Ecocriticism on the Edge: The Anthropocene as a Threshold Concept

Description

The twenty-first century has seen an increased awareness of the forms of environmental destruction that cannot immediately be seen, localised or, by some, even acknowledged. Ecocriticism on the Edge explores the possibility of a new mode of critical practice, one fully engaged with the destructive force of the planetary environmental crisis. Timothy Clark argues that, in literary and cultural criticism, the "Anthropocene", which names the epoch in which human impacts on the planet's ecological systems reach a dangerous limit, also represents a threshold at which modes of interpretation that once seemed sufficient or progressive become, in this new counterintuitive context, inadequate or even latently destructive. The book includes analyses of literary works, including texts by Paule Marshall, Gary Snyder, Ben Okri, Henry Lawson, Lorrie Moore and Raymond Carver.

Timothy Clark is Professor of English at the University of Durham, UK. His previous publications include The Poetics of Singularity (2005) and The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment (2010).

Clark is at his strongest when walking the reader through his multi-scalar examples of literary criticism, which are a highlight of the book. This book will be a particular asset to those teaching and researching eco-criticism. * Urban Studies * [This book] represents a valuable contribution to the field of ecocriticism, especially because of its meta-theoretical insights. * Local Environment * It is a difficult task to do justice to all the valid points that Clark raises in his work. * Miscelanea * I am very excited by this book. Clark shows a game-changing willingness to face the implications of environmental priorities, and develop new ways of reading based on those priorities. After this book, ecocriticism should never be the same again. * Richard Kerridge, ecocritic, author of Cold Blood (2014) and teacher of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, UK. *