Arcadiana

A Blog about Literature, Culture and the Environment

Commodified and Digital Airscapes: Reflections on sensing and breathing air in the 21st century

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The LA fires that wreaked havoc in Hollywood earlier this year were only one instance of many over the past years when wildfires ravaged communities and polluted the air. Apart from catastrophic wildfires, industry and vehicle emissions are sources of pollution many people experience on an everyday basis. With increasing levels of air pollution in …

Waterwork: The Clash Between Social Rights and Fossil Capitalism in Norwegian Fiction

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by Karl Emil Rosenbæk Reetz Norway – a nation where oil production was born at sea – is by far the largest producer of fossil fuels in Europe. The second largest, the UK, is distanced by a factor of 2.3 according to the EIA (disregarding the Eurasian fossil mastodon of Russia).[1] To zoom in on …

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 …

Blossoming Hope in Eco-dystopian times: Deniz Gezgin’s Eyes Wings Flowers Tails

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by Merve Günday Deniz Gezgin’s1 poetic novel Eyes Wings Flowers Tails (2023)2 welcomes its readers to a magical realist universe where weird and fantastic characters become the everyday victims of environmental degradation. Though plunged into the darkness of the exploitation of nature, its “[w]orld is more sudden than we fancy it/…crazier and more of it …

Rivers as Emblems of Hope and Resilience: Drowning and Resurfacing in the Ganga

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by Saloni Shokeen I still remember the extreme experience of drowning in the Ganga. A few years back, I went up the river with the intention of acquainting myself with rafting. As we got on our rafts, the river appeared to be calm and serene, except for a few rapids that shook the raft with …

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance

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by Franziska Maria Bergholtz resolve these behavioral cancers beforethey become more sexually suggestiveusing the method is simplea potent message throughout the body being “hit in the head” with a bad ideafear, dominance, confusion, or painthere are over a hundred emotes that let youexpress yourself and swallow women (mostly) can show off their hairpain could also …

in sprightly dance

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by Lara Wenisch Working Notes on Lara’s poem: When I set out on the project to unframe Wordsworth, I was hesitant to say the least. To me, it felt challenging to an extent that I doubted I could create a piece that could relate blatantly unemotional material to the vision of the picturesque from Wordsworth’s …