Ecosickness in contemporary U.S. fiction : environment and affect / Heather Houser ; cover design by Julia Kushnirsky.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Houser, Heather, author.

Contributor:

Kushnirsky, Julia, cover designer.

Series:

Literature Now.

Literature Now

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--History and criticism.

American literature.

Environmentalism in literature.

Diseases in literature.

Ecocriticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (329 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York ; Chichester, England : Columbia University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The 1970's brought a new understanding of the biological and intellectual impact of environmental crises on human beings. As efforts to prevent ecological and bodily injury aligned, a new literature of sickness emerged. "Ecosickness fiction" imaginatively rethinks the link between these forms of threat and the sick body to bring readers to environmental consciousness. Tracing the development of ecosickness through a compelling archive of contemporary U.S. novels and memoirs, Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction establishes that we cannot comprehend environmental and medical dilemmas through data alone and must call on the sometimes surprising emotions that literary metaphors, tropes, and narratives deploy. In chapters on David Foster Wallace, Richard Powers, Leslie Marmon Silko, Marge Piercy, Jan Zita Grover, and David Wojnarowicz, Heather Houser shows how narrative affects such as wonder and disgust organize perception of an endangered world and orient us ethically toward it. The study builds the connective tissue between contemporary literature, ecocriticism, affect studies, and the medical humanities. It also positions ecosickness fiction relative to emergent forms of environmentalism and technoscientific innovations such as regenerative medicine and alternative ecosystems. Houser models an approach to contemporary fiction as a laboratory for affective changes that spark or squelch ethical projects.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Ecosickness

2. AIDS Memoirs out of the City: Discordant Natures

3. Richard Powers's Strange Wonder

4. Infinite Jest's environmental Case for Disgust

5. The Anxiety of Intervention in Leslie Marmon Silko and Marge Piercy

Conclusion: How Does It Feel?

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780231165150

0231165153

9780231537360

0231537360

OCLC:

979577550