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Sylvia Mayer

University Of Bayreuth, Germany, American Studies and Intercultural Anglophone Studies, Faculty Member

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Address: English Department
University of Bayreuth
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Karsten Levihn-Kutzler

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Alexander Lehner

University of Augsburg

University of Bath

University of Bath

University of Connecticut

Anna-Marie Humbert

Universitaet Potsdam

Caitlin McIntyre

SUNY: University at Buffalo

University of Wisconsin-River Falls

Alexa Weik von Mossner

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt

Carmen Flys Junquera

Universidad de Alcala

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Papers by Sylvia Mayer

Environmental Risk Fiction and Ecocriticism

Ecozon@, Sep 30, 2020

Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary a... more Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary and cultural studies. The essay surveys this more recent trend in ecocritical scholarship, which began with the new millennium and has focused on the participation of fictional texts in various environmental risk discourses. The study of risk fiction draws our attention to cultural moments of uncertainty, threat, and instability, to risk scenarios both local and planetary-not least the risk scenarios of the Anthropocene in which species consciousness and 'planetariness' have become central issues. The essay reviews how key publications have shed light on the cultural and literary historical relevance of environmental risk and on various issues that are central to ecocriticism. It points out how they have sharpened our sense of both the spatial and temporal dimensions of environmental risk and environmental crisis, introduced new categories of ecocritical analysis, contributed to clarifying some of the field's major conceptual premises, and added a new approach to genre discussions, in particular relating to fiction engaging with global anthropogenic climate change.

The Anticipation of Catastrophe : Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture ; Introduction

Klimawandelfiktionen und gesellschaftlicher Klimadiskurs

Schlüsselwerke der sozialwissenschaftlichen Klimaforschung

Die kulturwissenschaftliche Erzählforschung hat gezeigt, dass das Erzählen eine anthropologische ... more Die kulturwissenschaftliche Erzählforschung hat gezeigt, dass das Erzählen eine anthropologische Konstante ist. Erzählungen sind Ausdruck eines menschlichen Grundbedürfnisses nach Sinnstiftung, Orientierung und sozialer Kommunikation. Sie sind Beschreibungen und Deutungen von Erfahrenem und entfalten gleichzeitig eine wirklichkeitserzeugende Kraft. Erzählungen sind kulturelle Werkzeuge, in denen Wahrnehmungen, Erinnerungen und Spekulationen über mögliche Zukünfte zum Ausdruck gebracht werden. Als kommunikative Praxis beeinflussen sie soziales und politisches Handeln und entfalten individuell wie kollektiv identitätsstiftende Wirkung (vgl. Koschorke 2012; Müller-Funk 2008). Nicht zuletzt in Zeiten des Umbruchs und der Krise wird dabei besonders sichtbar, dass und wie kulturelle Erzählungen auf sich wandelnde Realitäten reagieren und wie sie neues Denken, Wissen und Handeln generieren. Die planetarische Klimakrise erfordert es somit, auch Klimawandelerzählungen in den Fokus der Klimaforschung zu rücken. Die Bedeutung von Klimawandelerzählungen untersucht in den Sozialwissenschaften beispielsweise die sozialwissenschaftlich orientierte narrative Diskursanalyse, wie sie im deutschsprachigen Raum z.B. Willy Viehöver vertritt. In seinem Handbuchartikel Die Wissenschaft und die Wiederverzauberung des sublunaren Raumes. Der Klimadiskurs im Licht der narrativen Diskursanalyse (Viehöver 2004) erläutert er deren Methodologie und Methodik exemplarisch am Beispiel von journalistischen Narrationen zum globalen Klimawandel, die im letzten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts publiziert wurden. Innerhalb dieses Zeitraums vollzieht sich der Wandel hin zur Wahrnehmung des Weltklimas als gefährdet. Viehöver zeigt, wie die Narrativierung des Klimawandels konkurrierende Narrationen erzeugte, die letztlich qua ihrer performativen Kraft Veränderungen der gesellschaftlichen und politischen Praxis nach sich zogen und in denen sich nicht zuletzt »eine Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von Natur und Gesellschaft andeutet«. Natur wird in ihnen zunehmend als »Mitwelt« der Menschen definiert, die es-nicht zuletzt mit Blick auf das eigene Überleben-zu schützen und »in einem angemessenen Gleichgewichtszustand« (Viehöver 2004: 234) zu halten gilt.

