Academic literature on the topic 'Empirical ecocriticism'

What seem like “new” developments in Ecocriticism have actually been nascent, articulated in conversations and blogs, soon emerging in presentations and print over the past five or more years. Responding to climate change numbing, ecocritics have explored the potential “arithmetic of compassion” (Slovic & Slovic 2015) and the “caring exhaustion” that arises when the numbers of those suffering—humans, animals, ecosystems—becomes too high to encompass. Human responses to the increasingly frightening scenarios of climate change futures have been termed “eco-anxiety” and “eco-grief” (Hutner 2015; Ray 2019). New developments in ecocriticism arise through the nexus of econarratology, affective ecocriticism, empirical ecocriticism, and mindful /Zen ecocriticism. I discuss this continuing trajectory in ecocriticism, developing from econarrative through ecoaffect (approaches that describe readers’ responses to climate change narratives) and on to empirical and mindful / Zen ecocriticisms (approaches that seek to offer strategies for responding to climate change narratives through affect, activism, and contemplative approaches, and for evaluating the efficacy of those strategies).

AbstractThis review of publications in the field of ecocriticism in 2018 is divided into six sections: 1. Introduction: Anthropocene Timescales and Affects; 2. Affective Ecocriticism; 3. Material and Empirical Ecocriticisms; 4. Ecocriticism and Ecopoetics; 5. Ecocritical Convergences; 6. Conclusion. The review focuses on four single-authored monographs, three edited book collections, three journal issues, and three stand-alone articles. The biospheric urgencies of the Anthropocene and its cataclysmic signature—climate change—have attracted ecocritical attention to concerns of time, scale, and affect. In particular, 2018 marked the further maturation of material and queer ecocriticisms, the florescence of affective ecocriticism, and the germination of empirical ecocriticism. The field in 2018 explores, in depth, the role of affect—emotions, intensities, corporealities, and modes of relations—in the Anthropocene. All the while, confluences between affective, material, and queer ecocriticisms continue to broaden the scope of environmental affect to include ‘bad’ and irreverent modes. What’s more, new publications in material ecocriticism draw attention to environmental narratives as vehicles for concretizing the highly abstract spatiotemporalities of the Anthropocene whereas empirical ecocriticism applies qualitative methods to understanding the transformative potential of narratives. 2018 saw major studies of ecopoetics in addition to convergences between ecocriticism, animal studies, performance studies, crime fiction studies, and the environmental humanities. The year also brought the extension of ecocritical approaches to the genre of crime fiction and the literature of the Global South.

The aim of this paper is to present a synoptic picture of the development and current state of ecocriticism in Poland. Understood in the generic sense of the study of literature and environment, ecocriticism had begun in Poland already in 1970s and has since then generated its own original tradition. Understood in the specific historical sense of a field devoted to the study of literature and environment that was consolidated in the 1990s in the USA and the UK and has then expanded both in disciplinary and national terms, ecocriticism was imported to Poland only in the beginning of the 21st century, but has managed do generate its own tradition as well. For a while, both these currents of Polish ecocriticism had run in parallel to one another, but have recently merged, stimulating new exciting developments. The paper will delineate these historical trajectories and recent developments alike. And it will also show how today’s Polish ecocriticism contributes to ecocriticism globally, not only by offering its own culturally unique perspective and archives, but also by proposing new methodologies, including so-called empirical ecocriticism, an emerging field that originates in part from Poland.

Abstract Climate fiction—literature explicitly focused on climate change—has exploded over the last decade, and is often assumed to have a positive ecopolitical influence by enabling readers to imagine potential climate futures and persuading them of the gravity and urgency of climate change. Does it succeed? And whom does it reach? A qualitative survey of 161 American readers of 19 works of climate fiction finds that these readers are younger, more liberal, and more concerned about climate change than nonreaders of climate fiction. Drawing on concepts from ecocriticism, environmental psychology, and environmental communication, this article suggests that “cli-fi” reminds concerned readers of the severity of climate change while impelling them to imagine environmental futures and consider the impact of climate change on human and nonhuman life. However, the actions that resulted from readers’ heightened consciousness reveal that awareness is only as valuable as the cultural messages about efficacious action that are in circulation. Moreover, the affective responses of many readers suggest that most works of climate fiction are leading readers to associate climate change with intensely negative emotions, which could prove counterproductive to efforts at environmental engagement or persuasion. Based on one of the first studies to empirically examine the reception of environmental literature, this article demonstrates a novel interdisciplinary approach to environmental literature (empirical ecocriticism) and points the way to future research in this vein.

AbstractThis paper examines Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) and Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007), and argues that pastoral and narrative elements of these texts obscure an uncomfortable dissonance between their locavore claims to environmental sustainability and “sustainable meat” production. Much recent literature from within the frameworks of ecocriticism and ethics has been critical of the ethical/ sustainable meat movement for using simplistic and inaccurate models of sustainability, and for failing to reposition nonhuman animals outside the framework of capitalist commodification. Inadequately considered by these self-fulfilling stories are empirical data that indicate a global lack of resources to deploy “sustainable meat” production, as well as the implications of continuing the ideology of dominion over nonhumans. This paper calls for a new sustainable food story that encourages radical ways of thinking about farming and nonhumans, and that incorporates a landscape both urban and rural.

