We will interpret a variety of texts (literary, cinematic, commercial, etc.) that address the water crisis with a view to understanding how water’s cultural meaning has changed as we have become more conscious of risks in supply (posed by pollution and natural/man-made scarcity) and as access to it is increasingly mediated (as a result of its privatization, commodification, etc.). While no ten-week course could pretend to give a comprehensive and global view of problem as complex as our relation to water, we will study novels, essays, films and other cultural documents from Western Europe, Africa, the Maghreb, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and North and Latin America with a view to understanding the differential distribution of the water crisis and the variety of aesthetic responses to it.