After the Plague and other stories / Nachwort

Boyle, Tom Coraghessan: After the Plague and other stories / T. C. Boyle. Hrsg. von Sylvia Mayer ... - Stuttgart, 2006. - S. 213 - 237, 2006

Orientalism in the Melodrama of the Early American Republic: William Munford, Almoran and Hamet

From an Ethics of Proximity to an Ethics of Connectivity : Risk, Mobility, and Deterritorialization in Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior

Amerikastudien/American Studies, 2016

This essay discusses the participation of Barbara Kingsolver’s climate change novel Flight Behavi... more This essay discusses the participation of Barbara Kingsolver’s climate change novel Flight Behavior in the ethical discourse of anthropogenic climate change by paying particular attention to the connection between the representation of geographical mobility and the experience of place. It approaches climate change as a global risk and the novel as a risk narrative that explores the spatial instabilities and transformations caused by climate change. It argues that the novel’s focus on mobility—both nonhuman and human—and on deterritorialized place creates an environmental ethical space that transcends traditional notions of an ethics of proximity, which are based on concepts of place as bounded. Instead, Flight Behavior suggests an ethics of connectivity, a globalized ethics that recognizes mobility and processes of deterritorialization as fundamental to any assessment of the meanings and consequences of the climate change risk.

The Traveller as Topographer: Jonathan Raban's Bad Land: An American Romance

Spatial Change in English Literature. Ed. Joachim Frenk. Trier: wvt, 2000

Scale and Speculative Futures in Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker and Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312

Practices of Speculation. Modeling, Embodiment, Figuration. Eds. Jeanne Cortiel, Christine Hanke, Jan Simon Hutta, Colin Milburn. Bielefeld. transcript, 2020.

Oil fiction as risk fiction: inhabiting risk in Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit

Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, 2019

This essay discusses Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit as environmental risk narrative. The novel contrib... more This essay discusses Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit as environmental risk narrative. The novel contributes to the literary history of oil in the United States by exploring from a risk perspective an infamous period of Native American history in the 1920s, the catastrophic events that developed from the discovery of oil in Northern Oklahoma’s ‘Indian Territory.’ Reading Mean Spirit as risk narrative provides a specific way of knowing about oil, about its economic, social, and cultural meanings. The novel’s focus on how oil-related risks shape its characters’ lives shows that oil cultures must be regarded as risk cultures in which various risks unfold their shaping power – risks that are voluntarily taken and risks that must involuntarily be endured. Through its focus on risk, Mean Spirit draws attention to the fact that uncertainty and instability have always marked the cultural history of oil in the United States.

Environmental Risk Fiction and Ecocriticism

Ecozon@, 2020

Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary a... more Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary and cultural studies. The essay surveys this more recent trend in ecocritical scholarship, which began with the new millennium and has focused on the participation of fictional texts in various environmental risk discourses. The study of risk fiction draws our attention to cultural moments of uncertainty, threat, and instability, to risk scenarios both local and planetary-not least the risk scenarios of the Anthropocene in which species consciousness and 'planetariness' have become central issues. The essay reviews how key publications have shed light on the cultural and literary historical relevance of environmental risk and on various issues that are central to ecocriticism. It points out how they have sharpened our sense of both the spatial and temporal dimensions of environmental risk and environmental crisis, introduced new categories of ecocritical analysis, contributed to clarifying some of the field's major conceptual premises, and added a new approach to genre discussions, in particular relating to fiction engaging with global anthropogenic climate change.

"Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures: An Introduction"

Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures. Eds. Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson, 2006

"Klimawandelroman"

Ecocriticism: Eine Einführung. Eds. Gabriele Dürbeck & Urte Stobbe., 2015

Risk Narratives: Climate Change, the American Novel, and the World Risk Society

America After Nature: Democracy, Culture, Environment. Eds. Catrin Gersdorf, Juliane Braun, 2016

Risk awareness has become a cultural force that permeates contemporary societies. The need to dea... more Risk awareness has become a cultural force that permeates contemporary societies. The need to deal with a future that is marked by uncertainty, contingency, and insecurity is frequently expressed in risk discourse. Environmental risks, often closely related to technological risks, have been at the heart of contemporary risk discourses, including risk theory and risk research in the social sciences. This essay focuses on a part of environmental risk discourse that has largely been neglected in risk theory and risk research: fictional texts. By exploring the contribution of a number of U.S. American novels to the risk discourse of global, anthropogenic climate change it demonstrates that fictional texts play an important role in risk discourse and risk communication.

Literarische Umwelt-Risikonarrative.

Ökologische Genres: Naturästehtik – Umweltethik – Wissenspoetik. Ed. Evi Zemanek. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018, 2018

Science in the World Risk Society: Risk, the Novel, and Global Climate Change.

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2016

Anthropogenic climate change constitutes one of the major global risks of our time. In spite of w... more Anthropogenic climate change constitutes one of the major global risks of our time. In spite of widespread scientific consensus, however, climate change discourse is still characterized by controversy. This controversy reflects both a variety of conflicting interests that frame the perception of climate change and a fundamental trend in our age of reflexive modernity: an increased awareness of scientific uncertainty and a loss of trust in scientific authority. It also defines our current cultural moment as paradoxical: societies worldwide are simultaneously characterized by such increased awareness of scientific uncertainty and by reliance on scientific knowledge to a historically unprecedented degree. According to Ulrich Beck, this paradox in part defines what he conceived of as a new manifestation of modern society, the ‘world risk society.’ This essay addresses the fictional contribution to the risk discourse of global climate change. After introducing the role of science in the world risk society and the climate change novel as a fictional risk narrative, it discusses how Susan M. Gaines’ Carbon Dreams (2001) and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (2012) engage with this paradox, how they explore the complex socioeconomic, political, and cultural significance of climate science and the role and experience of climate scientists.

World Risk Society and Ecoglobalism: Risk, Literature, and the Anthropocene.

Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Ed. Hubert Zapf. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016

Introduction: 9/11 as Catalyst – American and British Cultural Responses

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2010

Explorations of the Controversially Real: Risk, the Climate Change Novel, and the Narrative of Anticipation

The Anticipation of Catastrophe. Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Eds. S. Mayer and A. Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2014

'Dwelling in Crisis': Terrorist and Environmental Risk Scenarios in the Post 9/11 Novel.

Beyond 9/11. Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Twenty-First Century U.S. American Culture. Eds. Ch. Kloeckner, S. Knewitz and S. Sielke. Frankfurt: Lang, 2013

Mapping the Environmental Ethical Dimension in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s New England Novels

Beyond Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Eds. Sylvia Mayer and Monika Müller. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2011

Environmental Risk Fiction and Ecocriticism

Ecozon@, Sep 30, 2020

Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary a... more Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary and cultural studies. The essay surveys this more recent trend in ecocritical scholarship, which began with the new millennium and has focused on the participation of fictional texts in various environmental risk discourses. The study of risk fiction draws our attention to cultural moments of uncertainty, threat, and instability, to risk scenarios both local and planetary-not least the risk scenarios of the Anthropocene in which species consciousness and 'planetariness' have become central issues. The essay reviews how key publications have shed light on the cultural and literary historical relevance of environmental risk and on various issues that are central to ecocriticism. It points out how they have sharpened our sense of both the spatial and temporal dimensions of environmental risk and environmental crisis, introduced new categories of ecocritical analysis, contributed to clarifying some of the field's major conceptual premises, and added a new approach to genre discussions, in particular relating to fiction engaging with global anthropogenic climate change.

