ENG 2301: British Literature EHUM (Environmental Humanities Section) Dr. Joshua King

*Live Oak near Carroll Science Hall by Joshua King (2025)*

Students in this class journey through over 1,000 years of reflection on trees by writers connected to the British Isles. Trees feature in and shape these authors’ diverse views of nature and human experience—from the relationship of creation to God, to the interconnection of living things, to family trees and belonging, to the beauty and vulnerability of environments, and more. Over the semester, each student visits and writes meditatively about a campus tree. Their resulting Tree Stories open by taking root in observations about their chosen tree, branch into connections to their experiences and class readings, and leaf out into a creative response to their tree that takes inspiration from their reading and can be pursued through multiple media forms. Thanks to Dr. Sarah VerPloeg, Office of Sustainability, and Hector Marines-Chio, Regional Urban Forester, for their assistance with this project.