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Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics
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Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics

A special issue of Literature (ISSN 2410-9789).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 36060

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Jerome F. Bump

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
Interests: literature; pandemic; COVID; corona; climate change; neuroscience; brain scan; medical education; public health education; apocalyptic; post-apocalyptic fiction; novel; Bless Me Ultima; Flight Behavior; Hopkins; story; narrative; social media; conspiracy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The new journal LITERATURE has finally been launched (ISSN: 2410-9789). It is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on literature and cultural studies published quarterly online. MDPI waives up to 100% APC fees in new humanities journals.

We continue to explore the relevance of traditional literature, but all kinds of approaches are encouraged, including the perspective of the literature classroom. We consider relationships between high and popular literature and other forms of story in multimedia, social media, even video games. We support innovative online publishing including audio, image, and video. However, our focus is on literature per se, “the best writing,” relegating theory and other disciplines to supporting roles.

The last special Issue topic “What Good Is Literature Now” has become a theme for regular issues. The new, more focused special issue title is “Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics,” with a special interest in Literature and Trauma (PTSD generated by Pandemics and/or catastrophic Climate Events). We have a publisher for a book version. The deadline is extended to January 30, 2022, but accepted articles are published immediately.

A few possible Special Issue topics:

  • How canliterature help us face the challenges of the pandemic and climate crises that threaten the survival of our species?Can literature help us deal living with the traumatic possibilities of the end of civilization as we know it and the extinction of almost all life on this planet, including our own?
  • What kinds and genres of literature are best for this purpose? “High” literature or popular culture? Prize-winning authors or neglected writers of science fiction? Print or electronic media? Mixed genres such as Robinson's The Ministry of the Future? What is the role of literary criticism in this context? To be more specific, what is the role of books such as Amitav Ghosh’s Derangement and the Unthinkable?
  • Book Reviews. As these final questions suggest, book reviews are welcome of new books or original reviews of recent or neglected books.
Send inquiries to: Prof. Jerome Bump, Editor in Chief, Literature, [email protected]

Prof. Dr. Jerome F. Bump
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Literature is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (11 papers)

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Editorial

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1 pages, 155 KiB  
Editorial
Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics
by Jerome F. A. Bump
Literature 2021, 1(2), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature1020006 - 29 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2229
Abstract
We are living in the sixth major extinction event on this planet [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)