The Anticipation of Catastrophe : Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture ; Introduction

Klimawandelfiktionen und gesellschaftlicher Klimadiskurs

Schlüsselwerke der sozialwissenschaftlichen Klimaforschung

Die kulturwissenschaftliche Erzählforschung hat gezeigt, dass das Erzählen eine anthropologische ... more Die kulturwissenschaftliche Erzählforschung hat gezeigt, dass das Erzählen eine anthropologische Konstante ist. Erzählungen sind Ausdruck eines menschlichen Grundbedürfnisses nach Sinnstiftung, Orientierung und sozialer Kommunikation. Sie sind Beschreibungen und Deutungen von Erfahrenem und entfalten gleichzeitig eine wirklichkeitserzeugende Kraft. Erzählungen sind kulturelle Werkzeuge, in denen Wahrnehmungen, Erinnerungen und Spekulationen über mögliche Zukünfte zum Ausdruck gebracht werden. Als kommunikative Praxis beeinflussen sie soziales und politisches Handeln und entfalten individuell wie kollektiv identitätsstiftende Wirkung (vgl. Koschorke 2012; Müller-Funk 2008). Nicht zuletzt in Zeiten des Umbruchs und der Krise wird dabei besonders sichtbar, dass und wie kulturelle Erzählungen auf sich wandelnde Realitäten reagieren und wie sie neues Denken, Wissen und Handeln generieren. Die planetarische Klimakrise erfordert es somit, auch Klimawandelerzählungen in den Fokus der Klimaforschung zu rücken. Die Bedeutung von Klimawandelerzählungen untersucht in den Sozialwissenschaften beispielsweise die sozialwissenschaftlich orientierte narrative Diskursanalyse, wie sie im deutschsprachigen Raum z.B. Willy Viehöver vertritt. In seinem Handbuchartikel Die Wissenschaft und die Wiederverzauberung des sublunaren Raumes. Der Klimadiskurs im Licht der narrativen Diskursanalyse (Viehöver 2004) erläutert er deren Methodologie und Methodik exemplarisch am Beispiel von journalistischen Narrationen zum globalen Klimawandel, die im letzten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts publiziert wurden. Innerhalb dieses Zeitraums vollzieht sich der Wandel hin zur Wahrnehmung des Weltklimas als gefährdet. Viehöver zeigt, wie die Narrativierung des Klimawandels konkurrierende Narrationen erzeugte, die letztlich qua ihrer performativen Kraft Veränderungen der gesellschaftlichen und politischen Praxis nach sich zogen und in denen sich nicht zuletzt »eine Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von Natur und Gesellschaft andeutet«. Natur wird in ihnen zunehmend als »Mitwelt« der Menschen definiert, die es-nicht zuletzt mit Blick auf das eigene Überleben-zu schützen und »in einem angemessenen Gleichgewichtszustand« (Viehöver 2004: 234) zu halten gilt.

After the Plague and other stories / Nachwort

Boyle, Tom Coraghessan: After the Plague and other stories / T. C. Boyle. Hrsg. von Sylvia Mayer ... - Stuttgart, 2006. - S. 213 - 237, 2006

Orientalism in the Melodrama of the Early American Republic: William Munford, Almoran and Hamet

From an Ethics of Proximity to an Ethics of Connectivity : Risk, Mobility, and Deterritorialization in Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior

Amerikastudien/American Studies, 2016

This essay discusses the participation of Barbara Kingsolver’s climate change novel Flight Behavi... more This essay discusses the participation of Barbara Kingsolver’s climate change novel Flight Behavior in the ethical discourse of anthropogenic climate change by paying particular attention to the connection between the representation of geographical mobility and the experience of place. It approaches climate change as a global risk and the novel as a risk narrative that explores the spatial instabilities and transformations caused by climate change. It argues that the novel’s focus on mobility—both nonhuman and human—and on deterritorialized place creates an environmental ethical space that transcends traditional notions of an ethics of proximity, which are based on concepts of place as bounded. Instead, Flight Behavior suggests an ethics of connectivity, a globalized ethics that recognizes mobility and processes of deterritorialization as fundamental to any assessment of the meanings and consequences of the climate change risk.

