Bücher der Reihe Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism

Drawing inspiration from Timothy Morton's concept of the "mesh" as a metaphor for the human-nonhuman relationship in the face of climate change, Marco Caracciolo investigates how narratives in genres such as the novel and the short story employ formal devices to channel the entanglement of human communities and nonhuman phenomena.

"In a narrative that touches on topics ranging from seed banks to science fiction to birdwatching, Callaway argues--through a variety of media and genres--that there is no set, generally accepted way to measure biodiversity"--

The calamitous impacts of climate change that are beginning to be felt around the world today expose the inextricability of human and natural histories. Arguing for a more complex account of such calamities, Kate Rigby examines a variety of past disasters, from the Black Death of the Middle Ages to the mega-hurricanes of the twenty-first century, revealing the dynamic interaction of diverse human and nonhuman factors in their causation, unfolding, and aftermath. Focusing on the link between the ways disasters are framed by the stories told about them and how people tend to respond to them in practice, Rigby also shows how works of narrative fiction invite ethical reflection on human relations with one another, with our often unruly earthly environs, and with other species in the face of eco-catastrophe. In its investigation of an array of authors from the Romantic period to the present-including Heinrich von Kleist, Mary Shelley, Theodor Storm, Colin Thiele, and Alexis Wright- Dancing with Disaster demonstrates the importance of the environmental humanities in the development of more creative, compassionate, ecologically oriented, and socially just responses to the perils and possibilities of the Anthropocene.Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism

Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have transformed the Earth's atmosphere, committing our planet to more extreme weather, rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, and mass extinction. This period of observable human impact on the Earth's ecosystems has been called the Anthropocene Age. The anthropogenic climate change that has impacted the Earth has also affected our literature, but criticism of the contemporary novel has not adequately recognized the literary response to this level of environmental crisis. Ecocriticism's theories of place and planet, meanwhile, are troubled by a climate that is neither natural nor under human control. Anthropocene Fictions is the first systematic examination of the hundreds of novels that have been written about anthropogenic climate change.Drawing on climatology, the sociology and philosophy of science, geography, and environmental economics, Adam Trexler argues that the novel has become an essential tool to construct meaning in an age of climate change. The novel expands the reach of climate science beyond the laboratory or model, turning abstract predictions into subjectively tangible experiences of place, identity, and culture. Political and economic organizations are also being transformed by their struggle for sustainability. In turn, the novel has been forced to adapt to new boundaries between truth and fabrication, nature and economies, and individual choice and larger systems of natural phenomena. Anthropocene Fictions argues that new modes of inhabiting climate are of the utmost critical and political importance, when unprecedented scientific consensus has failed to lead to action. Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism

Engaging important discussions about social conflict, environmental change, and imperialism in Africa, Different Shades of Green points to legacies of African environmental writing, often neglected as a result of critical perspectives shaped by dominant Western conceptions of nature and environmentalism. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework employing postcolonial studies, political ecology, environmental history, and writing by African environmental activists, Byron Caminero-Santangelo emphasizes connections within African environmental literature, highlighting how African writers have challenged unjust, ecologically destructive forms of imperial development and resource extraction. Different Shades of Green also brings into dialogue a wide range of African creative writing-including works by Chinua Achebe, NgA gA wa Thiong'o, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Zakes Mda, Nuruddin Farah, Wangari Maathai, and Ken Saro-Wiwa-in order to explore vexing questions for those involved in the struggle for environmental justice, in the study of political ecology, and in the environmental humanities, urging continued imaginative thinking in effecting a more equitable, sustainable future in Africa.

Placing environmental literature in the life sciences, Love argues that literary studies has been diminshed by a lack of recognition for the role that the biological foundation of human life plays in cultural imagination. He presents a model incorporating Darwinian ideas into ecocritical thinking.

In 1903 John Burroughs published an ""Atlantic Monthly"" article attacking popular nature writers as ""sham naturalists"". This debate resulted in a new standard of accuracy for the nature writer and reflected a new way of thinking about moral responsibilities to wildlife.

Ecocriticism is a field that is expanding dramatically. This volume is a collection of essays by ecocritics and scholars from the literary and environmental arenas. Together, their work seeks to signal a new direction in the field and offer insights into a broad spectrum of texts.

'Eco-Man' brings together two rapidly growing fields: men's studies and ecocriticism. The volume's 20 essays question whether readers can construct a notion of manhood around ecological principles and practices - and if so, what this would look like, and how it would enrich men's studies.