What is Ecocriticism?

Ecocriticism

In this course, Dr Todd Borlik (University of Huddersfield) explores the development of the ecocritical movement in the last four decades. In the first module, we ask what ecocriticism is, using Lawrence Buell’s Criteria for Environmental texts to analyse Chapter 3 in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939). In the second, we consider the tenets of the first wave of ecocriticism, looking at Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire (1968) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798). In the third, we look at the ‘toxic discourse’ that fascinated ecocritics in the second wave, observing how Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985) and Charles Dickens’ Hard Times (1854) take it on. In the fourth, we focus on the expansion of ecocritical theory past the Anglo-American canon, looking at Aimé Césaire’s Une Tempête (1969). In the fifth, we analyse the material turn in ecocriticism through Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (1977). Finally, in the sixth, we use Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) in order to explore current ecocritical debates.

What is Ecocriticism?

In this module, we explore what it means to be an ecocritic, focusing in particular on: (i) William Rueckert and Cheryll Glotfelty’s definitions of ecocriticism, (ii) the implications of commitment to political advocacy in ecocriticism, (iii) how ecocriticism interrogates anthropocentrism, (iv) Lawrence Buell’s Criteria for Environmental Texts, and (v) how the turtle scene in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) fulfills these criteria.