Dancing with Disaster: Environmental Histories, Narratives, and Ethics for Perilous Times

Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism

by Kate Rigby, Michael Branch (Editor)

The calamitous impacts of climate change that are beginning to be felt around the world today expose the inextricability of human and natural histories. Arguing for a more complex account of such calamities, Kate Rigby examines a variety of past disasters, from the Black Death of the Middle Ages to the mega-hurricanes of the twenty-first century, revealing the dynamic interaction of diverse human and nonhuman factors in their causation, unfolding, and aftermath.

Focusing on the link between the ways disasters are framed by the stories told about them and how people tend to respond to them in practice, Rigby also shows how works of narrative fiction invite ethical reflection on human relations with one another, with our often unruly earthly environs, and with other species in the face of eco-catastrophe. In its investigation of an array of authors from the Romantic period to the present--including Heinrich von Kleist, Mary Shelley, Theodor Storm, Colin Thiele, and Alexis Wright-- Dancing with Disaster demonstrates the importance of the environmental humanities in the development of more creative, compassionate, ecologically oriented, and socially just responses to the perils and possibilities of the Anthropocene.

Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 2015

About the author

Professor of Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa University

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

Reviews

[Lawrence Coates · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the more haunting, given the fires currently burning in the West.

[Jeff Schauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting telling of the process by which human agency became divorced from our description of "natural disasters". Proposing the term eco-catastrophe in an era which promises to be defined by climate change, Rigby introduces us to historical stories of such catastrophes that act as turning points. A good and timely read.

[Samuel Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent piece of eco-criticism. Very well-informed with a strong focus on history (the age of the anthropocene), ecology, and literature. Rigby is at her best when she discusses history and theory, and perhaps less forceful in her literary analyses.

[the Kent cryptid · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly mind-expanding book, which looks at ecological catastrophes through the lens of literature and made me want to read more about concepts like eco-phobia. It's aimed primarily at an academic audience, but Kate Rigby has a lovely turn of phrase and it's pretty accessible.