Bioregionalism is an innovative way of thinking about place and planet from an ecological perspective. Although bioregional ideas occur regularly in ecocritical writing, until now no systematic effort has been made to outline the principles of bioregional literary criticism and to use it as a way to read, write, understand, and teach literature.The twenty-four original essays here are written by an outstanding selection of international scholars. The range of bioregions covered is ...

The Earth has reached a tipping point. Runaway climate change, the sixth great extinction of planetary life, the acidification of the oceans—all point toward an era of unprecedented turbulence in humanity’s relationship within the web of life. But just what is that relationship, and how do we make sense of this extraordinary transition?Anthropocene or Capitalocene? offers answers to these questions from a dynamic group of leading critical scholars. They challenge the theor...

Considering that much of human society is structured through its interaction with non-human animals, and since human society relies heavily on the exploitation of animals to serve human needs, human–animal studies has become a rapidly expanding field of research, featuring a number of distinct positions, perspectives, and theories that require nuanced explanation and contextualization.The first book to provide a full overview of human–animal studies, this volume focuses on the conc...

A controversial, timely reassessment of the environmentalist agenda by outstanding historians, scientists, and critics.In a lead essay that powerfully states the broad argument of the book, William Cronon writes that the environmentalist goal of wilderness preservation is conceptually and politically wrongheaded. Among the ironies and entanglements resulting from this goal are the sale of nature in our malls through the Nature Company, and the disputes between working people and en...

Artistic representations of landscape are studied widely in areas ranging from art history to geography to sociology, yet there has been little consensus about how to understand the relationship between landscape and art. This book brings together more than fifty scholars from these multiple disciplines to establish new ways of thinking about landscape in art.

Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone presents a collection of readings from academics and non-academics alike that move beyond the ethical justification of hunting to investigate less traditional topics and offer fresh perspectives on why we hunt.The only recent book to explicitly examine the philosophical issues surrounding huntingShatters many of the stereotypes about hunting, forcing us to rethink the topicFeatures contributions from a wide range ...

The degrading environment of the planet is something that touches everyone. This 2011 book offers an introductory overview of literary and cultural criticism that concerns environmental crisis in some form. Both as a way of reading texts and as a theoretical approach to culture more generally, 'ecocriticism' is a varied and fast-changing set of practices which challenges inherited thinking and practice in the reading of literature and culture. This introduction defines what ecocriticism is...

Exploring the endings of species, languages, cultures, and ways of life, this collection "provocatively makes one think about extinction in novel ways." — Biological ConservationWe live in an era marked by an accelerating rate of species death, but since the early days of the discipline, anthropology has contemplated the death of languages, cultural groups, and ways of life. The essays in this collection examine processes of—and our understanding of—extinc...

Animals and Women is a collection of pioneering essays that explores the theoretical connections between feminism and animal defense. Offering a feminist perspective on the status of animals, this unique volume argues persuasively that both the social construction and oppressions of women are inextricably connected to the ways in which we comprehend and abuse other species. Furthermore, it demonstrates that such a focus does not distract from the struggle for women’s rights, but r...

How environmentalism can reinvent itself in a postnature age: a proposal for navigating between naive naturalism and technological arrogance.Environmentalists have always worked to protect the wildness of nature but now must find a new direction. We have so tamed, colonized, and contaminated the natural world that safeguarding it from humans is no longer an option. Humanity's imprint is now everywhere and all efforts to “preserve” nature require extensive human int...

As Julie Urbanik vividly illustrates, non-human animals are central to our daily human lives. We eat them, wear them, live with them, work them, experiment on them, try to save them, spoil them, abuse them, fight them, hunt them, buy and sell them, love them, and hate them. Placing Animals is the first book to bring together the historical development of the field of animal geography with a comprehensive survey of how geographers study animals today. Urbanik provides readers with a thoroug...

We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges, including global climate change, large-scale industrial development, rapidly increasing species extinction, ocean acidification, and deforestation - challenges that require new vocabularies and new ways to express grief and sorrow over the disappearance, degradation, and loss of nature.Seeking to redress the silence around ecologically based anxiety in academic and public domains, and to extend the concepts of sadness, anger, an...