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The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene

John Parham, University of Worcester
August 2021
Available
Paperback
9781108724197

    The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch marking humanity's alteration of the Earth: its rock structure, environments, atmosphere. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene offers the most comprehensive survey yet of how literature can address the social, cultural, and philosophical questions posed by the Anthropocene. This volume addresses the old and new literary forms - from novels, plays, poetry, and essays to exciting and evolving genres such as 'cli-fi', experimental poetry, interspecies design, gaming, weird, ecotopian and petro-fiction, and 'new' nature writing. Studies range from the United States to India, from Palestine to Scotland, while addressing numerous global signifiers or consequences of the Anthropocene: catastrophe, extinction, 'fossil capital', warming, politics, ethics, interspecies relations, deep time, and Earth. This unique Companion offers a compelling account of how to read literature through the Anthropocene and of how literature might yet help us imagine a better world.

    • Offers a comprehensive and global survey of literature and the Anthropocene at a critical juncture in the development and establishment of the Anthropocene proposal.
    • Features a step-by-step survey of literary genres and Anthropocene themes supported by an overview of literature and the Anthropocene in the introduction.
    • Offers a close focus on the particular qualities that each literary form or genre might bring to unravelling the complexities of the Anthropocene or to addressing the social, cultural, and philosophical questions that it raises.

    Reviews & endorsements

    ‘Recommended.’ J. Bilbro, Choice Magazine

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    Product details

    August 2021
    Paperback
    9781108724197
    340 pages
    229 × 152 × 20 mm
    0.5kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction: With or Without Us: Literature and the Anthropocene John Parham
    • Prologue: Earth, Anthropocene, Literary Form
    • 1. Earth Laura Dassow Walls
    • 2.Data/Anecdote Sean Cubitt
    • Part I. Anthropocene Form:
    • 3. Poetry Mandy Bloomfield
    • 4. The Novel Astrid Bracke
    • 5. Popular Fiction Saba Pirzadeh
    • 6. The Essay Byron Caminero-Santangelo
    • 7. Theatre and Performance Sabine Wilke
    • 8. Interspecies Design Stanislav Roudavski
    • 9. Digital Games Alenda Y. Chang
    • Part II. Anthropocene Themes:
    • 10. Catastrophe David Higgins and Tess Somervell
    • 11. Animals Eileen Crist
    • 12. Humans Hannes Bergthaller
    • 13. Fossil Fuel Sam Solnick
    • 14. Warming Andreas Malm
    • 15. Ethics Zainor Izat Zainal
    • 16. Interspecies Heather Alberro
    • 17. Deep Time Visible Pippa Marland.
      Contributors
    • John Parham, Laura Dassow Walls, Sean Cubitt, Mandy Bloomfield, Astrid Bracke, Saba Pirzadeh, Byron Caminero-Santangelo, Sabine Wilke, Stanislav Roudavski, Alenda Y. Chang, David Higgins and Tess Somervell, Eileen Crist, Hannes Bergthaller, Sam Solnick, Andreas Malm, Zainor Izat Zainal, Heather Alberro,Pippa Marland

    • Editor
    • John Parham , University of Worcester

      John Parham is Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Worcester (UK). He has authored or co-edited five books including Green Media and Popular Culture (2016) and (with Louise Westling) A Global History of Literature and the Environment (2017). He has edited the journal Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism for 19 years.