Climate and American literature / edited by Michael Boyden.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Boyden, Michael, editor.

Series:

Cambridge themes in American literature and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--History and criticism.

American literature.

Literature and society--United States--History.

Literature and society.

Climatic changes in literature.

History.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 370 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

System Details:

text file

PDF

Summary:

Climate has infused the literary history of the United States, from the writings of explorers and conquerors, over early national celebrations of the American climate, to the flowering of romantic nature writing. This volume traces this complex semantic history in American thought and literature to examine rhetorical and philosophical discourses that continue to propel and constrain American climate perceptions today. It explores how American literature from its inception up until the present engages with the climate, both real and perceived. Climate and American Literature attends to the central place that the climate has historically occupied in virtually all aspects of American life, from public health and medicine, over the organization of the political system and the public sphere, to the culture of sensibility, aesthetics and literary culture. It details American inflections of climate perceptions over time to offer revealing new perspectives on one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Contents:

Climate and its discontents. The climate history of North America

Climate theories

Climate and civilization

Climate and race

American literary climates. Climate and American Indian literature

Colonial climates

The degeneration thesis

The state of the air in Post-Revolutionmary America

The higher latitudes of the American Renaissance

Climate and the American West

Fictions of health after miasma

Naturalism, regionalism, and climate (in)determinism

American modernisms and climatology

Postmodern climates

Frontiers of a shrinking world : recent American climate fiction

New lines of inquiry. Climate and the environmental humanities

The anthropocenic sublime : a critique

Climate and the new materialisms

A match made in hell : climate change and neoliberalism.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 22 Feb 2021).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781108669573

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.