Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 [Review] Climate and Crises : Magical Realism as Environmental Discourse
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'Ben Holgate’s Climate and Crises: Magical Realism as Environmental Discourse (2019) makes an important contribution to scholarship on the interplay between culture and society, with a distinct focus on the representation of the effects of human occupation of the natural world. It is a work of outstanding scholarship, meticulously researched and attentive to each novel’s distinct cultural, political and aesthetic frameworks. Although he disputes its central premise, Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) both impels and haunts Holgate’s thinking. Ghosh lamented novelists’ failure to recognise and address the impact of climate change. In words quoted in Holgate, he wrote: ‘the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture and a crisis of imagination.’ Where Holgate’s thinking differs is in his view that while this may the case with ‘the conventional realist structure of the British, European or American novel’ (6), ‘magical realist fiction and environmental literature have a long tradition of overlapping’ (1). This study is concerned with examining that overlap in a series of close readings of selected works by authors from Australia, New Zealand, India, China and Taiwan. It examines ‘not only how magical realism is a natural ally of environmental literature but also why magical realism is a dynamic, constantly evolving narrative mode that can address the challenges of imagination posed by the crisis of climate change’ (8–9).' (Introduction)

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    y separately published work icon JASAL Dirt vol. 20 no. 1 2020 19774589 2020 periodical issue 'This issue brings together four different sections, each of which speaks to a different aspect of JASAL and its aims, both as an academic journal and as the main publication of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. Although primarily a peer-reviewed journal, JASAL has always attempted to reach beyond a strictly academic audience. The journal is open access and so is available to anyone interested in Australian literature, whether or not they are associated with a university library. Similarly, ‘Notes & Furphies’ is a non peer-reviewed section that invites research notes and comments on Australian literature and literary culture from general readers. In this issue we have a fantastically detailed set of notes from independent scholar Alan Thompson on how we might go about mapping the setting of chapter 3 of Joseph Furphy’s Such is Life. Since its first issue in 1994 JASAL has also been the main location for the publication of papers from the ASAL annual conference and ASAL mini-conferences. This issue contains a Special Section, guest edited by Tony Hughes d’Aeth, with a selection of papers from the ASAL’s 2019 annual conference, DIRT, held at the University of Western Australia last July. Finally, JASAL has maintained a commitment to publishing extensive reviews of scholarly works on or related to Australian literature. In this issue we have five reviews of recent works of literary criticism.' (Ellen Smith and Tony Simoes Da Silva : Introduction) 2020
Last amended 30 Jul 2020 11:17:37
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