This volume explores how ecodisaster narratives and dystopian elements in literature and culture provide us with a rich framework for dissecting the pressing ethical and metaphysical concerns that threaten human agency and the authentic existence of life-forms across the globe. The volume delves deep into the dynamic ideas related to the ‘human-nonhuman-nature-culture interface,’ examines the recent interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary trends in the cultural representations of disaster at different levels across the globe, and explores the cross-currents in the discourse of environmental humanities.
Soumyadeep Chakraborty teaches English literature and language in theDepartment of English, Raja N. L. Khan Women’s College (Autonomous), West Bengal, India.Indrajit Mukherjee is Assistant Professor of English at Nistarini College, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, West Bengal, India.
ForewordScott Slovic IntroductionSoumyadeep Chakraborty and Indrajit Mukherjee1. Naturalising Ecodiaster: The Politics of Indifference and DenialDiganta Bhattacharya2. Scenes of Debris: Ecodisaster Narratives and the Ekphrastic EyeCaren Irr3. In/Human Aesthetics: On the Scale, Form, and Politics of the Mid-Century Ecodisaster FictionRajdeep Pathak and Raktima Bhuyan 4. “Nothing will ever be as brave again”: The Melodramatic Mode in Charlotte McConaghy’s MigrationsAkshata Sharad Pai5. “Land of Habitation has transformed itself into Land of Execution”: The Mahabharata, Nuclear Holocaust and Ecological Intrigue in Koustav Bhattacharya’s Adi ParvaSouvik Kar6. Unaccommodated Man Adrift on the Pale Blue Dot: Disaster, Migration and Borders in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun IslandDhrubajyoti Banerjee7. Interrogating Eco Disaster in Indian Cinema: A Reading of Jal, Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain and Kaun Kitne Paani MeinDevapriya Sanyal8. History Men and Half Lives: Mad Max and the Question of Post-Apocalyptic HistoriographyAlan Mattli9. Ecodisaster, Extinction, and the Tense of an EndingPatrick Whitmarsh10. Moving Beyond Resource Extractivism: A Critical Reading of Sultana’s Dream as a Solar Power UtopiaShalini Pathayad and Swarnalatha Rangarajan11. Alternatives to Ecodisaster in Contemporary Literature: Susan Straight’s and Olga Tokarczuk’s WorksKatarzyna Nowak-McNeice12. “Sugar in the blood”: Reading David Dabydeen’s Slave Song in the Context of the PlantationoceneShayeari Dutta13. Mapping the ‘Geotrauma’: Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book as a Narrativisation of Ecological EntanglementsSibendu Chakraborty14. Ecodisaster, Human Agency and the Emotional Politics of Reclaim in Brian Fies’s A Fire Story: A Graphic MemoirSaranya Sen and Paromita Mukherjee15. Architectural Ethologies of the Post-apocalyptic Anthropocene: Survivalist Construction and World-building in NausicaäSubashish BhattacharjeeAfterwordTimo Muller