MA and undergrads will write two short essays of 6 pages, one as midterm and the other as final work, in response to a list of prompts (80% of grade). The texts for purchase at Stanford or online bookstores. Timothy Clark, Literature and the Environment. Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman. All other readings are on "Files" on Canvas.