Literature as Cultural Ecology

Abstract

Drawing on the latest debates in ecocritical theory and sustainability studies, Literature as Cultural Ecology: Sustainable Texts outlines a new approach to the reading of literary texts. Hubert Zapf considers the ways in which literature operates as a form of cultural ecology, using language, imagination and critique to challenge and transform cultural narratives of humanity’s relationship to nature. In this way, the book demonstrates the important role that literature plays in creating a more sustainable way of life. Applying this approach to works by writers such as Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Zakes Mda, and Amitav Ghosh, Literature as Cultural Ecology is an essential contribution to the contemporary environmental humanities.

Along the River, towards God: raṅga Shrines along Rivers

“…Associating a particular river with a feminine figure, that too a goddess, makes it an element of an ecological niche which welds the human aspect, the nature, and the culture into an interconnected and, in a way, sustainable whole. Viewing this relation in such a way is one of the proposals of the above-mentioned cultural ecology method and cultural ecology of literature (Zapf 2016) which stresses the role of these interrelations in giving rise to literary texts and other products of culture seen as ecological phenomena, i.e., as grounded in two axioms of ecological thought: interconnectedness and diversity. 12 In South India, in addition, the traditional concept of nilaṃs/tiṇais understood as discrete ecological regions equipped with particular natural features and strongly connected with particular cultural production such as literature, makes the association of nature and culture even more immediate.…”

“…As I have already observed, this method highlights the interdependence of the sphere of natural phenomena and human creation.Czerniak-Drożdżowicz 2022: 196: -The dynamics of the development and interactions of the natural phenomena may be seen, in the view of this theoretical approach, as having its counterpart in the way the culture develops and operates(Zapf 2016). One of the approaches connected with this reflection is the concept of cultural geography, referring here to the role of both real and imagined relations between human beings and places in the process of the creation of culture(Spencer 1970;Eck 1981;Feldhaus 2003; Selby and Peterson (eds) 2008;Eck 2012).‖13 These are hill-kuriñci, field-marutam, pasture-mullai, seashore-neytal, and wasteland-pālai.…”

Assessment of the impact of government expenditure on environmental protection on the GDP in the context of environmental legislation

“…Environmental costs include research and development (R&D) expenses, expenses on education, and so forth. All of this determines the level of environmental culture in society (Lauwerys, 1969;Worster, 1977;Zapf, 2001;Hornborg, 2005;Finke, 2013;Zapf, 2016).…”

There is no Other Air Here, we are Alive With the Air of the Paltinsky Meadow…”

“…The work not only reveals the agency of nature and its impact on human beings, but also questions the dominant position of human beings over nature, emphasises the links between different forms of life and highlights the possibility of linking the theoretically separate spheres of culture (language) and nature. Starting from this basic premise, the theoretical and methodological background of the study is provided by Hubert Zapf 's ecocritical insights (Zapf 2016) and, in particular, by the ecocritical concepts and tropes outlined in Greg Garrard's book Ecocriticism (Garrad 2004), which allow us to approach the subject of ecocriticism more concretely, and investigate the role of nature in The Birds of Verhovina. According to the first hypothesis of the study, anthropogenic interventions are primarily responsible for the natural damage in the work, and these interventions together with the various precursors of the change of power cause a rupture in the hitherto harmonious relationship between community and nature, between the individual and nature.…”