In this paper I discuss videogames as a form of cultural ecology using the examples of Flower (2013) and Shadow of the Colossus (2011). I outline the five basic hypotheses of Farca’s Emancipated Player (2016) as a dialectic meaning-production between player and implied player and connect it to Zapf’s notions about, literature as a cultural ecology and his triadic model of regenerative discourses. Addressing similarities in function and differences in the mediality of literature and videogames and considering recent studies in game-theory and ecocriticsm, I will demonstrate that emancipated play of aesthetically complex videogames can be considered a condition for videogames to work as a form of cultural ecology and thus also serve the function of regenerative force in a cultural context. The following analyses consider especially the use of unnatural anti-conventions as a self-reflexive technique for reflection about videogames themselves, but also trigger reflections about the empirical reality. The games offer perspectives creating blanks for the player to be filled with her imagination and consequently unfold arguments about the aesthetic condition and conventions of videogames as a mirror of an especially capitalist society without regard for the environment or the non-human. It becomes clear, that representation or procedural rhetoric alone cannot be sufficient to describe the aesthetic effect of the videogame as a Gesamtkunstwerk. They can only function as cultural ecology, if we consider them as multimedia artworks offering a degree of openness for the imaginative power of the player. To play videogames is not either to observe or to inhabit, it is the amalgamation of both which enables their creative force to influence the discourse as cultural ecology. Resumen Este artículo trata los videojuegos como una forma de ecología cultural, usando los ejemplos Flower (2013) y Shadow of the Colossus (2011). Para apoyar esta tesis, hago uso del "Emancipated Player" (jugador emancipado) de Farca, un tipo de jugador receptivo de las artes figurativas y como forma de produccion dialéctica del significado entre un jugador real de este tipo y el jugador implícito (el diseño del juego). Conectaré esta teoria con el concepto de Zapf sobre la literatura como ecología cultural. Abordando las semejanzas en la función y las diferencias en la medialidad de la literatura y los videojuegos, y considerando los estudios recientes sobre teoría de juego y ecocrítica, demostraré que el juego emancipado de videojuegos estéticamente complicados puede ser considerado como condición para que los videojuegos funcionen como una forma de ecología cultural y, por lo tanto, como una fuerza regenerativa en un gran contexto cultural como la literatura. Los análisis ejemplares consideran especialmente la aplicación de anti-convenciones poco naturales como técnica auto-reflexiva para reflexionar sobre los videojuegos, que están relacionados con la realidad empirica. Los juegos ofrecen perspectivas creando espacios en blanco para que el jugador los llene con su propia imaginación, creando así argumento sobre la condición estética y las convenciones de los videojuegos como espejo de la sociedad neoliberal sin consideración del medio ambiente ni del no-humano. Se comprobará que la representación ni la retórica procedural pueden por sí solar ser suficiente para describir el efecto estético del videojuego como una Gesamtkunstwerk (una forma artística universal). Solamente funcionarán como ecología cultural si los consideramos formas de arte multimedia que ofrezcan un grado de apertura para la fuerza imaginativa del jugador. Jugar videojuegos no es ni observar ni habitar, sino una amalgama de ambos que permita que su fuerza creativa influya en el discurso como ecología cultural.

This article outlines current developments in the Environmental Humanities, abbreviated as EH, that underscore its diversity and timeliness as scholars from manifold disciplines turn progressively more to human-nature issues in the Anthropocene epoch. Emerging in the last decade in particular, the twelve specializations outlined in this article are animal and plant studies; Arctic and Antarctic humanities, Asian environmental humanities, blue humanities, emergency humanities, empirical ecocriticism, energy humanities, extinction studies, medical-environmental humanities, paleoenvironmental humanities, Symbiocene studies, and wetland humanities. On the one hand, new areas such as the emergency humanities and medical-environmental humanities have gained momentum in response to the Covid-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020. On the other, some EH areas focus on alternatives to Anthropocene malaise and possibilities for human-nature justice. Understood as a transdisciplinary meta-field—one that encompasses a spectrum of fields and tracks fluidly between disciplines—the Environmental Humanities aims to invigorate collective biocultural change and formulate radical approaches to sustainability at a time of rapid ecological decline worldwide.

This article outlines current developments in the Environmental Humanities, abbreviated as EH, that underscore its diversity and timeliness as scholars from manifold disciplines turn progressively more to human-nature issues in the Anthropocene epoch. Emerging in the last decade in particular, the twelve specializations outlined in this article are animal and plant studies; Arctic and Antarctic humanities, Asian environmental humanities, blue humanities, emergency humanities, empirical ecocriticism, energy humanities, extinction studies, medical-environmental humanities, paleoenvironmental humanities, Symbiocene studies, and wetland humanities. On the one hand, new areas such as the emergency humanities and medical-environmental humanities have gained momentum in response to the Covid-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020. On the other, some EH areas focus on alternatives to Anthropocene malaise and possibilities for human-nature justice. Understood as a transdisciplinary meta-field—one that encompasses a spectrum of fields and tracks fluidly between disciplines—the Environmental Humanities aims to invigorate collective biocultural change and formulate radical approaches to sustainability at a time of rapid ecological decline worldwide.

Since its establishment, the study of environmental literature has included a great deal of research which has based its arguments on assumptions that state that climate fiction contains persuasive elements that are impactful on readers. The problem with these assumptions is that they do not offer any empirical proof to demonstrate their arguments. This thesis offers an empirical study of the reception of Lydia Millet’s short story “Zoogoing” and examines whether or not the story is able to generate an animal welfare consciousness in the context of climate change within an audience that includes 10 participants from Bahrain. This project was conducted via two surveys on SurveySparrow, one before and the other after the participants had read the story. From the findings, it was revealed that the extinction narrative was able to help the readers conceptualize future ecological possibilities. Although the narrative was able to heighten the participants’ consciousness about environmental destruction, their concern for animal conservation remained the same. What was speculated from the analysis in this thesis was that the story had lacked a representation of animals that would focus the participants’ gaze on animal extinction.