Top Research Papers on Ecocriticism

Overlapping and interconnected, interdisciplinary and heterogeneous, amorphous and multi-layered, and deep and broad as it is, countless topics on ecoliterature make ecocriticism a comprehensive catchall term that proposes to look at a text--be it social, cultural, political, religious, or scientific--from naturalist perspectives and moves us from “the community of literature to the larger biospheric community which […] we belong to even as we are destroying it” (William Rueckert). As I was in the middle of writing and researching for this article, I was struck by a piece of nature writing by...

Ecocriticism is one of the most recent trends in literary criticism. Ecocriticism is critical of the ignorance and absence of nature, environment, and the environmental crisis in literary studies. The pioneer ecocritics argue that this indifference of the literary studies is mainly due to the dominant anthropocentric worldview in literary studies.

There is a need for ecocriticism to evolve from the shallow ecocriticism to the deep ecocriticism. Arne Naess,a Norwegian ecosopher,develops gestalt ontological ecocriticism, which acknowledges hierarchies of wholes and their non-external, non-extensional, internal relations. He also puts emphasis on maximizing the manifestations of all life. On the basis of this, the theory of spontaneous experience is introduced to serve the purpose of developing ecocriticism, which accounts for the limitations of regional protection of the eco-enviroment nowadays.

Key words: sustainable development, globalization, environmental justice, environmental disasters This brief article provides an overview of the recently established chapter of ASLE-Taiwan, the result of efforts and contributions made by scholars from leading universities interested in environmental issues and specializing in ecocriticism and environmental literature for more than a decade. Worthy of my special mentioning is the contributions made by the English Department of Tamkang University, one of the leading institutions focusing on ecocriticism in its PhD program. Tamkang University has...

Abstract This review of publications in the field of ecocriticism in 2019 comprises seven sections: 1. Introduction: Ecocriticism, Climate Change, and COVID-19; 2. Anthropocene Ecocriticism; 3. Affective Ecocriticism; 4. Postcolonial Ecocriticism; 5. Zoocriticism and Phytocriticism; 6. Ecocriticism and Ecomedia Studies; 7. Conclusion. The review focuses on six monographs, one edited book, and two journal issues. Ecocriticism publications in 2019 reflect an imperative to devise new means of signification in response to planetary concerns. The biospheric urgencies of the Anthropocene and its cat...

   The task of the author’s project “ecology without nature” is to use deconstruction to counteract prevailing normative ideas about nature for the sake of sentient beings suffering under catastrophic environmental conditions. Timothy Morton sees in the very idea of nature itself one of the obstacles to truly ecological politics, ethics, philosophy, and art. He calls for a thorough study of how nature is defined as a transcendental, unified and independent category. The study of how art represents the environment makes it possible to see that “nature” is an arbitrary rhetorical construct, devo...

Much ecocriticism scholarship published in 2021 sought to tackle the question of environmental emergency. The work considered in this essay covers a considerable range of topics, temporalities, and spaces, ranging from British histories of industrial extraction to Canada’s polluted waterways in the present, and draws upon an array of disciplinary contexts, including work from literary theory, media studies, the environmental humanities, waste and discard studies, Black studies, feminist theory, and Indigenous studies. I examine works that suggest new ways of understanding our current ‘crisis...

Summary Could it be that the most important function of literature today is to redirect human consciousness to a full consideration of its place in a threatened natural world? Literary scholarship and literature itself are, on the most fundamental level, associated with human values and attitudes. We should, as critics and teachers of literature, consider how literary expression challenges and directs readers to decide what in the world is important to them. We can't afford to shy away from the issue of values -this is the proper domain of literary studies and it's one reason why the humanitie...

Ecocriticism describes and confronts the socially uneven encounters and entanglements of earthly living. As a political mode of literary and cultural analysis, it aims to understand and intervene in the destruction and diminishment of living worlds. A core premise is that environmental crises have social, cultural, affective, imaginative, and material dimensions. Although ranging in its critical engagements across historical periods, cultural texts, and cultural formations, ecocriticism focuses on the aesthetic modes, social meanings, contexts, genealogies, and counterpoints of cultural practi...

