Discourses of Nation, National Ecopoetics, and Ecocriticism in the face of the US: Canada and Korea as Case Studies
Author: Estok, Simon C.1
Source: Comparative American Studies, Volume 7, Number 2, June 2009 , pp. 85-97(13)
Publisher: Maney Publishing
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Abstract:
While the dimensions of the 'environmental crisis' are clearly global, ecocriticism grows out of local systems with varying cultural valencies, meaning that an American ecocriticism will differ significantly in its material implications from, say, a Korean or a Canadian ecocriticism. The flow of environmental literature has generally been one-way, from America out, albeit with hybridized and Americanized versions of Taoist and Buddhist ecological precepts here and there, the odd nod to ecocritical communities outside the US, and numerous titles about 'expanding the boundaries', 'going further afield', and so on. Yet, there remains a clear and disproportionate imbalance weighing heavily toward celebrating American landscapes, American poetry, and American ecocriticism. This personal and polemic essay discusses colonialist implications of the fact that American geographies tend to become matters of global interest. One of the key issues that this article argues is that a continuing alliance between postcolonial and ecocritical studies can help us to look profitably at what are very important interconnections — ones with environmental effects and postcolonial implications — between discourses of nation, on the one hand, and national ecopoetics on the other.Keywords: ACTIVISM; CANADIAN ECOCRITICISM; COMPARATIVE ECOCRITICISM; ECOCRITICAL THEORY; ECOPHOBIA; ECOPOETRY; KOREAN ECOCRITICISM; POSTCOLONIAL ECOCRITICISM
Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1179/147757008X280803
Affiliations: 1: Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea;, Email: estok@skku.edu
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