Research

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17 pages, 473 KiB  
Article
As in Forests, So in Verse: Clearings and the Poetics of Lack in Finnish Forest Poetry
by Karoliina Lummaa
Literature 2023, 3(4), 385-401; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3040026 - 27 Sep 2023
Viewed by 1240
Abstract
Forests and forestry have been recurrent topics in Finnish environmental poetry since the 1970s, reflecting the importance of the cultural meanings of forests and forest-related livelihoods in Finland. Despite the recent forest boom in Finnish contemporary art and literature, contemporary sylvan poetics in [...] Read more.
Forests and forestry have been recurrent topics in Finnish environmental poetry since the 1970s, reflecting the importance of the cultural meanings of forests and forest-related livelihoods in Finland. Despite the recent forest boom in Finnish contemporary art and literature, contemporary sylvan poetics in Finnish poetry has remained an understudied topic. Moreover, the wider ecocritical discussions on the artistic and poetic dimensions of forest management and economy are still scarce, at least in the Nordic cultural context. To ignite these discussions, this study examines the meanings of forest clearings in contemporary Finnish poetry. Theoretically, this study draws from ecocriticism, with a particular emphasis on ecopoetics. By focusing on typography, rhetorics and thematics, this article shows how forest poems written by Jouni Tossavainen, Janette Hannukainen and Mikael Brygger combine technical forestry terminology with affective language and visual means to express anthropogenic changes in forests, resulting in a specific expressive style conceptualised as the poetics of lack. This poetics consists of ideas and rhetorical and typographical elements that together denote and express a variety of experiences, emotions and thoughts regarding a lack of trees, as well as a lack of natural organisation in forest growth. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
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10 pages, 245 KiB  
Article
Women and Nature: An Ecofeminist Reading of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus
by Nigus Michael Gebreyohannes and Abiye Daniel David
Literature 2022, 2(3), 179-188; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2030015 - 01 Sep 2022
Viewed by 6960
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to explore ecofeminist issues in Chimamanda Nagozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus. It examines the connections between women and nature as well as how unjustified patriarchal domination and Christianity impact these groups as well as indigenous people. [...] Read more.
The purpose of this research is to explore ecofeminist issues in Chimamanda Nagozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus. It examines the connections between women and nature as well as how unjustified patriarchal domination and Christianity impact these groups as well as indigenous people. A close reading of the novel was conducted in order to select extracts that demonstrate ecofeminist issues. Then, textual analysis was adopted to analyze the selected extracts. Thus, based on the analysis made, the novel shows strong interaction between women and the natural environment. The main character, Kambili, perceives nature as a symbol of hope, freedom, and impressiveness. In contrast, she represents nature as a foreshadowing of chaos and loss of life. The other issue stated in the novel is the women’s skill in nurturing plants and flowers. The novel claims that Aunty Ifeoma is knowledgeable and skillful when it comes to gardening. Additionally, Kambili’s mother is characterized as an excellent gardener who enjoys caring for the plants and flowers in her garden. Moreover, women are portrayed in the novel as the ones who harvest and produce agricultural goods. Finally, Purple Hibiscus illustrates how the patriarchal system and Christianity have led to an unjustified domination of nature and humans based on gender, religion, class, and tradition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
10 pages, 255 KiB  
Article
Marginalization of Sundarbans’ Marichjhapi: Ecocriticism Approaches in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Deep Halder’s Blood Island
by Camellia Biswas and Sharada Channarayapatna
Literature 2022, 2(3), 169-178; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2030014 - 12 Aug 2022
Viewed by 3391
Abstract
The article identifies the Sundarbans landscape as a ‘marginal scape’ in the context of the Marichjhapi Massacre of 1979. It applies the conservationist vs. environmental (in)justice approach of ecocriticism to Amitava Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Deep Halder’s Blood Island: An Oral History [...] Read more.
The article identifies the Sundarbans landscape as a ‘marginal scape’ in the context of the Marichjhapi Massacre of 1979. It applies the conservationist vs. environmental (in)justice approach of ecocriticism to Amitava Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide and Deep Halder’s Blood Island: An Oral History of Marichjhapi Massacre. It relates the idea of environmental discrimination and injustice based on caste to the misallocation of the ‘Commons’. For the Marichjhapi Dalit Refugees, the Sundarbans landscape and its ecological attributes become an essential medium in reconstructing their layered identity after migrating from Bangladesh to Sundarbans, which becomes marginalized. The paper argues that the management of environmental resources/landscapes has always been in the hands of the rich, entwined with Brahminical hegemony, who try to impose political geography over ecological systems to suppress the dispossessed. It concludes by comprehending that any justice-based approach (here, social and environmental) still favours non-human beings and ends up causing a multi-layered crisis for marginalized human populations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
16 pages, 881 KiB  
Article
T.S. Eliot in the 1918 Pandemic: Abjection and Immunity
by Huiming Liu
Literature 2022, 2(2), 90-105; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020008 - 01 Jun 2022
Viewed by 2691
Abstract
The influence of the 1918 pandemic was overshadowed by the catastrophe of the First World War. The current COVID-19 pandemic leads the academic attention to how the 1918 pandemic shaped literature of that period. Elizabeth Outka’s book brings the history of the pandemic [...] Read more.
The influence of the 1918 pandemic was overshadowed by the catastrophe of the First World War. The current COVID-19 pandemic leads the academic attention to how the 1918 pandemic shaped literature of that period. Elizabeth Outka’s book brings the history of the pandemic into the study of modernism. The vast scale of a sudden outbreak of pandemic disease had made decent burials and mourning very difficult. Outka argues that The Waste Land mourns the deaths during the pandemic. The traumatic experience of the pandemic can also be found in the difficulty of speech and the fragmentation of ghostly existence in The Waste Land. Building upon Outka’s work, this essay will engage with the cultural influences of the pandemic in Eliot’s other works and reveal how the famous touchstones of modernisms are shaped by such an event. I will specify how the war and the pandemic were connected in the following section on historical backgrounds. Immunity aims to fight against foreign invaders such as viruses on a micro-level. However, on a macro-level of politics, the logic of the immune system often wrongly identifies certain groups as the scapegoats for contagious diseases. My article aims to reveal the underlying metaphor of immunity in Eliot’s writing of the abject in the late 1910s. By doing so, I hope to contribute to current academic discussions of Eliot and the writing of the pandemic, anti-Semitism and post-colonialism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
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13 pages, 2163 KiB  
Article
Listening to Terrestrial Voices in Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence”
by Anne McConnell
Literature 2022, 2(2), 77-89; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020007 - 02 May 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4870
Abstract
Ted Chiang’s short story, “The Great Silence”, takes the perspective of a parrot living in the Rio Abajo forest in Puerto Rico, sharing its habitat with the Arecibo Observatory. The story first appeared as the textual component of a video installation by Allora [...] Read more.
Ted Chiang’s short story, “The Great Silence”, takes the perspective of a parrot living in the Rio Abajo forest in Puerto Rico, sharing its habitat with the Arecibo Observatory. The story first appeared as the textual component of a video installation by Allora & Calzadilla, a piece that emphasizes the entanglement of the forest habitat and the massive structure of the telescope). Chiang’s parrot-narrator wonders why humans demonstrate such a commitment to the possibility of interstellar communication while often ignoring the voices and interests of our terrestrial cohabitants. The parrot’s critically endangered species, the Puerto Rican parrot, once filled the forests of the island, and the narrator presents his/her narrative as a sort of final plea to humans, asking us to consider the speech of the nonhumans with whom we live. Bruno Latour’s notion of “the terrestrial” provides a useful framework for approaching the parrot’s narrative, specifically in terms of the demand to come “down to earth”, engaging in the politics of human and nonhuman agents who all have something at stake. The parrot asks that we turn more attention to terrestrial concerns, in order to communicate with those who are already speaking to us. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
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15 pages, 231 KiB  
Article
Mid-Pandemic Pedagogy: A Candid Dialogue between Student and Literature Professor
by Katherine Saunders Nash and Emma Carlson
Literature 2022, 2(2), 62-76; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020006 - 01 Apr 2022
Viewed by 2052
Abstract
In this article, an English professor and a sophomore-level English major explicate the singular difficulties of teaching and learning Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway mid-pandemic. These difficulties arise despite the fact that Mrs Dalloway would seem an ideal novel for our historical moment [...] Read more.
In this article, an English professor and a sophomore-level English major explicate the singular difficulties of teaching and learning Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway mid-pandemic. These difficulties arise despite the fact that Mrs Dalloway would seem an ideal novel for our historical moment in the US. Woolf offers her readers searing insights into pandemic casualties, trauma, ruinous disillusionment with political systems, and radical isolation in a fragmented society. Working together, professor and student identify potent reasons why teaching and learning from this novel can be so difficult. We unpack a serious yet widely misunderstood gap between students’ and educators’ perspectives: a gap widened since 2020 by a combination of remote learning and social media consumption. We then recommend intellectual and pedagogical strategies that illuminate Woolf in ways not required before the pandemic, while also bridging perceptual gaps in the classroom between professors and students. Studying and interpreting Mrs Dalloway, a novel invested in illuminating myriad perspectives on PTSD, pandemic casualties, and political ruination, is difficult yet uniquely vital in this historical moment—though not for the reasons this professor expected. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
12 pages, 259 KiB  
Article
Taking Lessons from Silent Spring: Using Environmental Literature for Climate Change
by Craig A. Meyer
Literature 2021, 1(1), 2-13; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature1010002 - 29 Jul 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 5884
Abstract
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) created a new genre termed “science nonfiction literature.” This genre blended environmental science and narrative while ushering in a new era of awareness and interest for both. With the contemporary climate crisis becoming more dire, this article returns [...] Read more.
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) created a new genre termed “science nonfiction literature.” This genre blended environmental science and narrative while ushering in a new era of awareness and interest for both. With the contemporary climate crisis becoming more dire, this article returns to Carson’s work for insight into ways to engage deniers of climate change and methods to propel action. Further, it investigates and evaluates the writing within Silent Spring by considering its past in our present. Using the corporate reception of Carson’s book as reference, this article also examines ways climate change opponents create misunderstandings and inappropriately deceive and misdirect the public. Through this analysis, connections are made that connect literature, science, and public engagement, which can engender a broader, more comprehensive awareness of the importance of environmental literature as a medium for climate awareness progress. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)

