Examining how ideas about species, sexuality, and gender link to 20th- and 21st-century literary texts, this wide-ranging collection of essays explores the complicated yet evocative relationship between animals and humans within a literary context. Contributors discuss writers like Franz Kafka, J. R. Ackerley, and Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi .
Scholarship of literature and the environment demonstrates myriad understandings of nature and culture. While some work in the field results in approaches that belong in the realm of cultural studies, other scholars have expanded the boundaries of ecocriticism to connect the practice more explicitly to disciplines such as the biological sciences, human geography, or philosophy. Even so, the field of ecocriticism has yet to clearly articulate its interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary nature.
Glickman argues that early immigrants to Canada brought with them the expectation that nature would be grand, mysterious, awesome - even terrifying - and welcomed scenes that conformed to these notions of sublimity. She contends that to interpret their descriptions of nature as "negative," as so many critics have done, is a significant misunderstanding.
The deeds and struggles of Gilgamesh, legendary king of the city-state Uruk in the land of Sumer, have fascinated readers for millennia. They are preserved primarily in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the most well-known pieces of Mesopotamian literature. Studying the text draws us into an orbit that is engaging and thrilling, for it is a work of fantasy and legend that addresses some of the very existential issues with which contemporary readers still grapple. We experience the excitement of trying to penetrate the mind-set of another civilization, an ancient one—in this instance, a civilization that ultimately gave rise to our own.
X. J. Kennedy is an acclaimed poet, children s author, college teacher, and textbook author. He has taught freshman composition at the University of Michigan; the University of North Carolina, Greensboro; and Tufts University. Since 1966, more than 2 million students have treasured his introductory literature texts and "The Bedford Reader," coedited with Dorothy M. Kennedy and Jane E. Aaron, now in its ninth edition.Dorothy M. Kennedy is a writer and editor whose articles and reviews have ppeared in both professional and academic journals.
