Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on the concept of âœdark ecologyâ and its invitation to add an anti-pastoral perspective to ecocriticism, this collection of essays on American literature and culture offers examples of how a vision of natureâs darker side can create a fuller understanding of humanityâs relation to nature.
Trade ReviewBuilding on Timothy Morton’s concept of 'dark ecology,' Richard Schneider, a leading Thoreau scholar, has assembled a wide-ranging collection of essays that explore an American literary tradition of disturbing, sinister, and fearful encounters with nature. These 'anti-pastoral' writings provide new perspectives on the continually expanding discourse of ecocriticism. -- David M. Robinson, Oregon State University
Offering smart treatments of nature’s disinterest, disease, and horrors, these canon-busting essays on both historical and contemporary print and non-print media jolt ecocriticism away from any remaining tendency to rest in pastoral idealism. -- Rochelle Johnson, College of Idaho
Table of ContentsTable of Contents Richard J. Schneider, “Introduction” Dark Nature and the American Canon 1.Gina Claywell, “’Famine is a Frightful Monster’: Constructing Nature in Colonial Road Trips by Sarah Kemble Knight and William Byrd II” 2.Elizabeth Kubek, “‘Passage into New Forms’: The Negative Ecologies of Charles Brockden Brown” 3.Mark Henderson, “Dutchmen on the Brink: The Ghost Ship as Avatar of Dark (American) Nature in Poe’s ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’” 4.Jesse Curran, “Thoreau’s Week and the Work of the Eco-lament” 5.Frederico Bellini, “The Gnostic Dark Side of Nature in Herman Melville and Cormac McCarthy: Carrying the Fire out of Arcadia” 6.Jennifer Schell, “Fiendish Fumaroles and Malevolent Mud Pots: The EcoGothic Aspects of Owen Wister’s Yellowstone Stories” 7.Monika M. Elbert, “Frontiersmen, Robber Barons, Architects, and the Darkening Aesthetics of Nature in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady” Dark Nature and New Voices 8.Richard J. Schneider, “The Dark Side of Two Nature Writing Genres: Nature Noir and Wisconsin Death Trip” 9. Sarah Daw, “The ‘dark ecology’ of the Bomb: Writing the Nuclear as a part of ‘Nature’ in Cold War American Literature” 10. T. Mera Moore Lafferty, “The Poetry of Adele Ne Jame: Dark Nature, Cosmic Justice, and the Communion of Paradoxology” 11. Rachel Paparone, “Anti-pastoral Imagery and the Search for Cajun Identity” 12. Dana Prodoehl, “(Dark) Nature and Masculinity: The Anti-Pastoralism of Benjamin Percy’s The Wilding” 13. Matthew Masucci, “Hyperobjects, Plant Entelechy, and the Horror of Eco-Colonization in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy” 14. Isabel Galleymore, “’what’s the world but shine//and seem’: ‘Radical Kitsch’ and Mark Doty’s Environmental Poetics” Dark Nature and the Media 15. Anette Vandsoe, “Listening to the Dark Side of Nature” 16. Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann, “Eco-Horror Cinematic Techniques in Television Nature Documentaries: Monsters Inside Me and the Dark Side of Nature” 17. David LaRocca, “Hunger in the Heart of Nature: Werner Herzog’s Anti-Sentimental Dispatches from the American Wilderness (Reflections on Grizzly Man)”
