Cultures have long defined themselves through biological elements to prove their strength and longevity, from cherry blossoms in Japan to amber waves of grain in the United States. In Ecology without Culture, Christine L. Marran introduces the concept of biotropes-material and semiotic figures that exist for human perception-to navigate how and why the material world has proven to be such an effective medium for representing culture. A bold and timely reconsideration of ecocriticism, Ecology without Culture insists on decentering questions of culture to highlight the materiality of poetry, film, and prose fiction.

Marran argues that ecocriticism can critique ecological realities more effectively from outside the frame of human exceptionalism. Through discussions of primarily non-Anglophone literature, poetry, and cinema about toxic events in contemporary history- from the depiction of slow violence in documentary by Tsuchimoto Noriaki to the powerful poetry of Ishimure Michiko-Marran argues that ecocriticism must find a way to engage culture without making the perpetuation of ethnos and anthropos the endgame of ecopolitics.

Using the biological foundations and geological time scales of textual worlds to more deeply critique cultural humanism, Marran ultimately contends that the chief stumbling block to ecological thinking is not the image of nature, but the image of culture.

About the Author

Christine L. Marran is professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Minnesota. She is author of Poison Woman: Figuring Female Transgression in Modern Japanese Culture (Minnesota, 2007).

Reviews

"Ecology without Culture is a singular and incisive study that ambitiously reconfigures the aims and parameters of ecocriticism. Christine L. Marran urges us to be more skeptical about cultural claims, releasing the material world from the burden of representing cultural identities. She presents a bold case for interpreting in explicitly non-anthropencentric ways by being attentive to material agencies and scalar deviations."-Stacy Alaimo, author of Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times

"The text is an enriching read for students and scholars of environmentally engaged literary and cultural studies and adds a playful perspective both from Japanese and material ecocriticism."-KULT_online

"Christine Marran's Ecology without Culture: Aesthetics for a Toxic World is an absorbing, timely intervention into scholarship on literature/film and environment." -Journal of Japanese Studies

Book Information
ISBN 9781517901592
Author Christine L. Marran
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint University of Minnesota Press
Publisher University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 25mm