'The series Nature, Culture and Literature is dedicated to publications approaching literature and other aspects of culture from an ecological perspective. While representations of nature and conceptions of naturalness have traditionally been subjects of specialist interest in literary and cultural studies, over the past fifteen years an ecological perspective has gained growing relevance and recognition as an important starting point and orientation in the study of literature and culture.'
Source: Rodopi website, http://www.rodopi.nl
Sighted: 28/08/2007
The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers
C. A. Cranston
(editor),
Robert Zeller
(editor),
Amsterdam
:
Rodopi
,
2007
Z1422293
2007
anthology
criticism
'In this, the first collection of ecocritical essays devoted to Australian contexts and their writers, Australian and US scholars explore the transliteration of land and sea through the works of Australian authors and through their own experiences. The littoral zone is the starting point in this fresh approach to reading literature organised around the natural environment - rainforest, desert, mountains, coast, islands, Antarctica. There's the beach, where sexual and spiritual crises occur; the Western Australian wheatbelt; deserts, camel trekking, and the transformation of a salt flat into an inland island; New Age literature that 'appropriates' Aboriginal culture as the healing poultice for an ailing West; a re-examination of pastoralism; an inquiry into whether Judith Wright's work can "persuade us to rejoice" in the world; the Limestone Plains, home of the bush capital and the bogong moth; tropical North Queensland; national parks where "the mountains meet the sea"; temperate islands, with their history of sealing, Soldier Settlement, and sea country pastoral; and Antarctica, where a utopian vision gives way to an emphasis on its 'timeless' icescape as minimalist backdrop for human dramas. The author-terrain includes poets, playwrights, novelists, and non-fiction writers across the range of contexts constituting the littoral zone of 'Australia'.'
Source: Rodopi website, http://www.rodopi.nl
Sighted: 28/08/2007
