Dirt Theory and Material Ecocriticism

A disease-free world

“…Helen Sullivan, for example, posits that 'the challenge of shaping dirt … functions as a metaphor for the project of modernity' . 134 Scholars of history and sociology also point to increasing levels of disgust, and especially lowering tolerance of dirt and smell, as constitutive of the modern Western subject. 135 However, whilst the dissemination of germ theory from 1880s onwards certainly rendered fears of dirt and pollution particularly acute, a narrative of straightforward human advancement away from the lowly and animalistic towards an apparently sanitised, civilised Western society needs to be re-evaluated, as has been argued by Mark Jenner.…”

Imagining the Anthropocene with the Wadden Sea

“…However, more recent interpretations have found new ambiguities in the Enlightenment vision of engineering progress, reclaimed land (embodied by the novella's protagonist Hauke Haien), and the superstitions of the recalcitrant local population. The tensions between the worldviews of proto-engineer Hauke Haien and those who oppose his plans have been read by ecocritical scholars as engagement with one of the core paradoxes of the Anthropocene (Sullivan, 2012;Rigby, 2015, 84-111;Ritson, 2017), namely, the desire for scientific progress and emancipation that we can now see has the potential to annihilate human culture completely. The Wadden Sea served Storm as the site of Anthropocene tension in the nineteenth century, just as it serves others today.…”

Climate change? Archaeology and Anthropocene

“…Solli et al . 2011; Sullivan 2012; Clark and Hird 2014; LeCain 2015; Edgeworth 2016b; Haraway 2016; Yusoff 2016). ‘Man’ is threatening and his footprint polluting, while Earth is a victim, unknowing and blameless.…”