The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch marking humanity''s alteration of the Earth: its rock structure environments atmosphere. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Anthropocene offers the most comprehensive survey yet of how literature can address the social cultural and philosophical questions posed by the Anthropocene. This volume addresses the old and new literary forms - from novels plays poetry and essays to exciting and evolving genres such as ''cli-fi'' experimental poetry interspecies design gaming weird ecotopian and petro-fiction and ''new'' nature writing. Studies range from the United States to India from Palestine to Scotland while addressing numerous global signifiers or consequences of the Anthropocene: catastrophe extinction ''fossil capital'' warming politics ethics interspecies relations deep time and Earth. This unique Companion offers a compelling account of how to read literature through the Anthropocene and of how literature might yet help us imagine a better world.