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.
Foreword Scott Slovic Introduction: Critical Perspectives in Global Ecodystopias Soumyadeep Chakraborty and Indrajit Mukherjee Part I: Ecodisaster and Postapocalyptic PredicamentsChapter 1: Naturalising Ecodiaster: The Politics of Indifference and Denial Diganta Bhatacharya Chapter 2:Scenes of Debris: Ecodisaster Narratives and the Ekphrastic Eye Caren Irr Chapter 3: ‘Nothing will ever be as brave again’: The melodramatic Mode in Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations Akshata Sharad Pai Part II: Ecodisaster and the Western Metaphysics of ModernityChapter 4: History Men and Half Lives: Mad Max and the Question of Postapocalyptic Historiography Alan Mattli Chapter 5: Extinction, Ecodisaster, and the Global Corporate Dystopias of Martin MacInnes Patrick Whitmarsh Chapter 6: “Land of Habitation has transformed itself into Land of Execution”: The Mahabharata, Nuclear Holocaust and Ecological Intrigue in Koustav Bhattacharya’s Adi Parva Souvik KarPart III: Ecodisaster and Alternative Worldview Chapter 7: An Ecofeminist Solarpunk Reading of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s?Sultana’s Dream?and Ursula K. Le Guin’s?The Dispossessed Shalini Pathayad and Swarnalatha Rangarajan Chapter 8: Another World Is Possible: Alternatives to Ecodisaster in Susan Straight’s and Olga Tokarczuk’s Works Katarzyna Nowak-McNeice Part IV: Ecodisaster, Trauma, and Colonial Entanglements Chapter 9: ‘Sugar in the blood’: Reading David Dabydeen’s Slave Song in the Context of the Plantationocene Shayeari Dutta Chapter 10: Mapping the Geotrauma: Alexis Wright’s?The Swan Book?as a Narrative of Ecological Entanglements Sibendu Chakraborty Part V: Ecodisaster and Graphic NarrativesChapter 11: Ecodisaster, Human Agency and the Emotional Politics of Reclaim in Brian Fies’sA Fire Story: A Graphic Memoir Saranya Sen and Paromita Mukherjee Chapter 12: Architectural Ethologies of the Post-apocalyptic Anthropocene: Survivalist Construction and World-building in Nausicaä Subashish?Bhattacharjee Afterword Timo Müller