Green Letters

The smoke-laden fog of London is one of the most vivid elements in English literature, richly suggestive and blurring boundaries between nature and society in compelling ways. In The Sky of Our Manufacture, Jesse Oak Taylor uses the many depictions of the London fog in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century novel to explore the emergence of anthropogenic climate change. In the process, Taylor argues for the importance of fiction in understanding climatic shifts, environmental pollution, and ecological collapse. The London fog earned the portmanteau "smog" in 1905, a significant recognition of what was arguably the first instance of a climatic phenomenon manufactured by modern industry. Tracing the path to this awareness opens a critical vantage point on the Anthropocene, a new geologic age in which the transformation of humanity into a climate-changing force has not only altered our physical atmosphere but imbued it with new meanings. The book examines enduringly...

This annotated anthology of poems makes available a rich variety of Irish texts depicting the relationship between humans and the environment between the years 1580 and 1820. More than a hundred poems are printed here, together with an extensive critical introduction, notes on each text, and a full bibliography. All the poets whose work is represented were born in Ireland or are identified as Irish. As well as re-publishing the work of major poets such as Oliver Goldsmith, Laurence Whyte and William Drummond, this anthology includes many works by little known or anonymous authors. This volume also reflects current scholarship on the relationship between literature and the environment, enriching our understanding of attitudes in pre-Romantic Ireland towards changing landscapes and agricultural practices, towards human responsibility for the non-human world, and towards the relationship between nature and aesthetics. As well as adding considerably to existing knowledge of the printing and reading of poetry in Ireland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this anthology also traces the developments in sensibility in Irish poetry during this period, offering new perspectives on the advent of Romanticism in England and on the ways in which this revolutionised the relationship between nature and representation. The anthology fulfils the dual purpose of making a significant contribution to the study of literature and the environment, and of expanding our understanding of Irish writing during the period.

terms ‘gender’ and ‘environment’, this section will be the reason why socio-cultural scholars are keen to read this book. Only those interested in policy would turn to a book where they can find material that links population, health, and environment through sexual stewardship (Jade Sasser), property rights and economic empowerment (Seema Arora-Jonsson) or gender differences in (party political) membership and participation (Stewart Jackson). These are all vitally important considerations, and to be able to connect these considerations with research focussed on gender and on environment means that future policymakers are less likely to legislate in favour of the ubiquitous ‘straight, white, man-in-the-street’ and more likely to muddy the waters with more nuanced and complex understandings of the relationships between rights and access, gender and environment, existing law and future possibilities. The final section of the book – Futures – offers five essays which reflect the broader scope of the book in its entirety, and which scope out concerns and issues that indicate the trajectory of future considerations of gender of environment. Tellingly, these essays maintain a focus upon the relationship between theory and action, and upon ethical relations with our more-than-human others. These two spheres of action, more than any others, will prove to be the ‘take-away’ that future scholars reference when reflecting upon how gender and environment were considered in the age of Trump, Brexit, #FridaysForFuture and Extinction Rebellion. As such, this book is very much of its time, a point of departure for NOW, rather than a retrospective analysis of how we got here. For this, the book is invaluable. The very final essay in the collection ‘Welcome to thewhite (m) Anthropocene? A feminist-environmentalist critique’ by Giovanna Di Chiro, warns against any complacency in the spheres where environmental and gender relations seem to offer so much hope, by reminding us that white privilege continues to obscure difference when it suits – blind spots have strategic usefulness for neo-liberal democracies in the age of climate emergency, or conversely that white privilege continues to use difference to blatantly discriminate in ways that allow the turn towards the Right in global politics to become normalised. Overall, this meaty handbook – far too big for even the most generously sized hand – is worth its weight (and its heavy!) for the breadth of entanglements between gender and environment that it highlights. The selection of essays showcases intelligent and accessible academic writing which will be of interest to anyone looking for the connections and contaminations between two such massive categories as Gender and Environment.

In an effort to uncover the long cultural legacy of the ‘nature cure’... Walton sets off to explore landscapes associated with healing – from the miraculous waters of Lourdes, to a turn-of-the century wilderness retreat in Bethel, Maine, and from the experimental farm of Craiglockhart in Scotland to a laboratory simulating the experience of nature indoors. On her journey, she examines the history and science behind the pull of these spaces, as well as writers like Kate Chopin, John Muir and Nan Shepherd who engaged with them – and asks the important question of just what will happen to our relationship with nature in the face of a rapidly changing environment.

ABSTRACT The Philippines is replete with mythological tales about monsters which prey on human beings. Yet, how many of these monsters stem from our unawareness of the environment and those that inhabit it with us? This essay explores the widening gap between the humans and non-humans in the Philippines and speculates on how literature may intervene in this issue. Using the selected ecopoetry of two Filipino writers in English as basis for analysis, this paper proposes an understanding of ‘species interrelationship’ as a concept in the ecological literacy of the third world. ‘Species interrelationship’ in ecopoetry will attempt to address the concerns of the representation of animals in Filipino culture and to discuss how the aforementioned concept is a useful educational tool in promoting sustainability in the third world.

carry the piece. Philip van der Merwe’s discussion of the ‘Garden Verses’ of the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden, for example, is rather summative in its treatment of the installation’s individual poems but it sets out its territory well and overall left me feeling like I had visited the site with a really good guidebook. In other cases, the lack of substantial critical engagement mattered more because the material under discussion is familiar. It was disappointing that this was a problem in the chapters by the editors themselves, and that the volume suffers from uneven editing. Many readers will learn something new from this diverse array of essays, but even a casual glance at the list of topics gives some sense of why the collection does not make a satisfying whole. Individual chapters are noteworthy, but, if you want a book that coheres and makes a fresh and clear contribution to the field, this collection will not hit the mark.

