Description
Book SynopsisGreen Matters offers a fascinating insight into the regenerative function of literature with regard to environmental concerns. Based on recent developments in ecocriticism, the book demonstrates how the aesthetic dimension of literary texts makes them a vital force in the struggle for sustainable futures. Applying this understanding to individual works from a number of different thematic fields, cultural contexts and literary genres, Green Matters presents novel approaches to the manifold ways in which literature can make a difference. While the first sections of the book highlight the transnational, the focus on Canada in the last section allows a more specific exploration of how themes, genres and literary forms develop their own manifestations within a national context. Through its unifying ecocultural focus and its variegated approaches, the volume is an essential contribution to contemporary environmental humanities.
Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Part 1: Introduction and Theoretical Frame 1Introduction to the Volume Melanie Braunecker and Maria Löschnigg 2The Function of Literature in Environmental Discourses Maria Löschnigg 3Literature and/as Cultural Ecology Hubert Zapf Part 2: Literature and the Environment: Past and Present 4Representing the Environment in Victorian, Modern, and Postcolonial Fictions: Three Maritime Canadian Novels David Creelman 5‘On the Edge of Humanism’: Travel Writing at the Intersection of Environmental Concerns Halia Koo 6James Joyce’s Ulysses: Vampires, ‘Fake News’, and the Approaching Global Environmental Hunger Crisis Bonnie Roos Part 3: New Approaches to Climate Fiction 7Cli-Fi – Genre of the Twenty-First Century? Narrative Strategies in Contemporary Climate Fiction and Film Axel Goodbody 8Western American Cli-Fi: The Biosemiotics of Ecophrasis Alex Hunt 9Allegory and Human Nature in Ian McEwan’s Solar Johannes Wally 10Un/doing Climate Change in Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book and Ellen van Neerven’s ‘Water’ Iva Polak 11Abject Permanence: Apocalyptic Narratives and the Horror of Persistence Heather Duncan and Eleanor Gold Part 4: Creative Criticism 12Imagination and the Eco-social Crisis (or: Why I Write Creative Non-fiction) Julia Martin 13‘When we walked on the backs of fish’: A Writer’s Environmental Path in the Creation of Multi-dimensional Narratives Marilyn Bowering 14The Multi-genre Multimedia Disjunctive Poetic Narrative Dream Text: ‘New Epic’ Attentions in Contemporary Canadian Experimental Writing Di Brandt Part 5: Special Focus: Canadian Contexts 15Native Knowledge Systems and the Cultural Ecology of Literature Maria Löschnigg 16Climate Change Drama across Time and Space: Chantal Bilodeau’s Forward (2016) Nassim Winnie Balestrini 17The Lure of Fast Money: Staging Fort McMurray Melanie Braunecker 18carried away on the crest of a wave – A Play of Hope by David Yee Albert Rau 19Where the Wild Things Are: The Role of Animals in Canadian Schoolbooks Claire E. Smerdon 20Two Tragic Tales of Ursus canadensis: Animal Perspectives in Charles G.D. Roberts’ The Heart of the Ancient Wood and Antonine Maillet’s L’Oursiade Konrad Gro Index
