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Drawing on the latest debates in ecocritical theory and sustainability studies, Literature as Cultural Ecology: Sustainable Texts outlines a new approach to the reading of literary texts. Hubert Zapf considers the ways in which literature operates as a form of cultural ecology, using language, imagination and critique to challenge and transform cultural narratives of humanity's relationship to nature. In this way, the book demonstrates the important role that literature plays in creating a more sustainable way of life. Applying this approach to works by writers such as Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Zakes Mda, and Amitav Ghosh, Literature as Cultural Ecology is an essential contribution to the contemporary environmental humanities.
Part I: Cultural Ecology and Literary Studies
1. Introduction
2. The Ecocultural Potential of Literature
3. Sustainability and Literature
4. Literature as an Ecological Force in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Linda Hogan, and A.R. Ammons
Part II: Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology
5. Ecocriticism in the 20th Century: The Return of Nature to Writing About Culture
6. Ecocriticism in the 21st Century: The Return of Culture to Writing About Nature
7. Politicized Ecocriticism: From Nature-Worship to Civilizational Critique
8. Ecological Thought and Critical Theory: From Antagonism to Alliance
Part III: Literature As Cultural Ecology
9. From Natural Ecology to Cultural Ecology
10. Cultural Ecology and Material Ecocriticism
11. Literature As Cultural Ecology
12. Triadic Functional Models of Literature as Cultural Ecology: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Melville's Moby Dick, Chopin's The Awakening, Faulkener's The Sound and The Fury, Morrison's Beloved.
Part IV: Transdisciplinary Contexts of a Cultural Ecology of Literature
13. Text and Life
14. Order and Chaos
15. Connecting Patterns and Creative Energies
16. Matter and Mind
Part I: Cultural Ecology and Literary Studies
1. Introduction
2. The Ecocultural Potential of Literature
3. Sustainability and Literature
4. Literature as an Ecological Force in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Linda Hogan, and A.R. Ammons
Part II: Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology
5. Ecocriticism in the 20th Century: The Return of Nature to Writing About Culture
6. Ecocriticism in the 21st Century: The Return of Culture to Writing About Nature
7. Politicized Ecocriticism: From Nature-Worship to Civilizational Critique
8. Ecological Thought and Critical Theory: From Antagonism to Alliance
Part III: Literature As Cultural Ecology
9. From Natural Ecology to Cultural Ecology
10. Cultural Ecology and Material Ecocriticism
11. Literature As Cultural Ecology
12. Triadic Functional Models of Literature as Cultural Ecology: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Melville's Moby Dick, Chopin's The Awakening, Faulkener's The Sound and The Fury, Morrison's Beloved.
Part IV: Transdisciplinary Contexts of a Cultural Ecology of Literature
13. Text and Life
14. Order and Chaos
15. Connecting Patterns and Creative Energies
16. Matter and Mind
17. Solid and Fluid
18. Wound and Voice
19. Absence and Presence
20. Local and Global
Bibliography
Index
Hubert Zapf is Professor and Chair of American Literature at the University of Augsburg, Germany. His recent books include, as co-editor, American Studies Today: New Research Agendas (2014) and English and American Studies: Theory and Practice (2012).
"Hubert Zapf delivers a take on literature that includes existing literary theory on ecology and ecocriticism and takes it to a new level of ecological thought."
– American Studies
"Zapf's is, in short, a bold and important contribution to the ecocritical debate, framed with admirable clarity."
– The British Society for Literature and Science
"Magisterial and sweeping, this book offers the first synthesis of major trends in ecocriticism from a European perspective. It integrates transdisciplinary approaches from German philosophy to contemporary Continental and Anglo-American theory, biosemiotics, and global policy studies. All these considerations are marshaled to support a compelling case for the transformative cultural agency and aesthetic force of literature as an ecological dimension of discourse that metonymically extends to all forms of life on earth. Literature as Cultural Ecology is necessary reading for anyone interested in environmental humanities."
– Louise Westling, Professor Emerita, Department of English, University of Oregon, USA
"In Literature as Cultural Ecology, Hubert Zapf brings his vast knowledge of world literature and literary theory to bear on many of the central concerns of environmental textual studies. This book not only reveals the intersections between "cultural ecology" and "ecocriticism", but it profoundly and accessibly reinforces the significance of literature on a changing, wounded, beautiful planet."
– Scott Slovic, Professor of literature and environment at the University of Idaho, USA
"Zapf (Univ. of Augsburg, Germany) brings a global perspective to ecocritical discourse by applying tenets of cultural ecology to a diverse selection of literary works. [...] Combining the arts and the social and natural sciences, this new and imaginative approach covers fresh ground. – L. L. Johnson, Lewis & Clark College. Summing Up: Highly recommended."
– CHOICE
"Hubert Zapf's study of literature as cultural ecology is a highly original recognition of and investigation into the great potential of literary texts in past and present to address ecological and economic issues. It releases literature from its narrow philological definition and places it in the context of current concerns of environmental humanities. Zapf's ingenious and impressive reading of European and North American literature reveals its power as an ecological force and as a source of sustainability. The transdisciplinary method and transnational dimension of his original research chart the way for its reception in the current discussions of ecocriticism at a propitious moment when global awareness and interaction for the sake of the preservation of the environment are vitally needed."
– Alfred Hornung, Research Professor in the Institute for Transnational American Studies at the University of Mainz, Germany
"This is a wonderful book. It is written in the spirit of ecology of mind pursued by Gregory Bateson, and also deploys the wider semiotic of living knowing associated with the American philosopher C.S. Peirce. Every page is alive with a mind that has grasped that the semiotics of nature and of culture are very intimately interconnected. Here is sanity. Here is intellectual creativity. Read it."
– Wendy Wheeler, Professor Emerita of English Literature and Cultural Inquiry at London Metropolitan University
