Description
Book SynopsisHow do poets, writers and cultural critics contend with and represent the garden or their own gardening as they are changed by austerity? Gardening under austerity encompasses a diversity of places, spaces, practices, and actors: suburban allotments and zoological gardens, Victory diggers and urban foragers, human gardeners and the unruly more-than-human world. Theorizing the politics, poetics and practices of austerity gardening in twentieth and twenty-first century Anglophone cultural texts, The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times explores the variegated impact of austerity in conjunction with the representation of the garden in the national context of England in the mid-century, and how garden imagery is embedded within and illuminates the political, economic, and social contexts of literary production.
Trade ReviewWith its emphasis on gardening as a practical and political activity this is a timely collection of essays. Anglophone and post-twentieth century in focus, and ranging in approach from the literary historical to the autoethnographical, this incisive collection offers the fields of garden and plant studies a valuable new contribution. -- Shelley Saguaro, University of Gloucestershire
From fascinating accounts of the nefarious lives of petrochemically-propelled plants like the nettle (aka the `plant thug’) to critical dissections of the environmental impact of the push to intensive farming associated with Britain’s wartime Dig for Victory campaign, The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times is a must read for anyone interested in the cultural politics and history of austerity. Milthorpe should be congratulated on a beautifully curated collection of essays that offers widesweeping insights—from a range of disciplinary perspectives—into the crucial role and place of gardening and plants themselves at the intersection of environmentalism and austerity. -- Tania Lewis, RMIT University
Table of ContentsChapter 1. “Austerity Gardens: The Poetics and Politics of Gardening in Hard Times.” Naomi Milthorpe Roots Chapter 2. “Sissinghurst: A Fantasy of Austerity” Rebecca Nagel Chapter 3. “Digging Up England: Subverting Austerity in Beverley Nichols’s Merry Hall” Naomi Milthorpe Plots Chapter 4. “Narratives of Nettle: Austerity, Medicinal Flora, and the Herb Garden as a Locus of Resistance.” John Charles Ryan Chapter 5. “Gardening in the Anthropocene: Wilding, Eco-Memoir and Biodiversity.” Jessica White Chapter 6. “Zoological Gardens, Austerity and the Extinction of the ‘Last’ Thylacine” Katrina Schlunke and Hannah Stark Paths Chapter 7. “Life on Pig Row: Living with Austerity.” Andrew and Carol Oldham Chapter 8. “A Poetics of Embodied Gardening” Judy Kendall About the Contributors
