Material Ecocriticism

Serenella Iovino is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Turin, Italy.Serpil Oppermann is Professor of English at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey.

• Foreword: Storied MatterJeffrey Jerome CohenIntroduction: Stories Come to MatterSerenella Iovino and Serpil OppermannPart I. Material Ecocriticism: Theories and Relations1. From Ecological Postmodernism to Material Ecocriticism: Creative Materiality and Narrative Agency Serpil Oppermann 2. On the Limits of Agency: Notes on the Material Turn from a Systems-Theoretical Perspective Hannes Bergthaller3. Creative Matter and Creative Mind: Cultural Ecology and Literary Creativity Hubert Zapf4. Natural Play, Natural Metaphor and Natural Stories: Biosemiotic RealismWendy Wheeler5. The Ecology of Color: Goethe's Materialist Optics and Ecological Posthumanism Heather Sullivan Part II. Narratives of Matter6. Bodies of Naples: Stories, Matter, and the Landscapes of Porosity Serenella Iovino7. When It Rains Lowell Duckert 8. Painful Material Realities, Avoidance, EcophobiaSimon C. Estok9. Semiotization of Matter: A Hybrid Zone between Biosemiotics and Material Ecocriticism Timo Maran Part III. Politics of Matter10. Pro/Polis: Three Forays into the Political Lives of BeesCatriona Sandilands11. Excremental Ecocriticism and the Global Sanitation Crisis Dana Phillips12. Oceanic Origins, Plastic Activism, and New Materialism at SeaStacy Alaimo13. Meditations on Natural Worlds, Disabled Bodies, and a Politics of Cure Eli ClarePart IV. Poetics of Matter14. Corporeal Fieldwork and Risky Art: Peter Goin and the Making of Nuclear Landscapes Cheryll Glotfelty15. Of Material Sympathies, Paracelsus, and WhitmanJane Bennett16. Source of Life: Avatar, Amazonia, and an Ecology of Selves Joni Adamson 17. The Liminal Space between Things: Epiphany and the Physical Timothy Morton Coda: Open ClosureA Diptych on Material Spirituality18. Spirits that Matter: Pathways towards a Rematerialization of Religion and SpiritualityKate Rigby 19. Mindful New Materialisms: Buddhist Roots for Material Ecocriticism's FlourishingGreta Gaard Afterword: The Commonwealth of BreathDavid AbramWorks CitedList of ContributorsIndex

With its wide array of topics and theoretical influences, Material Ecocriticism is a helpful starting point for those wondering how new materialist thinking can inform ecocriticism; it would also serve as a pertinent addition to graduate seminars.(Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment)