Environmental Justice in Contemporary US Narratives (Routledge Environmental Humanities) - Softcover

Athanassakis, Yanoula

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0367027003 ISBN 13: 9780367027001

Publisher: Routledge, 2019

Synopsis

Environmental Justice in Contemporary US Narratives examines post-1929 US artistic interrogations of environmental disruption. Tracing themes of pollution, marine life, and agricultural production in the work of a number of historically significant writers including John Steinbeck, Ruth Ozeki, and Cherríe Moraga, this book outlines a series of incisive dialogues on transnational flows of capital and environmental justice. Texts ranging from The Grapes of Wrath (1939) to Body Toxic (2001) represent the body as vulnerable to a host of environmental risks. They identify "natural disasters" not just as environmental hazards and catastrophes, but also as events intertwined with socioeconomic issues.

With careful textual analysis, Athanassakis shows how twentieth- and twenty-first-century US writers have sought to rethink traditional understandings of how the human being relates to ecological phenomena. Their work, and this study, offer new modes of creative engagement with environmental degradation – engagement that is proactive, ambivalent, and even playful.

This book contributes to vital discussions about the importance of literature for social justice movements, food studies, ecocriticism, and the environmental humanities. The core argument of the book is that artistically imaginative narratives of environmental disturbance can help humans contend with ostensibly uncontrollable, drastic planetary changes.

About this title

About the Author

Yanoula Athanassakis received her PhD in English (American Literature), with a global studies emphasis, from the University of California at Santa Barbara, USA. She is Co-Founder of the Environmental Humanities Series at New York University (NYU) and Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, NYU, USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0367027003
• ISBN 13: 9780367027001
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 178