The Traveller as Topographer: Jonathan Raban's Bad Land: An American Romance

Spatial Change in English Literature. Ed. Joachim Frenk. Trier: wvt, 2000

Scale and Speculative Futures in Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker and Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312

Practices of Speculation. Modeling, Embodiment, Figuration. Eds. Jeanne Cortiel, Christine Hanke, Jan Simon Hutta, Colin Milburn. Bielefeld. transcript, 2020.

Oil fiction as risk fiction: inhabiting risk in Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit

Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, 2019

This essay discusses Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit as environmental risk narrative. The novel contrib... more This essay discusses Linda Hogan’s Mean Spirit as environmental risk narrative. The novel contributes to the literary history of oil in the United States by exploring from a risk perspective an infamous period of Native American history in the 1920s, the catastrophic events that developed from the discovery of oil in Northern Oklahoma’s ‘Indian Territory.’ Reading Mean Spirit as risk narrative provides a specific way of knowing about oil, about its economic, social, and cultural meanings. The novel’s focus on how oil-related risks shape its characters’ lives shows that oil cultures must be regarded as risk cultures in which various risks unfold their shaping power – risks that are voluntarily taken and risks that must involuntarily be endured. Through its focus on risk, Mean Spirit draws attention to the fact that uncertainty and instability have always marked the cultural history of oil in the United States.

Environmental Risk Fiction and Ecocriticism

Ecozon@, 2020

Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary a... more Ecocriticism has been at the forefront of introducing risk theory and risk research to literary and cultural studies. The essay surveys this more recent trend in ecocritical scholarship, which began with the new millennium and has focused on the participation of fictional texts in various environmental risk discourses. The study of risk fiction draws our attention to cultural moments of uncertainty, threat, and instability, to risk scenarios both local and planetary-not least the risk scenarios of the Anthropocene in which species consciousness and 'planetariness' have become central issues. The essay reviews how key publications have shed light on the cultural and literary historical relevance of environmental risk and on various issues that are central to ecocriticism. It points out how they have sharpened our sense of both the spatial and temporal dimensions of environmental risk and environmental crisis, introduced new categories of ecocritical analysis, contributed to clarifying some of the field's major conceptual premises, and added a new approach to genre discussions, in particular relating to fiction engaging with global anthropogenic climate change.

"Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures: An Introduction"

Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures. Eds. Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson, 2006

"Klimawandelroman"

Ecocriticism: Eine Einführung. Eds. Gabriele Dürbeck & Urte Stobbe., 2015

Risk Narratives: Climate Change, the American Novel, and the World Risk Society

America After Nature: Democracy, Culture, Environment. Eds. Catrin Gersdorf, Juliane Braun, 2016

Risk awareness has become a cultural force that permeates contemporary societies. The need to dea... more Risk awareness has become a cultural force that permeates contemporary societies. The need to deal with a future that is marked by uncertainty, contingency, and insecurity is frequently expressed in risk discourse. Environmental risks, often closely related to technological risks, have been at the heart of contemporary risk discourses, including risk theory and risk research in the social sciences. This essay focuses on a part of environmental risk discourse that has largely been neglected in risk theory and risk research: fictional texts. By exploring the contribution of a number of U.S. American novels to the risk discourse of global, anthropogenic climate change it demonstrates that fictional texts play an important role in risk discourse and risk communication.

Literarische Umwelt-Risikonarrative.