British and American ecocriticism arised in the same environmental crisis background in the mid-20th century which the western industrialized society was confronted. American literary scholars firstly introduced ecological perspective into literary studies and coined the term "ecocriticism" to name the their experiment. Meanwhile, with similar background and the inspiration of American ecocriticism, British scholars began their ecocritical research. They all realize the significance of ecological consideration to literary field and ecosphere. They work together to a shool of eco-oriented liter...

Ecocriticism is one of the schools of literary criticism concerned with the representation of the environment and ecological issues in the works of literature. It tries to find possible solutions to correct contemporary ecological situations by analyzing the ways nature and environment are presented in literature. Ethiopia has been possessed enormous traditional, cultural and natural resources with different range of latitudinal position and topography which creates variation in climate conditions and diverse biodiversity. However, we are poor because of our lack of ecological consciousness an...

ABSTRACT A range of possible ecocritical responses to the June 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum decision are reviewed. English nationalism is identified as a key factor in Leavers’ cultural identity, which motivates close attention to contemporary defences of the English countryside and depictions of English ethnic identity and pastoral loss. The potential for empathetic and depolarising treatment of conservative cultures of nature is assessed.

The supposed interdisciplinariness which humanistic sciences, such as philology and anthropology, often claim remains, as often as not, in simple wordiness, particularly in the area of ecocriticism. Most specialists tend to ignore the techniques and methods of other disciplines, and therefore researchers lack the benefit which could come out of their intersection. The spanish case is clear; despite the fact that the Americanist anthropology which is practiced in Spain is clearly of an ecocritical bent, one does not perceive in debate forums or publications any encounters between philology and ...

Ecocriticism is a literary critical school rising in the 1990s with the intensification of ecological crisis.It is the study of the relationship between literature and environment.Ecological studies are targeted on re-examining culture and digging up the cultural roots of the ecological crises.Scholars of humanities and social sciences may contribute their efforts to the construction of environment-friendly society through their work of eradicating the old ideologies.This is where the value of ecological studies may be found.This paper is a general review of ecocriticism from the following asp...

Vancouver, BC, 9 January 2015Chair: Lissa Schneider-RebozoThe year 2015 saw the Modern Language Association turn broadly toward ecocriticism and environmental humanities (the Vancouver conference was the first to host a recognized forum on such topics). Contributing to this momentum was the timely and well-attended panel, "Conrad and Ecocriticism," which was sponsored by the Joseph Conrad Society of America and moderated by Lissa Schneider-Rebozo.Panelists Mark Deggan, Nidesh Lawtoo, Aleksandr Prigozhin, and Jeffrey McCarthy discussed the complex interaction of bodies, natures, and politics wi...

While from a formal perspective, ecocriticism barely exists in Swiss literature departments, there is significant interest and publications on environmental approaches to literature and culture, under different guises. Research on concepts of landscape, nature and place are multiple in English, German and Spanish departments. There is significant activity in the field of environmental ethics and human-animal relations. Moreover, some innovative research such as cultural representations of acoustic ecology, environmental risk, or changing perceptions and attitudes towards nature in scientific t...

Abstract: This essay argues that ecocriticism today has acclimatized transnational perspectives, and that transnationalization of ecocriticism explains its propensity to move beyond its insular focus on geographical and U.S.-based paradigms. In its transition from what Ursula Heise calls “ethics of proximity to a cosmopolitan ethic”, ecocriticism is constructing a vision of “ecoglobalism”. Sketching a broad overview of this development, I contend that transnationalization of ecocriticism does not necessarily induce an opposition between the local and global sense of place; rather, ecocriticism...

value that Saidian post-colonial theory can gain from combination with works from political economy. With this case study, Spencer articulates the utility of political economy in developing a richer understanding of the key contemporary debates that post-colonial theory grapples with. It is an excellent conclusion to this book as it applies the theoretical frameworks that have been argued for and developed throughout the volume. This analysis is both salient and insightful; it shows that the methodology debated throughout this volume has tangible application, and an event as imminently impactf...

Review of the thematic issue of Nerter, a Spanish literary journal, on Ecocriticism.Recension del monografico sobre Ecocritica de Nerter, una revista literaria espanola.

      Ecocriticism has gained visibility in Turkish academia in the early 2000s. This essay offers a brief analysis of the status of the field in Turkey and sheds light on the growing interest in ecology in both academic and non-academic circles. I first overview the academic conventions and publications that provided the initial momentum for the birth of Turkish ecocriticism. I examine past and current trends in ecocritical studies by surveying the latest academic publications, literary works and traditions that lend themselves to ecocritical analyses, and specific ecological questions pertin...