Other

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6 pages, 913 KiB  
Book Review
Climate Change, PTSD, and Cultural Studies. Book Review: Robinson (2020). The Ministry for the Future: A Novel. London: Orbit. ISBN: 978-0316300162
by Jerome F. A. Bump
Literature 2022, 2(3), 140-145; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2030011 - 12 Jul 2022
Viewed by 1559
Abstract
This novel demonstrates how we can face our current crises avoiding both denial and despair. A plausible, positive ending makes this not only a very unusual book in this genre, but probably the most important book you should read on this subject. While [...] Read more.
This novel demonstrates how we can face our current crises avoiding both denial and despair. A plausible, positive ending makes this not only a very unusual book in this genre, but probably the most important book you should read on this subject. While there are many interludes and side plots, the focus is on Frank, an American aid worker suffering from heat-wave PTSD, and Mary, the director of the Ministry for the Future, an organization created by the Paris Agreement to advocate for future generations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
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4 pages, 195 KiB  
Book Review
Book Review: Jensen (2021). Our Silver City 2094, e-Book. Nottingham: Nottingham Contemporary. ISBN: 978-1399908481
by Helen E. Mundler
Literature 2022, 2(2), 43-46; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2020004 - 23 Mar 2022
Viewed by 1496
Abstract
Liz Jensen has become a significant voice in British literary fiction in recent years, so reading Our Silver City 2094 comes with the pleasure of rediscovery [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
3 pages, 157 KiB  
Book Review
Ghassan Chebaro’s 2022 and the Forgotten Climate Crisis in the Middle East. Book Review: Chebaro (2009). 2022. Beirut: Arab Scientific Publishers. ISBN: 978-9953875118
by Ahmad A. Ghashmari
Literature 2022, 2(1), 40-42; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2010003 - 18 Feb 2022
Viewed by 1836
Abstract
The article discusses Ghassan Chebaro’s novel 2022 and the importance of grassroots action in battling the impending climate disaster in the Middle East. The article contrasts the novel’s optimism with the disappointing reality of inaction that is exacerbating the climate crisis. It also [...] Read more.
The article discusses Ghassan Chebaro’s novel 2022 and the importance of grassroots action in battling the impending climate disaster in the Middle East. The article contrasts the novel’s optimism with the disappointing reality of inaction that is exacerbating the climate crisis. It also addresses the interconnectedness of capitalism, the military industrial complex, and the climate crisis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Literature, Climate Crises, and Pandemics)
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