Year 2: Alan Moore and the Green

ST204 The Green and Eco-Horror

The Green as Moore built it, from Woodrue's oxygen plan to the Parliament of Trees and a planet of sentient plants, read with deep ecology, Gaia, dark ecology and the new field of ecohorror studies. Is Swamp Thing an environmental champion, an eco-Gothic monster, or a warning about both?

6 lessons 6 units 2 assignments

Introduction

ST105 asked what horror knows about nature. This module asks what Moore's Swamp Thing knows, and the answer has become a small academic field. The Green, the collective consciousness of plant life that Woodrue contacts in #22 and the creature enters in #23, is the run's central invention. It gives the swamp-monster type of ST101 a metaphysics: the creature is not a man who became a plant but a plant that is part of everything green, and the question of what he owes to humanity becomes an ecological one.

The module reads the four texts that build the idea: Woodrue's attempt to end animal life (#22 to #24), the creature's first journey into the Green (#23), the Parliament of Trees (#47), and the planet J586 (#61), where a Green Lantern who is a plant mourns his mentor. It reads them with the theory that was in the air when Moore wrote and the theory that has since been written about him: Arne Naess's deep ecology, Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, Timothy Morton's dark ecology, Stacy Alaimo's trans-corporeality, and the ecohorror scholarship of the last decade, including at least one open-access article on Swamp Thing itself.

The assignments are a close reading of #47 and a research essay on whether the Green is an ecological hope, a horror, or both.

Learning objectives

  • Explain the Green as a concept and trace its development across Moore's run.
  • Read the Woodrue storyline, #47 and #61 as ecological arguments.
  • Apply deep ecology, Gaia and dark ecology to the run and test their fit.
  • Engage with published ecocriticism on Swamp Thing, including peer-reviewed work.
  • Explain ecohorror as a field and locate Swamp Thing within it.
  • Write a research essay that uses an open-access scholarly article critically.

Lessons

Unit 1: Week 1: Another green world

The Green as idea and as experience: #22 to #24.

  1. The Green as idea: Woodrue and #22 to #24Woodrue hears the Green and draws the wrong conclusion; the creature enters it and draws a different one.150 min

Unit 2: Week 2: Deep ecology and Gaia

The ecological thought of Moore's decade.

  1. Deep ecology and GaiaNaess and Lovelock, read as the intellectual weather in which the Green was written.150 min

Unit 3: Week 3: The parliament of trees

The elementals' grove, read closely.

  1. The Parliament of TreesIssue #47: the ancient elementals, their silence, and what they tell the creature about the Green and himself.150 min Sample

Unit 4: Week 4: All flesh is grass

The Green off Earth: #61.

  1. All Flesh Is Grass: #61 and the universal GreenA planet of sentient plants, a Green Lantern who is one, and grief as the creature has never seen it.120 min

Unit 5: Week 5: Ecohorror

The field, and the creature's place in it.

  1. Ecohorror as a fieldRust and Soles, Tidwell and Soles, and the question of whether Swamp Thing is a monster, a champion, or a warning.150 min

Unit 6: Week 6: Hope, horror, or both

Synthesis and the research essay.

  1. Hope, horror, or bothThe Green as Moore left it, the scholarship as it stands, and the essay.120 min

Core texts

Secondary reading

Assessment

Two assessed pieces. The first is a close reading of #47, "The Parliament of Trees". The second is a research essay on whether the Green, as Moore wrote it, is an ecological hope, an ecohorror, or both, requiring at least five secondary sources including one peer-reviewed article.

ST204-A1: Close reading: "The Parliament of Trees"

What does The Saga of the Swamp Thing #47 claim about the Green, the lineage of elementals and the creature's future, and how does Stan Woch's art carry or complicate those claims? Argue what the issue believes about stillness and action.

Length
2000 words (1800 to 2200)
Sources
Primary source plus optional secondary research. Primary source plus optional secondary reading. Argument built on the pages of #47.

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ST204-A2: Essay: hope, horror, or both

Is the Green, as Alan Moore wrote it, an ecological hope, an ecohorror, or both at once? Argue a position across at least four issues, using at least one work of ecological theory (Naess, Lovelock, Morton or Alaimo), at least one founding text of ecohorror studies, and Beineke's open-access article, which you must engage with critically.

Length
2500 words (2250 to 2750)
Sources
Research assignment, minimum 5 secondary sources. Research assignment. At least five credible secondary sources including Beineke, one peer-reviewed article and one work of ecological theory; MHRA with page numbers; nothing cited unread.

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Source requirements

Assignment 1 is primary source plus optional secondary reading. Assignment 2 is a research assignment: at least five credible secondary sources, of which at least one is a peer-reviewed article on Swamp Thing or ecohorror and at least one is a work of ecological theory.