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International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation (IJLLT) ISSN: 2617-0299 www.ijllt.org History (and/or Historicity) of Ecocriticism and Ecocritical History: An Introductory Overview Prof. Jalal Uddin Khan Professor of Literature, Yorkville University, Toronto Campus, Canada Corresponding Author: Prof. Jalal Uddin Khan, E-mail: [email protected] ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Received: May 20, 2019 Overlapping and interconnected, interdisciplinary and heterogeneous, Accepted: June 27, 2019 amorphous and multi-layered, and deep and broad as it is, countless topics on Published: July 31, 2019 ecoliterature make ecocriticism a comprehensive catchall term that proposes Volume: 2 to look at a text--be it social, cultural, political, religious, or scientific--from Issue: 4 naturalist perspectives and moves us from “the community of literature to the DOI: 10.32996/ijllt.2019.2.4.10 larger biospheric community which […] we belong to even as we are KEYWORDS destroying it” (William Rueckert). Historicity; Ecocriticism; ecoliterature As I was in the middle of writing and researching for this article, I was struck by a piece of called him “soft names” as a future Greenpeace and nature writing by an eleven year old sixth grader born Environmental Protection leader and theorist, a soon- to his (South Asian and American) mixed parents, both to-be close friend of Al Gore’s. The promising boy’s affiliated with Johns Hopkins and already proud to understanding, however short, of the Amazon ecology belong to the extended family of a Nobel Laureate in and ecosystem and the biological phenomena of its Physics. The young boy, Rizwan Thorne-Lyman, living organisms was really amazing. His essay wrote, as his science story project, an incredibly reminded me of other famous nature writings, beautiful essay, “A Day in the Life of the Amazon especially those by Fiona Macleod (see below), that Rainforest.” Reading about the rainforest was one of are the pleasure of those interested in the ecocriticism his interests, I was told. In describing the day-long of the literature of place--dooryards, backyards, activities of birds and animals among the tall trees and outdoors, open fields, parks and farms, fields and small plants, the 2 pp.-long narrative actually captures pastures, and different kinds of other wildernesses. the eternally continuing natural cycle of the Amazon. The budding naturalist’s neat classification of the wild Wikipedia entries and scholarly publications life into producers (leafy fruit and flowering plants and in hundreds of books and thousands of articles on trees), consumers (caimans/crocodiles, leafcutter ants, ecocritical and environmental studies of literature and capuchin monkey), predators (macaws, harpy eagles, culture demonstrate how vast and various these and jaguars, green anaconda), decomposers (worms, fungi the related topics are. Overlapping and interconnected, and bacteria), parasites (phorid flies) and scavengers interdisciplinary and heterogeneous, amorphous and (millipedes) was found to be unforgettably impressive. multi-layered, and deep and broad as they are, Also the organization of the essay into the Amazon’s countless topics on ecoliterature make ecocriticism a mutually benefitting and organically functioning flora comprehensive catchall term that proposes to look at a and fauna during the day--sunrise, midday, and sunset- text--be it social, cultural, political, religious, or -was unmistakably striking. I congratulated him as an scientific--from naturalist perspectives and moves us aspiring environmentalist specializing in rain forest. I from “the community of literature to the larger encouraged him that he should try to get his essay biospheric community which […] we belong to even published in a popular magazine like Reader’s Digest as we are destroying it” (William Rueckert). Having (published did he get in no time indeed!i) and that he evolved and progressed through a number of waves or should also read about (and visit) Borneo in Southeast phases from the start, ecocriticism covers all the Asia, home to other great biodiverse rainforests of the diffuse issues from “the ecologically adapted modes of world. I production” (Donald Worster) to assumptions about nature, biology, geography, environmental history, 89 History (and/or Historicity) of Ecocriticism and Ecocritical History: An Introductory Overview and environmental advocacies (Nancy Cook) to our Ecocriticism, perhaps the latest in modern environmental concerns and practices that “promote critical vocabulary, is the study of literature in relation the well-being of the earth” to how nature, wild or to nature, ecology and environment. It is an sparse, is perceived in literary texts and introduced examination of the possible connections made in a text into literary discussions about gender, sexuality, among the notions of place, people, self, society, and, politics, economics, ethnicity, and nationalism certainly, the physical natural system, including the (Stephanie Sarver). Sarver proceeds to say that geographical and geological aspects of the earth. “environmental issues are human issues, and that our Variously called literary ecology, ecotheory, reverence for nature—both textual and actual—is not ecoliterature, ecopoetry, ecopoetics, ecocomposition, […] a convenient excuse to avoid the problems of the eco-consciousness, green writing, and green studies, human world.”ii literature and the environment and their variations, ecocriticism is a demonstration of how the sense of Although ecocriticism is about the written biology, biopolitics, environmentalism, pastoralism, texts, not scientific disciplines, it is necessary to living spaces, and ergonomic designs informs the understand the term more clearly by having a works of literature. “Put as simply and loosely as preliminary idea about what are generally known as possible,” in the view of Ian Marshall, ecocriticism is ecology and ecosystem in modern biological sciences. “literary criticism informed by ecological awareness Briefly speaking, an ecosystem is a community of both [that] means either scientific or spiritual recognition of living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic--soil, mud, the interconnections of living things, including water, sunlight, air, cloud) things interacting with each humans, with each other and with their environment.” other and their larger physical environment. It consists According to Jonathan Culler (author of Literary of communities of interdependent organisms Theory: A Very Short Introduction), ecocriticism has inhabiting a common environment as their potential to bring change to society: “Most narrowly, housekeeping niche, biome, biosphere, or it is the study of literary representations of nature and hydrosphere. Ecology is a branch of biology that deals the environment and the changing values associated with the interrelationships between organisms (plants, with them, especially evocations of nature that might birds, animals, and insects) and their natural habitat. In inspire changes in attitude and behavior.”iv Pippa other words, ecology is the scientific study of Marland refers to ecocriticism as an umbrella term that biologically diverse ecosystems, complexly variable embraces “a range of critical approaches that explore and unstable through time, weather and seasons. the representation in literature (and other cultural Human ecology, it follows, is a study of human forms) of the relationship between the human and the organism in relationship with other biological non-human, largely from the perspective of anxieties organisms in their mutually inclusive habitat, be it around humanity’s destructive impact of the parasitical or symbiotic. Keeping with time and biosphere” (my emphases).v technology, there has been a growth of environmental studies that is: Ecocritical or environmental criticism may have originated from exactly the same anxieties: a multidisciplinary academic field which modern issues of life-affecting global warming, systematically studies human interaction desertification, deforestation, inappropriate with the environment [and] brings together agriculture, and the human-caused damage and the principles of the physical sciences, degradation to natural environment (or the looming commerce, economics and social sciences so threats of such crises) causing the green peace, climate as to solve contemporary environmental change, conservation, recycling drives, and animal problems. It is a broad field of study that rights movements going forward. It may also have includes the natural environment, the built been prompted the cyclical renewal, regeneration and environment, and the sets of relationships revitalization in nature from idyllic, rural and rustic to between them. The field encompasses study urban and residential landscapes to remote wilderness in basic principles of ecology and and seascapes. All this paves the way for Ursula environmental science, as well as associated Heise’s idea of a “world citizenship” based on subjects such as ethics, geography, everyone’s connection to earth as against global anthropology, policy, politics, urban capitalism and climate change. planning, law, economics, philosophy, sociology and social justice, planning, Recent decades have consequently seen the pollution control and natural resource “save the earth” movements, following the ecological management.iii imbalances, decreasing
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