Writing the Environment Ecocriticism and Literature

The contemporary environmental crisis asks fundamental questions about culture. Like other radical critiques, environmentalism cuts across academic boundaries and offers a major challenge to existing cultural and political divisions. This is the first book to draw together the rich variety of environmentalist positions - from ecofeminism to deep ecology - and theorize their contribution to critical theory, literature and popular culture. Paart one of the book examines theoretical controversies in environmentalist literary criticism. Contributors explore a wide variety of issues including sexual politics and nature, the link between environmental and cultural degradation, the influence of Heidegger on environmentalism, and the degree of continuity between poststructuralist theory and ecological perspectives. Part two presents a green rereading of literary history, with chapters on the manipulation of natural phenomena as a vehicle of social control, 'nature poetry' as political intervention, and fin de siecle exotic fiction as an expression of the colonialist's conception of 'jungle country' and Otherness in general. The book concludes by looking at contemporary culture: from poetry to children's books, including an analysis of television nature programmes.