The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism

The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism provides a broad survey of the longstanding relationship between literature and the environment. The moment for such an offering is opportune in many respects: multiple environmental crises are increasingly inescapable at both transnational and local levels; the role of the humanities in addition to technology and politics is increasingly recognized as central for exploring and finding solutions; and the subject of ecocriticism has reached a kind of critical mass, both within its Anglo-American heartlands and beyond. From its origins in the study of American Nature Writing and British Romanticism, ecocriticism has developed along numerous theoretical, historical, cultural and geographical axes, the most contemporary and exciting of which will be represented in the Handbook. The contributors include eminent founders of the field, including Michael Branch and Richard Kerridge, a number of key 'second-wave' ecocritics, and the best up-and-coming scholars. Topics covered include: Renaissance anxieties about nature; the challenges of representing climate change; the racialization of the environment in the early 20th century; language and the concept of biosemiotics; and the possibilities for environmental humour.

Greg Garrard is the author of Ecocriticism (Routledge 2004), as well as numerous essays and articles. Currently, he is FCCS Sustainability Professor at the University of British Columbia, a National Teaching Fellow of the British Higher Education Academy, and a founding member and former Chair of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.

Preface - Cheryll Glotfelty Part I - History 1. Chapter 1 - Being Green in Late Medieval English Literature - Gillian Rudd 2. Chapter 2 - Shadows of the Renaissance - Robert N. Watson 3. Chapter 3 - Romanticism and Ecocriticism - Kate Rigby 4. Chapter 4 - Cholera, Kipling and Tropical India - Pablo Mukherjee 5. Chapter 5 - Ecocriticism and Modernism - Anne Raine 6. Chapter 6 - Pataphysics and Postmodern Ecocriticism: A Prospectus - Adam Dickinson Part II - Theory 7. Chapter 7 - Ecocriticism and the Politics of Representation - Cheryl Lousley 8. Chapter 8 - Phenomenology - Timothy Clark 9. Chapter 9 - W. E. B. Du Bois at the Grand Canyon: Nature, History, and Race in Darkwater - John Claborn 10. Chapter 10 - Feminist Science Studies and Ecocriticism: Aesthetics and Entanglement in the Deep Sea - Stacy Alaimo 11. Chapter 11 - Deconstruction and/as Ecology - Timothy Morton 12. Chapter 12 - Queer Life? Ecocriticism After the Fire - Catriona Sandilands 13. Chapter 13 - Ecocriticism, Posthumanism, and the Biological Idea of Culture - Helena Feder 14. Chapter 14 - Postcolonialism - Elizabeth DeLoughrey 15. Chapter 15 - Extinctions: Chronicles of Vanishing Fauna in the Colonial and Post-Colonial Caribbean - Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert 16. Chapter 16 - Cosmovisions: Environmental Justice, Transnational American Studies, and Indigenous Literature - Joni Adamson 17. Chapter 17 - Biosemiotic Criticism - Timo Maran 18. Chapter 18 - Ferality Tales - Greg Garrard 19. Chapter 19 - Mediating Climate Change: Ecocriticism, Science Studies, and The Hungry Tide -Adam Trexler Part III - Genre 20. Chapter 20 - Ecocritical approaches to literary form and genre: urgency, depth, provisionality, temporality - Richard Kerridge 21. Chapter 21 - Are You Serious? A Modest Proposal for Environmental Humor - Michael P. Branch 22. Chapter 22 - Is American Nature Writing Dead? - Daniel J. Philippon 23. Chapter 23 - Rethinking Eco-Film Studies - David Ingam 24. Chapter 24 - Green Banjo: The Ecoformalism of Old-Time Music - Scott Knickerbocker 25. Chapter 25 - Media Moralia: Reflections on Damaged Environments and Digital Life - Andrew McMurry 26. Chapter 26 - The Contemporary English Novel and its Challenges to Ecocriticism - Astrid Bracke 27. Chapter 27 - Environmental Writing for Children: A Selected Reconnaissance of Heritages, Emphases, Horizons - Lawrence Buell 28. Chapter 28 - "A Music Numerous as Space": Cognitive Environment and the House that Lyric Builds - Sharon Lattig 29. Chapter 29 - Talking About Climate Change: The Ecological Crisis and Narrative Form - Ursula Kluwick Part IV - Conclusion 30. Chapter 30 - Engaging with Prakriti: A Survey of Ecocritical Praxis in India - Swarnalatha Rangarajan 31. Chapter 31 - Chinese Ecocriticism in the Last Ten Years - Qingqi Wei 32. Chapter 32 - Ecocriticism in Japan - Yuki Masami 33. Chapter 33 - German Ecocriticism: An Overview - Axel Goodbody 34. Chapter 34 - Barrier Beach - Rob Nixon