Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment

Description

Scholars of ecocriticism have long tried to articulate emotional relationships to environments. Only recently, however, have they begun to draw on the complex interdisciplinary body of research known as affect theory. Affective Ecocriticism takes as its premise that ecocritical scholarship has much to gain from the rich work on affect and emotion happening within social and cultural theory, geography, psychology, philosophy, queer theory, feminist theory, narratology, and neuroscience, among others. This vibrant and important volume imagines a more affective—and consequently more effective—ecocriticism, as well as a more environmentally attuned affect studies. These interdisciplinary essays model a range of approaches to emotion and affect in considering a variety of primary texts, including short story collections, films, poetry, curricular programs, and contentious geopolitical locales such as Canada’s Tar Sands. Several chapters deal skeptically with familiar environmentalist affects like love, hope, resilience, and optimism; others consider what are often understood as negative emotions, such as anxiety, disappointment, and homesickness—all with an eye toward reinvigorating or reconsidering their utility for the environmental humanities and environmentalism. Affective Ecocriticism offers an accessible approach to this theoretical intersection that will speak to readers across multiple disciplinary and geographic locations. Cover......Page 1 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Toward an Affective Ecocriticism......Page 16 Part 1......Page 38 1. “what do we do but keep breathing as best we can this / minute atmosphere”......Page 40 2. From Nostalgic Longing to Solastalgic Distress......Page 66 3. A New Gentleness......Page 86 Part 2......Page 108 4. Feeling the Fires of Climate Change......Page 110 5. Wendell Berry and the Affective Turn......Page 132 6. A Hunger for Words......Page 148 7. Uncanny Homesickness and War......Page 170 Part 3......Page 190 8. Desiring Species with Darwin and Freud......Page 192 9. Tragedy, Ecophobia, and Animality in the Anthropocene......Page 210 10. Futurity without Optimism......Page 228 Part 4......Page 248 11. The Queerness of Environmental Affect......Page 250 12. Feeling Let Down......Page 272 13. Feeling Depleted......Page 294 14. Coming of Age at the End of the World......Page 314 List of Contributors......Page 336 Index......Page 340