Ecocriticism

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Ecocriticism (rarely: eco-criticism ) is an interdisciplinary approach that has developed in literary studies and examines literary texts in the context of ecological aspects. He has emerged since the 1970s in the US and since the publication of The ecocriticism Reader (ed. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, 1996) and of Laurence Buell The Environmental Imagination (1995) one of the most productive and growing fastest branches of international literary studies. In Europe it was established at the latest with the founding of the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and Environment in 2004 (see Gersdorf / Mayer 2005, 2006).

definition

The term probably goes back to William Rueckert's essay "Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism", which was first published in 1978. Another pioneering work is Joseph Meeker's The Comedy of Survival (1974), which introduces the idea of anthropocentrism as a central argument of Ecocriticism: According to Meeker, the ecological crisis can be traced back to the separation of nature and culture and the associated devaluation of nature, which has shaped itself in the western world .

According to a more recent definition by Simon C. Estok, ecocriticism is characterized on the one hand by its ethical commitment to the primary importance of the natural environment, on the other hand by its commitment to connection and complexity as preferred organizational principles of natural and cultural processes (Estok 2001: 220).

In Germany, a strong cultural-ecological variant of Ecocriticism has established itself. With reference to forerunners such as Gregory Bateson (1973) and Peter Finke (1995), Hubert Zapf in particular developed a model of “literature as cultural ecology” that not only shows analogies between literary texts and ecological structures, but also shows literature as ecological ( regenerative , revitalizing) power in the cultural system (Zapf 2002, 2008).

Expressions

Ecocriticism primarily addresses environmental values ​​and crises such as global warming and the loss of biodiversity, but also the dialectics of human and non-human nature. It also examines the extent to which literary representations can help illuminate the problematic aspects of our relationship with the natural world. The main focus is on the way in which nature, landscapes or non-human living beings are represented in literary works.

Two orientations can be distinguished here, the “environmentalists” and the deep ecology . The Environmentalists take up concrete environmental problems and try to articulate them in a public discourse. The aim of the discourse should be a lasting change in consciousness that corrects the specific “wrong” behavior. The human being is and remains the central value-adding authority, from which alone the (new) creation of one's own relationship to the environment can proceed. The deep ecology , however, criticized the centrality of the human being as a vote instance and sets this position a radical ecological value system contrary to what every natural ecosystem its value reserves regardless of the appreciation of the people. The deep ecology demands a fundamental rethinking and a radical reevaluation of all existing values. In summary, the “environmentalists” are concerned with the rational expansion and updating of social problem awareness, the deep ecologists with the spread of a new worldview.

literature

  • Assmann, David-Christopher; Eke, Norbert Otto; Geulen, Eva (ed.): Disposal problems. Garbage in literature. Berlin: Schmidt 2014.
  • Armbruster, Karla and Kathleen R. Wallace, eds. Beyond Nature Writing: Expanding the Boundaries of Ecocriticism . Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 2001.
  • Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind . London: Paladin, 1973.
  • Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture . Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.
  • Dürbeck, Gabriele; Stobbe, Urte; Zapf, Hubert; Zemanek, Evi, ed. Ecological Thought in German Literature and Culture . Lanham / MD: Lexington Books 2017.
  • Estok, Simon C. "A Report Card on Ecocriticism." AUMLA 96 (2001): 200-38.
  • Finke, Peter. "The Evolutionary Cultural Ecology: Backgrounds, Principles and Perspectives of a New Theory of Culture." Anglia 124.1 (2006): 175–217.
  • Gersdorf, Catrin and Sylvia Mayer, eds. Natur - Kultur - Text: Contributions to ecology and literary studies . Heidelberg: Winter, 2005.
  • ---, Ed. Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies: Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism . Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006.
  • Glotfelty, Cherryl, and Harold Fromm, eds. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology . Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996.
  • Goodbody, Axel. Nature, Technology and Cultural Change in Twentieth Century German Literature: The Challenge of Ecocriticism . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  • Gras, Vernon W. "Why the Humanities Need a New Paradigm which Ecology Can Provide." English studies. Announcements of the German Anglists' Association 14.2 (2003): 45–61.
  • Heise, Ursula. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global . Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • Hofer, Stefan: The ecology of literature. A systems theory approach. With a study of the works of Peter Handke. Bielefeld: Transcript 2007.
  • Ireton, Sean. Soiling / Pollution. Frankfurt am Main et al .: Peter Lang, 2014.
  • Kroeber, Karl. Ecological Literary Criticism: Romantic Imagining and the Biology of Mind . New York: Columbia UP, 1994.
  • Meeker, Joseph W. The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology . New York: Scribner's, 1974.
  • Rueckert, William. “Literature and Ecology. An experiment in Ecocriticism. " The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology . Eds. Cherryl Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996. 105-111.
  • Zapf, Hubert. Literature as cultural ecology: On the cultural function of imaginative texts using examples from the American novel . Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002.
  • Zapf, Hubert, ed. Cultural Ecology and Literature: Contributions to a transdisciplinary paradigm in literary studies . Heidelberg: Winter, 2008.
  • Zemanek, Evi, ed. Ecological genres: natural aesthetics - environmental ethics - knowledge poetics . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2017.