Turkish Ecocriticism: From Neolithic to Contemporary Timescapes explores the values, perceptions, and transformations of the environment, ecology, and nature in Turkish culture, literature, and the arts. Through these themes, it examines historical and contemporary environmentally engaged literary and cultural traditions in Turkey. The volume re-imagines Turkey in its geo-social and ecocultural narratives of multiple connections and complexities, in its multi-faceted webs of histories, and in its rich multispecies stories.

To follow the transdisciplinary ambition in much information science and philosophy leading to cognitive science we need to include a phenomenological and hermeneutical ground in order to encompass a theory of interpretative meaning and signification to achieve a transdisciplinary theory of knowing and communication. This is also true if we start in cybernetics and system theory that also have transdisciplinary aspirations for instance in Batesons ecological concept of information as a difference that makes a difference and in Luhmann’s triple autopoietic communication-based system theory. Charles Sanders Peirce’s pragmaticist semiotics integrates logic and information in interpretative semiotics. But although Peirce’s information theory is built on meaningful signs and he connects information to the growth of symbols, his information theory is empirically based in a realistic worldview, which in the development to modern biosemiotics include all living systems.

The crisis within the humanities, which occupies a similar time span to the environmental crisis, has challenged the worth of literary studies. This paper argues that to sustain creative literary thinking for the future we need to recognise the role of natural imagery in the working mind. Ordinary natural features can stimulate meaningful experiences, which contribute to a deeper sense of belonging and engagement with the spirit of place. Moreover, to recognise the healthy natural world as raw material for thought offers one way for literary criticism to justify and develop its connection with the young science of sustainability. Close readings of literature that considers the role of natural and built environments can illuminate the imaginative processes associated with the understanding and interpretation of literature. By giving meaning to individual experience, and engaging the imagination, literature can convey sustainable values and help us to identify new directions for literary criticism.

This article offers an ecocritical reading of Mica Yosef Berdichevsky’s Hebrew short story ‘The Red Heifer’ (‘Para Aduma’, 1906). Berdichevsky (1865–1921) was a Ukrainian Jewish author who endeavoured to synthesise Jewish history and tradition with Western European thought and philosophy. Traditional interpretations of ‘The Red Heifer’ tend to revolve around the significance of the red heifer within rabbinic tradition alongside a Nietzschean reading of the heifer’s gruesome demise. An ecocritical reading suggests that the animal is simply ‘a ruddy Dutch heifer’ and is, more importantly, peripheral to the story. The crucial part is the drought which is described fleetingly in one sentence, and yet acts as a catalyst for the entire chain of events. This reading reinforces Berdichevsky’s own criticisms regarding Orthodox Judaism’s prioritising of law over spirit, a prioritising that has profoundly impacted Hebrew literary criticism. Indeed, I argue that Berdichevsky’s story constitutes a mockery of the implied reader.

Many UK communities perform a custom in the same place at the same time every year, and a number of these, such as the Marsden Imbolc Fire Festival in West Yorkshire, The Saddleworth Rushcart in Greater Manchester, and the well-dressing tradition, have a direct connection to the natural world, through the theme that underpins them, the natural resources used and the ways in which they can contribute to a sense of ‘place attachment’. As awareness grows in advocating for local, as opposed to global, climate change messaging to increase engagement and action among citizens, could calendar customs offer a previously unexplored opportunity for community engagement in the face of climate crisis? This paper uses qualitative research with the organisers of three calendar customs alongside representations of calendar customs in fiction to interrogate the impact calendar customs could make in their respective communities.

A concise overview of this multidisciplinary field, presenting key concepts, central issues, and current research, along with concrete examples and case studies.The emergence of the environmental humanities as an academic discipline early in the twenty-first century reflects the growing conviction that environmental problems cannot be solved by science and technology alone. This book offers a concise overview of this new multidisciplinary field, presenting concepts, issues, current research, concrete examples, and case studies. Robert Emmett and David Nye show how humanists, by offering constructive knowledge as well as negative critique, can improve our understanding of such environmental problems as global warming, species extinction, and over-consumption of the earth's resources. They trace the genealogy of environmental humanities from European, Australian, and American initiatives, also showing its cross-pollination by postcolonial and feminist theories. Emmett and Nye cons...

ABSTRACT This essay explores the representation of the concepts of rewilding, wilding and regenerative farming in contemporary nature writing, focusing on George Monbiot’s Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life (2013), Isabella Tree’s Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm (2018), and James Rebanks’ English Pastoral (2020). It contextualises farming in the broad social, economic and biopolitical arena of the 20th century, and in literary terms reflects on the rupture in the georgic tradition post-World War 2, in order to understand the current tension between conservation and agriculture. The essay also investigates the deployment of the literary tropes of the wild, the pastoral and the georgic in these texts, and concludes by proposing the emergence of a ‘new georgic’ in which the farmer does not simply wrestle with nature in order to produce food but is engaged in producing nature itself.