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Situated between Europe and Asia, and surrounded by three seas, Turkey comprises a diverse environmental and cultural tapestry. Ecocriticism and Turkey is the first in-depth study to explore Turkish literary and cultural engagements with the environment. Ergin examines a wide range of ecocritical issues across four thematically organized chapters: "Sea," "Climate," "Routes," and "Animals." Each chapter addresses various dimensions of anthropogenic ecological change and highlights the role of literature in inspiring hope and action. The book takes readers on various journeys from the coasts of...

Islands have long been the subject of cultural fascination, but in recent decades, they have exerted an increasingly powerful centrifugal force, sending writers to the outer edges of the British-Irish archipelago in search of inspiration and insight. Drawing on contemporary ecocritical approaches, island studies, and emergent archipelagic perspectives, Ecocriticism and the Island explores a wide selection of island-themed creative non-fiction. Through a combination of textual analysis, and, where possible, original interviews and archival research, Pippa Marland offers new insights into the ...

The Value of Ecocriticism offers a brief, incisive overview of the fast-changing field of environmental literary criticism in a bewildering age of global environmental threat. The intellectual, moral and political complexity of environmental issues, especially at the global scale (the so-called 'Anthropocene') forms a new challenge of inventiveness for both literature and criticism. Ecocriticism has been going through a period of radical change and has become a diverse and huge field on the exciting but unstable boundary between the humanities and the sciences, with a mix of cultural, politica...

This article is about literature, culture and landscapes with the addition of translation. My intention is twofold. First I aim to call the attention of Ecocriticism to the importance of translated texts as main texts; secondly, I will emphasise the opening of a new perspective in Translation Studies related to this new way of thinking about the relationships between literature and place when translating it. In order to perform this task, Walden, a signicant piece of work in Ecocriticism, by D. H. Thoreau, and some translated versions of this work into Spanish are the object of study.First I w...

The Cinema of the PrecariatThe Real Population BombThe Cambridge History of TurkeyTurkey in PicturesPlanet of SlumsThe Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World FictionThe Oxford Guide to Literature in English TranslationFuture CitiesThe Acoustics of the Social on Page and ScreenZombiescapes and Phantom ZonesRepair, Brokenness, BreakthroughBerji KristinDesigning America's Waste LandscapesLanguage in MindQuestions of Cultural IdentityInterdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in HumanitiesUnseen CityWriting Outside the NationWho's who in Contemporary Women's WritingScape...

Timothy Clark. 2019. The Value of Ecocriticism. New York: Cambridge University Press.Eduardo V. Oyarzun, Rebeca G. Valverde, Noelia M. García, María C. Jiménez, and Rebeca C. Sánchez, eds. 2020. Avenging Nature: The Role of Nature in Modern and Contemporary Art and Literature. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Key words: environmental ethics, acoustic ecology, environmental risk, interdisciplinarity While from a formal perspective, ecocriticism barely exists in Swiss literature departments, there is significant interest and publications on environmental approaches to literature and culture, under different guises. Research on concepts of landscape, nature and place are multiple in English, German and Spanish departments. There is significant activity in the field of environmental ethics and human-animal relations. Moreover, some innovative research such as cultural representations of acoustic ecolog...

In recent years, medieval studies has seen a flourishing of new ecocritical and environmental inquiries to literature, art, and culture. These new approaches, drawing upon the material, spatial , and post-human turns in humanities research, have directed scholarly attention to representations and histories of the nonhuman, and to the inarguable necessity of studying both human/human and human/non-human interactions in texts and cultures. Medieval Ecocriticisms is the first regular venue dedicated to medieval ecocritical studies, and seeks out the most current and innovative interdisciplinary a...

Foreword by Ursula Heise Acknowledgements Introduction by Yuki Masami Chapter 1: Exploring Ecocritical Perspectives by Juxtaposing The Tale of Genji's "Suma" chapter with Folktales by Marjorie Rhine Chapter 2: Taoka Reiun and Environmental Thought in the Early 1900s by Ronald Loftus by Chapter 3: Kyoko Matsunaga Radioactive Discourse and Atomic Bomb Texts: Ota Yoko, Sata Ineko, and by Hayashi Kyoko Chapter 4: Abe Kobo in Ecosophy by Toshiya Ueno Chapter 5: Literary ground opened in fissures: The Great East Japan Earthquake and Oe Kenzaburo's In Late Style by Haga Koichi Chapter 6: Oe and the U...