Ökologische Genres: Naturästehtik – Umweltethik – Wissenspoetik. Ed. Evi Zemanek. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018, 2018

Science in the World Risk Society: Risk, the Novel, and Global Climate Change.

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2016

Anthropogenic climate change constitutes one of the major global risks of our time. In spite of w... more Anthropogenic climate change constitutes one of the major global risks of our time. In spite of widespread scientific consensus, however, climate change discourse is still characterized by controversy. This controversy reflects both a variety of conflicting interests that frame the perception of climate change and a fundamental trend in our age of reflexive modernity: an increased awareness of scientific uncertainty and a loss of trust in scientific authority. It also defines our current cultural moment as paradoxical: societies worldwide are simultaneously characterized by such increased awareness of scientific uncertainty and by reliance on scientific knowledge to a historically unprecedented degree. According to Ulrich Beck, this paradox in part defines what he conceived of as a new manifestation of modern society, the ‘world risk society.’ This essay addresses the fictional contribution to the risk discourse of global climate change. After introducing the role of science in the world risk society and the climate change novel as a fictional risk narrative, it discusses how Susan M. Gaines’ Carbon Dreams (2001) and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (2012) engage with this paradox, how they explore the complex socioeconomic, political, and cultural significance of climate science and the role and experience of climate scientists.

World Risk Society and Ecoglobalism: Risk, Literature, and the Anthropocene.

Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Ed. Hubert Zapf. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016

Introduction: 9/11 as Catalyst – American and British Cultural Responses

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2010

Explorations of the Controversially Real: Risk, the Climate Change Novel, and the Narrative of Anticipation

The Anticipation of Catastrophe. Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Eds. S. Mayer and A. Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2014

'Dwelling in Crisis': Terrorist and Environmental Risk Scenarios in the Post 9/11 Novel.

Beyond 9/11. Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Twenty-First Century U.S. American Culture. Eds. Ch. Kloeckner, S. Knewitz and S. Sielke. Frankfurt: Lang, 2013

Mapping the Environmental Ethical Dimension in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s New England Novels

Beyond Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Eds. Sylvia Mayer and Monika Müller. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2011

Mohr, Dunja M. and Sylvia Mayer, eds.: 9 11 as Catalyst ZAA 2010 contents.pdf

by Dunja M Mohr and Sylvia Mayer

Literary and cultural studies criticism on “9/11” has predominantly argued that the events have r... more Literary and cultural studies criticism on “9/11” has predominantly argued that the events have resulted in the historical, political, and cultural caesura that many commentators had predicted in the immediate aftermath. However, what the events of 9/11 did bring about was a catalytic effect, especially in the fields of politics and culture, which produced a large corpus of textual/cultural representations that allow us to identify a variety of aesthetic and thematic responses.

The essays collected in this special issue of ZAA respond to the overall picture of literary and cultural studies criticism on post-9/11 texts provided here in two ways. Two essays address genres and media – American poetry and American popular music – that have not yet received the comprehensive critical attention they deserve; the
other essays target a key issue of post-9/11 novelistic representation, the complex issue of the effects and meanings of visualizations of 9/11.

The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture

by Alexa Weik von Mossner and Sylvia Mayer

Since the 1980s, “risk” has been one of the most productively employed categories of analysis in ... more Since the 1980s, “risk” has been one of the most productively employed categories of analysis in the social sciences. Risk theory and risk research in these disciplines have shown that pervasive risk awareness has increasingly reconfigured societies, politics, and cultures in our period of late modernity. The essays assembled in this volume extend risk research in the humanities to literary and cultural studies and analyze a wide range of literary and audiovisual texts that imagine human encounters with environmental risk in North America. They are grouped into three sections. The first section focuses on representations of the risk of global climate change in several climate change novels; the second section concentrates on the representation of the nuclear risk in non-fictional and fictional texts as well as in film; the third section draws particular attention to the relevance of genre in the representation of a variety of environmental risks, genres ranging from poetry to posthuman fiction to Hollywood disaster movies and video games.

