Arcadiana

A Blog about Literature, Culture and the Environment

Ecocriticism and Birding

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Having written a PhD dissertation about human–bird relations in contemporary Scandinavian novels while also being an active birder, I’ve often thought about the links between birding, literary fiction, and ecocriticism. While my dissertation is grounded in literary theory, only drawing on field experience in indirect ways, surely there must be more to be said about writing …

Join the Team

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Blog Editor (3 open positions) The editors are responsible for running the Arcadiana blog. They are in charge of the blog’s direction, issuing general or themed calls for papers, and contacting universities and PGR/ECR forums to invite contributions from a wide range of research areas. Tasks include: Workload: Co-editors will be responsible for monitoring the email inbox, preparing …

“Forever changed”: Women, Revelation, and the Apocalypse in Wellington, New Zealand, 1846-1853

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In her classic New Zealand novel The Captive Wife, Fiona Kidman’s character Jacky experiences an Apocalypse within an Apocalypse – that is, a Revelation against a Revelation. Against the backdrop of colonial expansion by British imperial interests, Jacky is placed – first by circumstance, then by desire – “in a liminal space with a Māori chief”, …

The Writings of Trees: Ogham, Phytographia, and Calligraphy

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Introduction If a plant could speak, what would it say? From the Ents in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings to current scientific research on plant communication and signaling, explorations and imaginations of communications from plants abound. The concept of a language of plants and plant writing has been addressed by philosophers, botanists, writers, poets and …