Paolo Bacigalupi has utilised a combination of near future earth setting and crime fiction plot in his two environmentally oriented science fiction novels, The Windup Girl and The Water Knife. Theft is the central plot crisis in each. These environmental cautionary tales do not allow for a happy ending that would suggest environmental crises can be easily resolved. These crimes have already begun in the present day, and the novels extrapolate their current level of environmental degradation into the future. Thus, the environmental dimension has to be addressed today if it is not to remain ongoing in the reader's future.

Self-defined "commercial author" Karen Traviss has written a provocative six-volume series of novels that address gender identity, speciesism, anthropogenic environmental change, ecocide, ecological restoration, and sustainability reconfigurations. Ecocritic Heather Sullivan has cogently argued that "Traviss thus shrewdly undermines the notions of balanced nature and bounded bodies by constantly erasing genetic and species boundaries; one cannot really speak of balance, after all, if the boundaries are always shifting through time and space." Through such representations, these novels demonstrate repeatedly the law of unintended consequences whenever one species attempts to address the environmental overreach or biotic colonization of another species or inhabit a new ecological niche by establishing a "balance" based on preconceptions and prejudices. Blame for unsustainable imbalances is squarely placed on a variety of actors, who are not rendered anthropomorphically but do demonstrate behaviors that clearly parallel human environmental interactions here on Earth. At the same time, another series of actors attempt to engage in a variety of environmental mitigation and restoration activities that have both positive and negative results, often with the best of intentions producing the worst consequences not foreseen by the altruistic. Through an ecofeminist dialogical approach to the series, I will demonstrate how Traviss presents internally persuasive arguments for the actions of the hero and other apparently well-meaning and positive characters and then upends any utopian impulse by readers to expect a clear-cut resolution of the ecological crises being addressed. I will also argue in support of Sullivan's primary thesis quoted above about the series, while challenging her claim that the series treats technology simplistically. Finally, I wil l demonstrate how the series through challenging static notions of nature and balance also encourages an anti-teleological environmental ethic.

A raging global pandemic producing hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of cases of prolonged illness should also produce humbling reflections on humanity’s place in the much greater materi...

Reviewed by: Affective Ecocriticism ed. by Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino Patrick D. Murphy, emeritus Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino, eds., Affective Ecocriticism. U of Nebraska P, 2018. 360 pp. Cloth, $60; paper, $35; e-book $35. This volume provides a refreshingly sophisticated approach for integrating the interdisciplinary field of affect theory with ecocritical analysis. While all too frequently recent books that claim to provide new developments in ecocriticism merely reinvent the wheel and [End Page 445] reveal the lack of homework on the part of their contributors, such is not the case with Affective Ecocriticism. Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino have edited every chapter impeccably and provided an excellent introduction for those of us not yet conversant with affect theory. In only one instance did I find a chapter that would have benefitted from the insights of another chapter, while the rest of the contributions show their authors are conversant with the latest work in their fields. Even for a reader not that interested in ecocriticism per se, many of these chapters will prove beneficial for rethinking approaches to teaching and analyzing numerous texts of western American literature. Reading through this book from cover to cover, I frequently thought about how its insights would have altered the way I approached teaching and writing about Mary Austin's The Ford, Frank Waters's The People of the Valley, Frank Norris's The Octopus, and Robinson Jeffers's long narrative poems. Bladow and Ladino introduce affect theory and its relevance for ecocriticism and, by extension, much of western American literature in the context of the concept of the "Anthropocene," human modulation of global environments, and the contemporary political phenomenon of antifactual rhetoric. Clearly written, their introduction orients readers utterly unfamiliar with affect theory and helps prepare them for the theoretically focused first of four sections. Section one's first three chapters introduce some tongue-twisting neologisms and portmanteau words, such as "solastalgia" and "ficto-regionality," but invariably the contributors explain the meaning of these concepts and their pertinence for critical analysis. I never felt the terminology obscuring comprehension, as with much poststructuralism, but rather these new concepts reorient a reader's conceptions of the more-than-human world in which we participate. The next three sections focus more on applications of the affective theories already introduced, with the authors identifying the key thinkers guiding their analyses. As to be expected with any edited volume, these chapters are somewhat uneven in the depth of their discussions and the drawing of far-reaching conclusions. I did find Jobb Arnold's chapter on representations of the Canadian tar sands exceptional. Allyse Knox-Russell's "Futurity without Optimism: [End Page 446] Detaching from Anthropocentrism and Grieving Our Fathers in Beasts of the Southern Wild" deeply impressed me, making me rethink not only my understanding of that excellent film but helping me think more seriously about the role of grieving in relation to our climate crisis. Certainly western American literature has its share of grieving and sense of loss, beginning at least as early as James Fenimore Cooper and continuing through T. C. Boyle's A Friend of the Earth. Knox-Russell's arguments about grief are applicable to many literary texts, especially the subgenre of contemporary fiction labeled "cli-fi" (climate fiction). Although not usually set in space, these science fiction works have much in common with their Space Western counterparts in their depictions of postapocalyptic landscapes. That is especially true of cli-fi film and television series. Likewise I noted in the margin of the table of contents that Lisa Ottum's chapter on "the power of negative thinking" makes an important argument about dejection and setbacks in this knownothing Trumpian moment. Although the fourth section is subtitled "Politics and Pedagogy," only one chapter focuses on classroom practice and feels somewhat tacked on rather than an integral part of the book. Sarah Jaquette Ray does raise important issues, however, about the emotional toll that some environmental humanities courses may take on their students, especially those focused on climate change or environmental justice. Part one of Affective Ecocriticism and its introduction alone are worth the price of admission. This is one of only a few...