American Environments. Culture – Climate – Catastrophe

This volume focuses on environmental knowledge production in the United States by taking as start... more This volume focuses on environmental knowledge production in the United States by taking as starting points the impact of natural catastrophes and of public debates on climate change and environmental threats. Individual chapters address the social, political, economic, ecological, as well as cultural effects of natural catastrophes. At stake are issues such as disaster management and politics, disaster as spectacle, and the popular imagination of catastrophe. In bringing together historians and geographers, literary and cultural studies scholars, political scientists, anthropologists, and scientists from the United States and Europe, this volume demonstrates that the human experience and imagination of environment have played a truly important role in American culture.

Beyond Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe

Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies: Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism

Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies is a collection of essays written by European and North A... more Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies is a collection of essays written by European and North American scholars who argue that nature and culture can no longer be thought of in oppositional, mutually exclusive terms. They are united in an effort to push the theoretical limits of ecocriticism towards a more rigorous investigation of nature’s critical potential as a concept that challenges modern culture’s philosophical assumptions, epistemological convictions, aesthetic principles, and ethical imperatives. This volume offers scholars and students of literature, culture, history, philosophy, and linguistics new insights into the ongoing transformation of ecocriticism into an innovative force in international and interdisciplinary literary and cultural studies.

Natur, Kultur, Text: Beiträge zu Ökologie und Literaturwissenschaft

Klimawandel, Umweltgerechtigkeit, Biotechnologie - am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts markieren diese... more Klimawandel, Umweltgerechtigkeit, Biotechnologie - am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts markieren diese Stichworte die wachsende gesellschaftliche Bedeutung von Ökologie- und Umweltfragen. Darüber hinaus rufen sie die Krise des Verhältnisses zwischen Kultur und Natur ins Bewusstsein. Angesichts dieser Tatsachen ist es dringend notwendig, die Funktion der Geisteswissenschaften, insbesondere der Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften, neu zu bestimmen. Der vorliegende Band, der einen Einblick in das noch junge Feld ökologisch orientierter Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft bietet, will dazu einen Beitrag leisten. Die Herausgeberinnen gehen von zwei zentralen Prämissen aus: (1) unser Zugang zur Welt ist immer ein symbolisch bzw. diskursiv vermittelter und (2) das gegenwärtige, krisenhafte Verhältnis zwischen Natur und Kultur verweist auf eine Krise der Phantasie, der Imagination und des Denkens, mithin also auf eine ästhetische und epistemologische Krise. Die hier versammelten Aufsätze beleuchten historische, poetologische und konzeptuelle Dimensionen dieses Zustandes. Damit soll deutlich gemacht werden, dass die Lösung von Umweltproblemen, die Bewältigung der in ihrer Dimension letztlich globalen Krise und damit die Ökologisierung von Gesellschaften nur dann gelingen kann, wenn die kulturell formative Funktion von Texten in ihrer Relevanz erkannt und in den umweltpolitischen Diskussions- bzw. Problemlösungsprozess eingebracht wird.

Naturethik und Neuengland-Regionalliteratur: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rose Terry Cooke, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Restoring the Connection to the Natural World: Essays on the African American Environmental Imagination

Münster: LIT, 2003

The collection of essays contributes to the ecocritical work that has started to take the analyti... more The collection of essays contributes to the ecocritical work that has started to take the analytical categories of race, ethnicity, class, gender, region, and nation into account. The essays presented here show that African American authors have made unique contributions to the variety of representations of American environments that has been so important for American cultural history. Informed by historically specific cultural matrices, some of them revise received notions of the United States as “nature’s nation,” while at the same time adding other dimensions to such a concept. With respect to African American literary history, it seems especially significant that despite broad thematic diversity many contemporary texts display a strong concern with issues of environmental inequity and environmental justice.

‘The Name of the Sound’: Das Motiv des Klanges in den Romanen Toni Morrisons