Description
Book SynopsisThis book presents an innovative and imaginative reading of contemporary Australian literature in the context of unprecedented ecological crisis.
The Australian continent has seen significant, rapid changes to its cultures and land-use from the impact of British colonial rule, yet there is a rich history of Indigenous land-ethics and cosmological thought. By using the age-old idea of cosmos'the order of the worldto foreground ideas of a good order and chaos, reciprocity and more-than-human agency, this book interrogates the Anthropocene in Australia, focusing on notions of colonisation, farming, mining, bioethics, technology, environmental justice and sovereignty. It offers cosmological readings' of a diverse range of authorsIndigenous and non-Indigenousas a challenge to the Anthropocene's decline-narrative. As a result, it reactivates cosmos' as an ethical vision and a transculturally important counter-concept to the Anthropocene. Kathrin Bartha-Mitchell argues that the arts
Trade Review
"Kathrin Bartha-Mitchell’s Cosmological Readings of Contemporary Australian Literature is an important new work of Australian ecocriticism. Drawing on recent work on literature and the Anthropocene, Bartha-Mitchell’s book offers a model for reading Australian literature cosmologically. Bartha-Mitchell’s readings emphasise interconnections between beings, agencies and systems that work against the traditional humanistic focus of western prose fiction and offer a critical new dimension to Australian literary studies."
Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, Chair of Australian Literature, The University of Western Australia
"An innovative intervention in the environmental humanities, this thought-provoking study of contemporary Australian literature makes a powerful case for the generative concept of cosmos and, more broadly, for the importance of literary studies within the wider field."
Diletta De Cristofaro, Assistant Professor, Northumbria University, UK
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Literary Cosmology in the Anthropocene Part 1: CONTEXT / THEORY: From Chaos to Cosmos to Anthropocene? 1. Cosmos within and beyond the Environmental Humanities 2. Cosmos Today: Modern, Transcultural, (Dis)enchanted Part 2: COLONISATION / EXPLOITATION: Reimagining Agriculture and Extraction 3. Remembering the Language of Colonial Agriculture: Carrie Tiffany’s Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living 4. Resisting Mining and Regenerating Country through the Wiradjuri Language: Tara June Winch’s The Yield Part 3: BIOETHICS / TECHNOLOGY: Revising Human Mastery Narratives 5. Testing the Limits of Apocalyptic Climate Fiction: Briohny Doyle’s The Island Will Sink 6. Reconsidering Evolution and Queering Environmentalism: Ellen van Neerven’s “Water” Part 4: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE / CUSTODIANSHIP: Towards Sovereign Cosmopolitics 7. Remembering the Opposite of Oppression: Behrouz Boochani’s No Friend but the Mountains 8. Aquatious Mobilisation of Indigenous Sovereignty: Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Much Lip Conclusion
