Material Ecocriticism

by Serenella Iovino (Editor), Serpil Oppermann (Editor)

Material Ecocriticism offers new ways to analyze language and reality, human and nonhuman life, mind and matter, without falling into well-worn paths of thinking. Bringing ecocriticism closer to the material turn, the contributions to this landmark volume focus on material forces and substances, the agency of things, processes, narratives and stories, and making meaning out of the world. This broad-ranging reflection on contemporary human experience and expression provokes new understandings of the planet to which we are intimately connected.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Academic, Theory, Environment, Ecology, Essays

359 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2014

Reviews

[Osore Misanthrope]

Хуманисти имају највећи (анти)таленат да огрћу перјем (баналне) биолошке и друге научне чињенице.

"The assertion that nature is meaningless and random is, thus, incorrect. It is a work of meaning making and purposes from which our own human meaning making and purposes have evolved."

Спојиш случајност мутација (биолошки феномен) са бесмисленошћу (филозофском категоријом), а онда све замешаш телеологијом.

Друга ствар од које ми се повраћа јесте афирмативни, оптимистични светоназор који жмури на 'деструктивни', а пренаглашава 'креативни карактер' природе.

[Renata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Material Ecocriticism is the work of Serenella Iovino, author of “Ecologia letteraria: Una strategia di soprevvivenza” (2006) and Serpil Opperman, the author of various articles that connect literature with science: “Feminist Ecocriticism: the New Ecofeminist Settlement” and “Quantum Physics and Literature”. This book proposes the risky but nevertheless well argued idea that “we can read the world as matter endowed with stories” (Opperman 21). The authors used this as their basic premise from which they built a possible solution to the “highly problematized relationships between the human and the nonhuman spheres of existence”(Opperman 22) throughout the whole book. Yet I will only focus on the first three chapters of the first section. Those are the ones that settle the framework of the study and go step by step from Ecological postmodernism (with its ontological and epistemological implications) from which their theory sets off and goes all the way to its connection with literature.
If we were to follow the core that runs through the three chapters we would need to address two important concepts: Narrative agency and creativity. Both imply the “expressive potential” of both human and nonhuman entities, their capability to create meaning and the relationships that happen in the worlds of their inner selves and the ones that occur on the outside. These are the key aspects that make possible the connection with literature and therefore enhance the importance of this work in literary studies. To say that nonhuman entities (from animals to molecules and cells) are capable of creative reorganization, creative responses and hence, creative narratives pulls the human entities (that were before thought as the only possible producing source of narratives) down to the level in which they are just another link of the interconnected world of narrative producers. This premise is what makes me question the perspective from which we’ve created the official discourses of landscape description, stories about nature including Natural History, and all the nature discourses that circulate the world today. I mean, haven’t we tried to approach and understand nature from the most restricted and self-referential perspective? Also isn’t it that one of the reasons that has brought the devastation and exploitation of nature.
The fact that the authors have found a possible solution to reconcile the spheres of human and non-human, the scientific and the artistic, looks more like a demand for humanity and most especially for those in the literary field to take a closer look. And maybe, this time they could provide some comparative literature between the territories of the human and the non-human.

[Zeke · Rating 3 out of 5]

some good articles but overall left me largely dissatisfied and disappointed

[Giulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Within the matters dealt with in the introduction and the first chapter of the book “From ecological postmodernism to material ecocriticism: creative materiality and narrative agency” there lies the subject of “stories”. In ecocriticism it is a term used to designate the interrelationships between all elements conforming different environments, whether this be rural or urban. Bacteria, plants, animals, rocks and human beings too, are a part of it. The relation established supposes that there is a communication within the ecosystem that carries its own story of association, alteration and changes, which mark every living or non-living being. Stories occur constantly, and have their own non- verbal form of correlating. Trees, bacteria, insects; do not need language to communicate. It also presupposes that nature has creative impulses and aspirations in the way that it interacts and thrives. A system like this regards nature as a live, vibrant web of connections that includes every environment and connects every being and element. From this viewpoint even our own bodies are part of that system, since the bacteria that lives inside us and constitutes us is an ecosystem in itself.
Stories help us establish a dialogue with our surroundings and with ourselves. At any moment and during any sort of experience we are part of them. If we are sad or happy, there are internal movements in our bodies; endorphins and neurons, which enable that process. The food that we eat is part of the way that we function, the air that we breathe and every bacteria in that air affects us. By simply existing as matter every part of our body is entering in communication with itself and everything around it. Ecocriticism changes the way perceive nature as an isolated process happening outside of ourselves into a twenty four hour work inside and around us; in short it turns us into nature as well. This helps us deepen our experience and makes it more meaningful as we become aware of all the other beings and elements that move with us day and night. If we were to, say, fall in love we are to be aware of our whole body: brain, heartbeat, respiration change with us and “talk” about that feeling. If we are to engage in a walk in the park we see the bugs, the squirrels, trees, benches, ducks, people as system in constant conversation. A raven pecking at a berry is a story and tells us something, and so does the raven to the berry.