Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis by Cheryll Glotfelty

Overview:

- Environmental Threats: 
- Ecocriticism's Origin: 
- Environmental Awareness through Literature
- Literature's Power
- Definition of Ecocriticism: 
_ Challenges in Literary Studies
- Neglect of Environmental Crisis
- Evolution of Ecocriticism
- Fundamental Questions in Ecocriticism
- Connection to Physical World
- Awareness of Limit. 
- Human Actions' Impact 
- Contribution to Restoration 
- Disciplinary Inclusion of Ecocriticism: now part of different subjects like History, Anthropology, Psychology, and Philosophy.
- Three Stages:  kind of like how Elaine Showalter saw feminism developing.
- Challenges and Future Directions
- Boundary Redrawing  
- Diversity in Ecocriticism
- Impact of Glotfelty's Work 
- Vital Area of Inquiry 

Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis by Cheryll Glotfelty 

During the last few decades, Environment has posed a great threat to human society as well as the mother earth. The extensive use of natural resources has left us at the brink of ditch. Under these circumstances, there arose a field of literary and cultural criticism that analyses the relationship between people and the natural world. It is a worldwide movement which came into existence in 1990s as a reaction to man’s anthropocentric attitude of dominating nature. While it does not seek to alter the course of any of these real factors, its task is to see how theoretically informed readings of cultural texts can contribute not only to consciousness raising but also look into the politics of development and the construction of nature. Ecocriticism focuses on the material contexts of industrialisation, development, pollution and ecocide while developing a frame for reading. 

Cheryll Glotfelty is a prominent scholar in the field of ecocriticism who is known for her contributions to the theory and practice of literary ecology. She co-edited the seminal anthology The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology in 1996, which is considered a foundational text in the field. Glotfelty’s work focuses on the interaction of environmental issues and literature, arguing that literary studies can help us better understand the multifaceted relationships between humans and nature and aid us in developing critical environmental literacy. In her seminal essay Glotfelty asserts that literature can serve as a powerful tool for raising awareness about environmental issues and shaping cultural attitudes towards nature. She, in the very introduction of her essay, “Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis”, defines ecocriticism as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment”. In this essay Glotfelty argues that literary studies must engage with the environmental changes and crises of our time.

Cheryll Glotfelty begins the essay “Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis”, by acknowledging the vast scale and complexity of environmental issues, from climate change to biodiversity loss, and how these problems have grown increasingly urgent. She states the sad state of affairs of ecocriticism. She notes that English Literary studies are in a constant state of flux. Literary criticism for the last fifty years has addressed a lot of issues and has been reinventing itself. Social issues like race, class, gender, etc were hot topics of the twentieth century but literary criticism had not put much effort in addressing bout the earth’s life systems which were under a great stress, even though news paper reports during the same period mentions oil spills, lead and asbestos poisoning, toxic waste contamination, extinction of species, growing hole in the ozone layer, predictions of global warming, acid rain, illegal dumping, droughts, floods, etc. Hence, the essay starts by stating a problem- Literary theory has been “remapping” itself with changing times yet it has not yet addressed the ‘global environmental crisis’. It was only in the 1990s the US president declared that it “the decade of the environment”. And in the year 1989, The Time Magazine declared the person of the earth to be “The Endangered Earth”. Goltfelty also notes that although there were many cultural scholars and disciplines working on the field of ecology since the 1970’s onwards, but unfortunately they were all scattered and not united. So in this anthology The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology Glotfelty along with her co-author Harold Fromm have brought together many theorist and literary studies that speak about the environmental crisis. She traces the environmental literature from 1885 to 1993 and points out that it was in the year 1985 Frederick O Waage edited “Teaching Environmental Literature” which sought to foster environmental concern and awareness in literary disciplines. Again, in 1989 Alicia Nitecki founded “The American Nature Writing News Letter”. Glotfelty continues by stating that in 1990s the University of Neveda created the first academic position in literature and environment and in 1991, MLA identified environmental crisis as a important issue and conducted a special session on “Ecocriticism the greening of literary studies”. Only in the year 1993, ecological literary study emerged as a recognisable critical school.

Cheryll Glotfelty, notes that the term ecocriticim was possibly first coined in 1978 by William Rueckert in his essay “Literature and Ecology: an Experiment in Ecocriticism” and that it takes an earth centered approach to literary studies. By ecocriticism, Rueckert meant “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature”. Other means in circulation include ecopoetics, environmental literary criticism and green cultural studies. But the term ‘ecocriticism’ is preffered by most scholars. 

Ecocriticism asks questions like how literature is presented, the role physical setting plays in novel, et cetera and it shares the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world. 
Cheryll Glotfelty continues by noting that the common motivation of all eco-critical work.

The first motivation for common in all eco-critical work is a troubling awareness that we have reached the age of environmental limits.

The second is, human actions are causing and damaging the planets basic life support systems and the third is, how as human being can we contribute to environmental restorations. Glotfelty shares that all disciplines have identified the importance of ecology in their works including History, Anthropology, Psychology and Philosophy, long before Literary criticism.

She then traces the growth of ecocriticim in three stages using Elaine Showalter’s feminist model, where the first stage in feminist criticism, the “images of women” stage is concentrating on hoe women are portrayed in in canonical literature.
Showalter’s second stage in feminist criticism, the women’s literary tradition stage reconsiders literature by women. In ecocriticism, recuperate the hitherto neglected genre of nature writing.
The third stage that Showalter identifies in feminist criticism is the theoretical phase, which questions about symbolic construction of gender and sexuality within literary discourse.
Analogous work in ecocriticism too includes the symbolic construction of species. It is a link between the oppression of women and the domination of nature. Glotfelty feels that ecocriticism would redraw the boundaries of literary studies. Strong voice in the profession will enable ecocritics to bring about important changes in the canon, the curriculum, and university policy. She feels that ecocriticism has been predominantly a white movement. It will become a multi-ethnic movement when stronger connections are made between the environment and issues of social justice, and when divergent views are encouraged to contribute to the discussion.

Glotfelty’s work has helped to establish ecocriticism as a vital area of inquiry within literary studies.



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