As a theory of literary criticism started in the middle of 1990s in Europe and America, Ecocriticism studies the relationship between literature and the natural environment. Although it is newly born, it has become a focus of attention of the Chinese and western scholars. The author of the thesis attempts to make a comprehensive study of the Ecocriticism theories to clarify its definition and ultimate goal.

It is common to think of English as a cultural subject rather than an environmental one. Traditionally teachers of English have been hailed as 'the preachers of culture' (Matthieson 1975) with a mission to develop both personal and national identity. Despite a shift towards explicit teaching of literacy as the main concern of English, a focus on the personal and cultural mission of English is still deeply important to teachers and remains within curriculum guidance in New Zealand (and other English speaking countries such as England and the US).

Maurice Merleau‐Ponty was in his last years deeply concerned with the problems of bioethics and the flesh of the world in the biota....

Key words: rhizomatic trajectory, third wave, postmodern ecocriticism, Deleuze and Guattari, interconnected approaches, ecocritical heterogeneity, multiplicity of theories In its third wave, ecocriticism has become multicultural and transnational, and expanded rapidly in terms of epistemological positions and interpretive methods. Its very multiple directions and methodological and theoretical plurality may appear problematic. However, ecocritical theory and practice are not arbitrary or ‘ambivalently open’, but rather pursue a trajectory summed up by Deleuze and Guattari in the image of the r...

Introduction to the special section; Mythology and Ecocriticism: A Natural Encounter Introduction

Introduction to the special section; Mythology and Ecocriticism: A Natural Encounter Introduction

How effectual is ecocriticism at practically addressing our most pressing and poignant global environmental issues? What hope through words? We organized this special issue of the Journal of Ecocriticism to consider the application and relevance of our-kind-of-thing, this marriage between words, texts, and earth; between criticism and trees; between the library carrel and the Greenland ice sheet. Tasked to consider how such a project operates within the strictures of ephemeral literary criticism while simultaneously considering what happens on the ground, “The Function of Ecocriticism” demands...

Serious concerns have been circulating in academia regarding humanities and how they have been relegated to the backbenches. Data reveal a remarkable decline in submissions for humanities if compared to non-humanities. The current paper proposes that despite this decline, humanities have always been and will continue to be a moving force in shaping intellectual attitudes worldwide. To prove this standpoint, the author employs ecocriticism and eco-poetry as influential sub-disciplines of humanities. With the rocket-speed changeability of the present time, ecocriticism and eco-poetry play a cruc...

Contributos resultantes de encontro científico ocorrido entre 30 de junho e 2 de julho de 2022 na Universidade Fernando Pessoa (Porto) sobre as problemáticas do Antropoceno e da Ecocrítica,em especial sobre a relação entre o ser humano e a natureza, e o impacto global da ação humana no nosso planeta, produzidos por duas dezenas de investigadores de três continentes que cruzaram os seus diferentes pontos de vista disciplinares, nomeadamente os das Geociências e das Ciências Sociais, das Humanidades e das Artes, das Engenharias e das Tecnologias.

Ecocriticism in South Africa has enlightened us in many aspects:the major task for ecocriticism should be to examine and eradicate the psychological and cultural roots leading to ecological crisis;ensure ecologically sustainable development;cultivate the sense of ecological identity;get rid of ecophobia and establish an equal,friendly and harmonious relationship between man and nature.These are also the urgent issues for ecocriticism to explore in China and the rest of the world.

As a relatively new movement in cultural studies, ecocriticism has been remarkably free of theoretical infighting. There have been debates about emphasis and omission, but these have not directly challenged the positions of the originators of the movement. They have rather pointed to new directions for research into ecofeminism, toxic texts, urban nature, Darwinism, ethnic literatures, environmental justice and virtual environments, for example. Ecocriticism has not developed a methodology, although its emphasis on interdisciplinarity assumes that the humanities and science should be in dialog...

“Where does the posthuman dwell? At what address? And in what type of house?” These questions, borrowed from the opening of Deborah Amberson and Elena Past’s essay on “Gadda’s Pasticciaccio and the Knotted Posthuman Household,” tickle our eco -accustomed ears – ears that more often than not like to take ideas back to their earthly dwelling, something that the Greek all-too famously called oikos . In our case, however, to provide the right answer to these questions is definitely challenging and might require a little “veering.” The reason is simple: situated by definition in a mobile space of m...

