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Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, No. 12 (2022)

Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, No. 12 (2022)

Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet, Christian Arnsperger

Ebook

Issue 12 (2022) of Text Matters, titled The Ecological Future, edited by Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet and Christian Arnsperger of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, deals with the temporal aspect of the ecological challenge facing humanity. Time is a central category in thinking about the environment because of our focus on the planet's possible futures as well as our awareness of how quickly the climate is changing and how fast we must react if we want to prevent a catastrophe. These issues are addressed by the volume's main section, containing scholarly papers, excerpts from two books by William deBuys, a fictional narrative by John Michael Greer, a screenplay by Elizabeth Watson, and conversations with the three authors. The scholarly articles discuss the work of writers such as J. G. Ballard, Imbolo Mbue, Cherie Dimaline, Louise Erdrich, Gary Snyder, Kenneth White, Richard Powers, and M. R. Carey, as well as graphic novels, photography, painting, and cultural practices. Their main points of focus are re-flected by the titles of the five sub-sections into which they have been divided: "Tempo-rality and Deep Time," "Eco-Anxiety and Anthropocene Nostalgia," "Indigenous Pasts, Presents and Futures," "Interconnectivity and Animacy," and "Ecotopia and Eco-Futurism." The ecological futures imagined in these interventions require creating new narratives of modernity, often, as it turns out, ones inspired by Indigenous attitudes to-wards the biosphere. As the ecological is often closely linked to different approaches towards the body, the subsequent section, titled "BODY/TEXT/IMAGE," contains pa-pers discussing several works of literature as well as visual and performing arts, sharing the theme of corporeality and embodiment. The volume is concluded by a review of a scholarly volume on Shakespeare and an interview with Philip Terry.

THE ECOLOGICAL FUTURE

Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet and Christian Arnsperger (University of Lausanne)

Introduction

 

Temporality and Deep Time

Amy Player (University of Lausanne)

“Stories of Making and Unmaking”: Deep Time and the Anthropocene in New Nature Writing

 

Małgorzata Olsza (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań)

Comics in the Anthropocene: Graphic Narratives of Apocalypse, Regeneration and Warning

 

John Michael Greer

Winter’s Tales

 

Christian Arnsperger and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet (University of Lausanne)

“Looking to the Past to Reinvent the Future”: Writing About the Long Descent, Practicing Green Wizardry A Conversation with John Michael Greer

 

Christian Arnsperger (University of Lausanne)

How Deep Time Can Help Shape the Present: Existential Economics, “Joyful Insignificance” and the Future of the Ecological Transition

 

William deBuys

Robustness and Vulnerability: Caring for the Earth in an Age of Loss

 

Christian Arnsperger and Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet (University of Lausanne)

“The Paradise of How It Has to Be”: Writing About the Future of the Earth in a Time of Decline A Conversation with William deBuys

 

Eco-Anxiety and Anthropocene Nostalgia

Philip Hayward (University of Technology Sydney)

Firing up the Anthropocene: Conflagration, Representation and Temporality in Modern Australia

 

Dominika Oramus (University of Warsaw)

Prophesying the End of Human Time: Eco-Anxiety and Regress in J. G. Ballard’s Short Fiction

 

Alicja Relidzyńska (University of Warsaw)

The Nature of Irrevocability: Anthropocene Nostalgia in Hayley Eichenbaum’s Photography Series The Mother Road

 

Indigenous Pasts, Presents and Futures

Brygida Gasztold (Koszalin University of Technology)

Environmental Neocolonialism and the Quest for Social Justice in Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were

 

Emily Childers (Florida State University) and Hannah Menendez (Sam Houston State University)

Apocalypse When? Storytelling and Spiralic Time in Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves and Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God

 

Erika de Vivo (University of Torino)

Márkomeannu#2118, the Future is Already Here: Imagining a Sámi Future at the Intersection of Art and Activism

 

Interconnectivity and Animacy

Monika Kocot (University of Lodz)

“The Only Way Out Is In”: Transcending Modernity and Embracing Interconnectedness in Gary Snyder and Kenneth White

 

Matthew Harrison Tedford (University of California, Santa Cruz)

Past Conditional Subjectivities: Enacting Relationships with the Non-Human in the Work of Ana Mendieta

 

Katarzyna Ostalska (University of Lodz)

“Enlightenment Is a Shared Enterprise”: Tree Ecosystems and the Legacy of Modernity in Richard Powers’s The Overstory

 

Courtney A. Druzak (DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, WA)

Apocalypse . . . Eventually: Trans-Corporeality and Slow Horror in M. R. Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts

 

Ecotopia and Eco-Futurism

Elizabeth Watson

Ecotopia

 

Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet and Christian Arnsperger (University of Lausanne)

“Did You See Last Night’s Episode of Ecotopia?”: How a TV Series Could Help Move Climate Action Forward A Conversation with Elizabeth Watson

Katarzyna Więckowska (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń)

Appositions: The Future in Solarpunk and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

 

BODY/TEXT/IMAGE

Edyta Lorek-Jezińska (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń)

Affective Realities and Conceptual Contradictions of Patricia Piccinini’s Art: Ecofeminist and Disability Studies Perspectives

 

Audronė Žukauskaitė (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute)

Sympoiesis, Autopoiesis and Immunity: How to Coexist with Nonhuman Others?

 

Andrzej Wicher (University of Lodz)

Echoes of Rituals of Initiation and Blood Sacrifice in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

 

Jason Blake (University of Ljubljana)

Narrating Wonder in Mark Anthony Jarman’s Stories

 

Magdalena Szuster (University of Lodz)

The Butterfly Effect: Creating and Recreating the Story of Madame Butterfly, on Paper and on Stage

 

Joanna Kruczkowska (University of Lodz)

Museum Project: 14 Henrietta St. Museum, Paula Meehan, Dragana Jurišić and the Irish Housing Crisis

 

Marta Goszczyńska (University of Lodz)

Monet at a Glance: A Dynamic, Ekphrastic Encounter in Michèle Roberts’s “On the Beach at Trouville”

 

Małgorzata Hołda (University of Lodz)

Nec Tecum Nec Sine Te: The Inseparability of Word and Image in Virginia Woolf

 

REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS

Magdalena Cieślak (University of Lodz)

A Review of Variable Objects: Shakespeare and Speculative Appropriation, edited by Valerie M. Fazel and Louise Geddes (Edinburgh UP, 2021)

 

“Productivity of Constraint”: Wit Pietrzak in Conversation with Philip Terry

  • Title: Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, No. 12 (2022)
  • Author: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet, Christian Arnsperger
  • ISBN: 2084-574X, 2084574X
  • Date of issue: 2025-04-23
  • Format: Ebook
  • Item ID: e_4e24
  • Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego