Arcadiana

A Blog about Literature, Culture and the Environment

The Experience of Environmental Epiphany in the Lives of A. Leopold, T. Hill, and A. Schweitzer

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Can a very short event change one’s outlook on the natural environment? Can a very short event change one’s outlook on the natural environment? Environmental awareness can be attained through formal and non-formal education, as well as through active engagement in environmental activities. However, a number of historical figures witnessed a change in their outlooks in the blink of an eye. This contribution explores the impact on environmental epiphanies on humans in a human/non-human encounter by showing their role in triggering powerful emotions and a long-lasting change in the character of three environmentalist figures from the 20th century: Aldo Leopold, Thomas Hill, Jr., and Albert Schweitzer.

“Survival is insufficient”: The cautionary power of speculative fiction

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Current headlines abound with apocalyptic references to the global climate emergency. The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released in August 2021 brought into the mainstream what climate scientists already knew – dramatic and life-altering changes to the climate are much closer than many of us expected. The ambiguous language is gone.

Humility and Serious Noticing: Résumé of a Discussion Round on “The Everyday in British New Nature Writing”

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© Mona Eendra On June 8th, 2021, my faculty hosted an online discussion round on “The Everyday in British New Nature Writing” with three acclaimed guests of the field: poet and essayist Kathleen Jamie, author and naturalist Mark Cocker, and ecocritical scholar Terry Gifford. The talk was both part of the undergraduate course on ecopoetry …

Summary of the 17th EASLCE Webinar: Transversal Aesthetics

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On 2 March, a group of aspiring ecocritics joined Dr André Krebber (University of Kassel, Germany) to discuss the interrelation of aesthetics and the non-human. The different readings and cultural productions elicited a lively conversation about the possibilities of aesthetics beyond the human, speciecism, perception, imitation, and other aspects.

The Economy of Francesco: How to Repair the ‘Common Home’

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Francesco, va’ e ripara la mia casa;Now go, Francesco, and repair my house(From The Major Legend, St. Bonaventure, XIII century) Image by Josh Applegate on Unsplash Conference Review For those who still consider him as the saint who talked to animals, or, as historian Lynn White Jr. suggests, “the patron saint of ecologists” (14), it …

Dreaming of Home

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Review of Cara Judea Alhadeff’s ‘Zazu Dreams: Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle: A Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene’ (Elfrig Publishing, 2017; www.zazudreams.com)

Teaching Information Literacy in a Class on Global Environmental Justice

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My class on Literatures of Global Environmental Justice was envisioned in the context of a global pandemic and a lockdown when misinformation about COVID-19 was being spread by the then US president with disastrous consequences for public health and safety. It was a moment that reminded me that teaching students the importance of information literacy was more urgent than ever, if we were to think of an environmentally just society.