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Please come to this semester’s introduction to Spring 2025 courses in the major. You’ll hear brief presentations on courses for faculty, hang out with fellow majors, and get a literal free lunch (pizza, sodas, snacks) as well. There’s also a free book giveaway. So come by! The link below leads to a flyer: share widely.

Spr24Introduction to Spring Courses

If you can’t make it live, we’ll be zooming as best we can, so at least you can hear about the classes. Here’s the link:

In Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide, the chapters “Memory” to “Kratie” emphasize the importance of people’s experiences and how they are fundamental to their relationships. These experiences shape how we all see the world. This is the experience Piya, Fokir, and Kanai have. They all come from different backgrounds, but they have this personal connection to the Sundarbans that ultimately helps them build a relationship with each other and face deeper topics in the novel.

Piya, a marine biologist who comes to the Sundarbans to study river dolphins, goes there for research because she has memories of her childhood there. Piya’s memories affect the relationship she has with the land and help her on this journey to study the dolphins of the land. Fokir has a different experience from Piya, where he is a fisherman from the Sundarbans, and he helps Piya find the dolphins. The land is his home, and while he may not be as educated as her, his raw knowledge helps her, and this creates a relationship between them even though they don’t speak the same language. Kanai is the middle between Piya and Fokir. Kanai returns to the Sundarbans to settle his aunt’s affairs. He views situations analytically. This is different than Piya and Fokir because Kanai embodies the challenges faced by those who try to bridge the gap between urban and rural identities.

As a group, they all support each other because their different experiences are like a puzzle; they all have different pieces that make a larger image. Throughout the novel, their experiences help each other in their journeys. Kanai initially feels disconnected from the Sundarbans and its people, which shows how urban life can sometimes create gaps between people and their surroundings. As he spends time with them, he learns to understand the struggles faced by the community. Piya then realizes that her scientific work is connected to the lives of the local people who rely on the land. Fokir’s understanding of the land is what makes conservation methods possible. Including local voices and traditions in these efforts is important since people and nature are important in this region.

Reading this, I was reminded of The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler because Lauren has a similar experience when she is creating this new community. Some people come from different backgrounds, and while this comes with limitations and risks due to the conditions they are living in, this also helps her. She meets people who are sharers like her and people who come from different backgrounds, and this helps her because she is able to learn from and relate to them. They all have this common goal that they want to find a stable and safe place to be, and they realize they need each other to do it. Everyone brings something to the table.

This happens in this novel as well because Fokir, Kanai, and Piya all care about the Sundarbans, and while it starts with finding these dolphins, this opens the gates to making deeper connections with the environment around them that means something to them. They all have different experiences and memories, but this commonplace brings them together and moves them to take action.

Ghosh in this novel is trying to bring together people and their experiences and using this as a way to address bigger issues in the environment. In the novel, Fokir, Piya, and Kanai are different people who are connected to Sundarbans. This makes the reader think about our connections to places. Ghosh wants to emphasize that everything is connected. This is nature, people, and our memories.

In Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide, he unapologetically uses the theme of Man vs. Nature. The story occurs in Lusibari which is covered in islands, rivers, forests, and man-eating animals such as crocodiles, snakes, and Bengal tigers. This novel suggests that the struggle to survive in the natural world seems entirely unhospitable to humans. The residents of Sundarbans constantly live through this every day. The book follows Piya, a cetologist from Seattle on a trip researching river dolphins in the Sundarbans when she meets a local fisherman, Fokir who is the only person able to help her complete her research. Piya and Fokir’s connection to nature is very evident within the story but also symbolic of their relationship. while both of them come from different worlds, they both share experiences in the natural environment that later create a deeper bond between them rather than Khani and Piya. Their connection to nature is further emphasized during the storm when Fokir ties them to a tree, trusting nature to protect them. Fokir’s actions symbolize his respect for nature and his willingness to share his knowledge with Piya, which helps her develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural world.

In The Hungry Tide, a mob of villagers attacks and kills a tiger that killed two people previously. Piya’s relationship with the natural world is tested here. Piya prioritizes animals over people who may be harmed by those animals on a regular basis.”Because it was people like you,” said Kanai, “who made a push to protect the wildlife here, without regard for the human costs. And I’m complicit because people like me … have chosen to hide these costs, basically in order to curry favor with their Western patrons. It’s not hard to ignore the people who’re dying—after all, they are the poorest of the poor.”(Ghosh 248-49) Piya and Kanai’s conversation about the tiger killing highlights the complex theme of man vs. nature in the novel.  Piya is horrified by the villagers’ actions, but Kanai challenges her perspective by pointing out the harsh realities faced by the local people. He argues that conservation efforts, often led by outsiders like Piya, prioritize wildlife over the human lives that are directly impacted by these animals. This conversation emphasizes the tension between preserving nature and protecting human communities. The theme of man vs. nature is further illustrated by the villagers’ response to the tiger. Despite conservation laws, the villagers feel compelled to protect themselves from the immediate threat posed by the tiger. This reflects the broader struggle of the Sundarbans’ residents, who live at the mercy of a natural world that is both beautiful and deadly. The novel suggests that while humans may attempt to control or coexist with nature, they remain vulnerable to its indifference and power.

1. What are some ongoing debates about definitions of cli-fi or Anthropocene fiction as a genre, and how does Jones position Ghosh’s novel within those debates? Note how the author cites two prior arguments regarding “the novels of the Anthropocene” and rejects both, creating space for their own, new approach.
2. How does Jones untie the complex knot the novel ties around the fate of the refugees in Morichjhapi? Do you buy this reading?
3. What are the “two discourses” that Jones points out that characterize the way climate refugees tend to be viewed and interpreted? What alternatives does he present to these problematic discourses?
4. How does Jones read Ghosh’s novel within a longer literary history of representations of utopia? How is The Hungry Tide both like and unlike classic utopias, from Thomas More’s to the present?
5. Where should we look for Anthropocene fiction? What are the arguments for the preeminence of science fiction in this field, and how does Jones revise this consensus? How does Jones’s argument relate to Ghosh’s from earlier in the term?