Art is subversive when it crosses the boundary of the generally acceptable, though over time such art can and does become mainstream. A much more complicated question is what is subversive in aesthetics? Ecocriticism has already become, along with ecofeminism and animal studies, an academic discipline. It can be defined as subversive if it is understood in terms of an attitude, which is not anthropocentric. And here is the catch: how can the human also encompass the alien? The question that emerges here is all but rhetorical: how can we decentre and amplify our human consciousness and perspect...

Ecocriticism has come a long way since its beginning. It has divergent trajectories that evoked different striking terms like ‘wave’, the ‘rhizome’ and ‘palimpsest’. Lawrence Buell defines the first two waves of ecocriticism in his book The Future of Environmental Criticism (2005) and extends the development in the field to third and fourth wave. Whereas Rayson K. Alex identifies and contextualizes three phases of ecocriticism in India starting from 1980’s to present day. Alex distinguishes Indian ecocriticism from western ecocriticism. In the present scenario, various conferences and seminars...

According to Indian philosophy, human body is said to be formed of five elements – Panchtattva, namely earth (prithvi), water (apas), fire (agni), air (vayu) and aether (akasha). From the birth of an individual till his death, the Indian way of life is closely connected to nature. From home hearths to the funeral pyres, wood and fire are predominantly present. A newborn is consecrated with the holy waters of Ganges and the ashes of the dead are immersed in the same holy water. Indians have long had an intense connection with nature. This connection is clearly reflected in the Indian mythology....

In the 1970s the relationship between literature and the environment emerged as a topic of serious and widespread interest among writers and scholars. The ideas, debates, and texts that grew out of this period subsequently converged and consolidated into the field now known as ecocriticism."A Century of Early Ecocriticism" looks behind these recent developments to a prior generation's ecocritical inclinations. Written between 1864 and 1964, these thirty-four selections include scholars writing about the green aspects of literature as well as nature writers reflecting on the genre.In his introd...

Organized around a set of principles rather than a unified theoretical approach, ecocriticism considers the relationship between humans and nonhumans, especially as expressed in texts. Despite calls from some for ecocritics to rally around a unified theory, ecocritics have embraced the inclusivity that such broad definition has allowed. Thus, practitioners have come to ecocriticism with a range of interests. Such interests vary from an earlier focus on how the human/nonhuman relationship was fractured (and its recuperation in nature writing in particular) to a later emphasis on how it is alway...

The first few frames of the Belgian comic-strip artist Raymond Macherot's work “Les Croquillards” (1957) provide a shorthand for some of the issues that concern environmentally oriented criticism, one of the most recent fields of research to have emerged from the rapidly diversifying matrix of literary and cultural studies in the 1990s. A heron is prompted to a lyrical reflection on the change of seasons by a leaf that gently floats down to the surface of his pond (see the next p.): “Ah! the poetry of autumn … dying leaves, wind, departing birds…” This last thought jolts him back to reality: “...

Ecocriticism ist ein Forschungsfeld, das derzeit auch im deutschsprachigen Raum hoch im Kurs steht. Wie die Bezeichnung bereits andeutet, stammt die Forschungsrichtung ursprünglich aus dem anglophonen Bereich. Den Begriff “Ecocriticism” führte Rueckert (1978) in die wissenschaftliche Diskussion ein, um mögliche Verknüpfungen zwischen Literatur und Ökologie zu erkunden. Nach einer allgemeinen, sehr basalen Definition untersucht die ökokritische Forschung im weitesten Sinn das Verhältnis zwischen Literatur und Umwelt (Glotfelty 1996: xviii) bzw. zwischen Kultur und Natur, das sich aus ökokritisc...

Ecocriticism has been one of the widely discussed terms in the present times owing to the ecological disturbances all throughout the globe. No country, no continent has escaped the wrath of Mother Nature. In order to find a viable solution to this ever increasing and ever challenging threat, various disciplines have to come together as a wholesome group so that ecological awareness can be generated in all walks of life. Ecocriticism is one such interdisciplinary study which brings together both literature and ecology to address ecological problems. The present study is a small step in this dir...