Understories : Plants and Culture in the American Tropics / Lesley Wylie.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wylie, Lesley, editor.

Series:

American tropics ; Volume 9.

American Tropics ; Volume 9

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--History and criticism.

American literature.

Caribbean literature--History and criticism.

Caribbean literature.

Latin American literature--History and criticism.

Latin American literature.

Plants in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (272 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, [2023]

Summary:

Understories: Plants and Culture in the American Tropics establishes the central importance of plants to the histories and cultures of the extended tropical region stretching from the U.S. South to Argentina. Through close examination of a number of significant plants - cacao, mate, agave, the hevea brasilensis, kudzu, the breadfruit, soy, and the ceiba pentandra, among others - this volume shows that vegetal life has played a fundamental role in shaping societies and in formulating cultural and environmental imaginaries in and beyond the region. Drawing on a wide range of cultural traditions and forms across literature, popular music, art, and film, the essays included in this volume transcend regional and linguistic boundaries to bring together multiple plant-centred histories or 'understories' - narratives that until now have been marginalized or gone unnoticed. Attending not only to the significant influence of humans on plants, but also of plants on humans, this book offers new understandings of how colonization, globalization, and power were, and continue to be, imbricated with nature in the American tropics.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-83553-366-3

1-83553-522-4

1-83764-500-0

OCLC:

1414467978