Blue Ecocriticism and the Oceanic Imperative

Description

This book initiates a conversation about blue ecocriticism: critical, ethical, cultural, and political positions that emerge from oceanic or aquatic frames of mind rather than traditional land-based approaches. Ecocriticism has rapidly become not only a disciplinary legitimate critical form but also one of the most dynamic, active criticisms to emerge in recent times. However, even in its institutional success, ecocriticism has exemplified an "ocean deficit." That is, ecocriticism has thus far primarily been a land-based criticism stranded on a liquid planet. Blue Ecocriticism and the Oceanic Imperative contributes to efforts to overcome ecocriticism’s "ocean-deficit." The chapters explore a vast archive of oceanic literature, visual art, television and film, games, theory, and criticism. By examining the relationships between these representations of ocean and cultural imaginaries, Blue Ecocriticism works to unmoor ecocriticism from its land-based anchors. This book aims to simultaneously advance blue ecocriticism as an intellectual pursuit within the environmental humanities and to advocate for ocean conservation as derivative of that pursuit. Cover Half Title Endorsement Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of contents Figures Preface 1 Unearthing ecocriticism Landmarks Unmooring literary histories Under the edge of the Sea around Us Adrift in the humanities Ocean deficit and ecological literacy Indigenous knowledge A sense of oceanic place Climate change and sea rise Why blue? Casting off Notes Works Cited 2 Scaling the ocean A scaled view of scale Visual nominalism Mediating zoom Digital scale Modifying scales of observation Notes Works Cited 3 Object ocean Hyperocean New materialist ecocritics Ocean bodies Plastic ocean Ocean sounds Notes Works Cited 4 Seeing ocean Yehi Or A concise history of light Mediated ocean Deep dark Notes Works Cited 5 Protein economies The economics of protein Industrial harvest Blue animals Notes Works Cited 6 Blue frontiers Works Cited Index