Modernism and the Anthropocene: Material Ecologies of Twentieth-Century Literature

(Hardback)

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Modernism and the Anthropocene explores twentieth-century literature as it engages with the non-human world across a range of contexts. From familiar modernist works by D.H. Lawrence and Hart Crane to still-emergent genres like comics and speculative fiction, this volume tackles a series of related questions regarding how best to understand humanitys increasing domination of the natural world.

Reviews

Within the growing field of ecocritical modernist studies, examining literary modernisms relationship to the Anthropocene is a particularly urgent task. By theorizing twentieth-century modernisms as literatures of an emergent Anthropocene, this book opens an important conversation about the extent to which modernist aesthetic practicesfrom experimental novels and poetics to sci-fi, comics, and popular science writinganticipate current concerns about the scale of human impact on the planet, the entanglement of human with more-than-human agencies, and the discrepancy between phenomenological, historical, and planetary timescales. Representing a range of critical perspectives, the chapters offer thought-provoking starting points for further investigation. -- Anne Raine, University of Ottawa
This important volume spotlights modernist engagement with the nonhuman world. Scholars and students conscious of their unraveling natural setting and strained social context are focusing on just these tensions. Modernism and the Anthropocene succeeds by mingling the ecological turn in modernist studies with the cultural-historical experience of the Anthropocene. The result is a timely contribution for literary scholars, environmental humanists, and students of our unfolding climate emergency. -- Jeffrey Mathes McCarthy, University of Utah
At first glance, the terms Modernism and Anthropocene appear to be an unlikely and unpredictable pairing of two concepts that seem to be at odds. One is literary; the other is geological. But it is precisely this intriguing title that prompts further reading of the essay collection, Modernism and the Anthropocene: Material Ecologies of Twentieth-Century Literature, co-edited by Jon Hegglund and John McIntyre [this] book is a conversation starter and an invitation to continue the conversation started by the editors, a conversation that should include Edith Whartons oeuvre. The rusty green color of the cover is reminiscent of a long-forgotten toolbox that is begging to be opened and used. * Edith Wharton Review *

Author Bio

Jon Hegglund is associate professor of English at Washington State University.
John McIntyre is associate professor of English at the University of Prince Edward Island.