Over the half century of her publishing career, from the late 1960s through the late 2010s, Mary Oliver made use of language, imagery, and rituals that either explicitly drew on various religious t...

Increasingly in not only the United States but much of the rest of the world, economies lurch rapidly through boom and bust cycles without any lessons seemingly learned from the last bust as producers and consumers charge into the next boom. The mindset that facilitates such behaviors bodes ill for communicating environmental values that would encourage cultural shifts from destructive consumption to sustainable living that would slow and perhaps even reverse environmental degradation and species extinction. Two components of the consumptive mindset that need to be understood in order to enhance the effectiveness of environmental communication are PAN and DIM. The first acronym stands for "Present as Always Normal" and the second for "Discrete Incident Mentality." Together, these two attitudes occlude the otherwise obvious signs of environmental crisis and need to be brought to consciousness in order to be overcome as part of replacing destructive cultural values with environmentally healthy ones.

George R. Stewart began his 1941 novel, Storm, with a quote from Sir Napier Shaw, who wrote in his Manual of Meteorology: Every theory of the course of events in nature is necessarily based on some...

This special issue had its origin in the ongoing work of Dr. Joan Qionglin Tan and her Center for Gary Snyder Studies housed at Hunan University, Changsha, China, which promotes analysis and transl...

Paul Lindholdt expresses a concern that many of us have felt working in this field: a desire “to regain a sense of consequentiality that I found lacking in academe” (1). His chapters cut across genres and fields of research, including literary analysis, cultural critique, advocacy for activism, and pedagogy. His first chapters reflect his training as an early Americanist. Lindholdt succeeded in piquing my interest particularly when analyzing the propaganda function of some of the early natural history writing designed to “lubricate colonial immigration” and, more broadly, reflective of human curiosity and pleasure in the pursuit of adventure (13). Repeatedly, Lindholdt has the good sense to answer the question a reader might ask: so what? One is never in doubt that what these writers, such as John Josselyn, William Wood, and William Bartram, published is relevant for us to analyze today. Chapter 2 shifts focus to advocacy writing by means of a bioregional orientation. This chapter benefits from a compelling case study about grazing conflicts in the northern Cascades. Chapter 3 is itself a case study of one writer, Theodore Winthrop, and through it Lindholdt covers quite well a range of issues, including introducing a concern about ecopornography in relation to the sublime and the role of commercial art in affecting popular perceptions of the American West. Here I would have liked to have seen a bit more about ecopornography and the need to keep critiquing any set of “respected” works as well as analyzing neglected ones. Chapter 4 comprises a brilliant discussion of sabotage iconography that includes discussion of Edward Abbey and his relationship with Earth First!, which is followed in Chapter 5 by a thoughtful consideration of Abbey in terms of “Neo-Luddite Thought.”

Acknowledgments Introduction: Unpacking the Terms of my Title and Outlining the Organization of my Text Chapter One: Dialoguing with Bakhtin on Our Ethical Responsiblility to Anothers Chapter Two: Furnishing the Study for Performing the Household by Resolving Static Cling: The Procession of Identity and Ecology in Contemporary Literature Chapter Three: Subjects, Identities, Bodies, and Selves: Siblings, Symbiotes, and the Ecological Stakes of Self Perception Chapter Four: An Ecological Feminist Revisioning of the Masculinist Sublime Chapter Five: Consumption as Addiction, Sustainability as Recovery Chapter Six: Community Resilience and the Cosmopolitan Role in Environmental Challenge-Response Novels Chapter Seven: The Poetic Politics of Ecological Inhabitation in Neruda's Canto General, and Cardenal's Cosmic Canticle Chapter Eight: The Dilemma of Terraforming in Three Parts Chapter Nine: Damning Damming Modernity: The Destructive Role of Megadams Chapter Ten: Preparing on the Plateau of Peak Oil Chapter Eleven: Conclusion Works Cited

The ecofeminist subsistence perspective arises from years of feminist fieldwork and theoretical elaboration focusing on women as producers of life. It is described as a call to consciousness to reorganize societies and renegotiate global inequalities. Its need for implementation is demonstrated by means of the current international land grabs and their deleterious effects on women’s lives, knowledge, and local power. Novels by women writers Buchi Emecheta, Leslie Marmon Silko, Ana Castillo, Toni Morrison, Patricia Grace, and Mahasweta Devi are also discussed in terms of their demonstrating the challenges women face and their efforts to address those challenges by means of various instantiations of the subsistence perspective with varying degrees of achievement and repression.