Ecological Approaches to Early Modern English Texts

Ecocriticism has steadily gained footing within the larger arena of early modern scholarship and with the publication of well over a dozen monographs essay collections and special journal issues literary studies looks increasingly 'green'; yet the field lacks a straightforward easy-to-use guide to do with reading and teaching early modern texts ecocritically. Accessible yet comprehensive the cutting-edge collection Ecological Approaches to Early Modern English Texts fills this gap. Organized around the notion of contact zones (or points of intersection that have often been constructed asymmetrically-especially with regard to the human-nonhuman dichotomy) the volume reassesses current trends in ecocriticism and the Renaissance; introduces analyses of neglected texts and authors; brings ecocriticism into conversation with cognate fields and approaches (e.g. queer theory feminism post-coloniality food studies); and offers a significant section on pedagogy ecocriticism and early modern literature. Engaging points of tension and central interest in the field the collection is largely situated in the 'and/or' that resides between presentism-historicism materiality-literary somatic-semiotic nature-culture and most importantly human-nonhuman. Ecological Approaches to Early Modern English Texts balances coverage and methodology; its primary goal is to provide useful yet nuanced discussions of ecological approaches to reading and teaching a range of representative early modern texts. As a whole the volume includes a diverse selection of chapters that engage the complex issues that arise when reading and teaching early modern texts from a green perspective.