Ecocriticism in Poland: Then and Now

The aim of this paper is to present a synoptic picture of the development and current state of ecocriticism in Poland. Understood in the generic sense of the study of literature and environment, ecocriticism had begun in Poland already in 1970s and has since then generated its own original tradition. Understood in the specific historical sense of a field devoted to the study of literature and environment that was consolidated in the 1990s in the USA and the UK and has then expanded both in disciplinary and national terms, ecocriticism was imported to Poland only in the beginning of the 21st century, but has managed do generate its own tradition as well. For a while, both these currents of Polish ecocriticism had run in parallel to one another, but have recently merged, stimulating new exciting developments. The paper will delineate these historical trajectories and recent developments alike. And it will also show how today’s Polish ecocriticism contributes to ecocriticism globally, not only by offering its own culturally unique perspective and archives, but also by proposing new methodologies, including so-called empirical ecocriticism, an emerging field that originates in part from Poland.

Transcorporeality: An interview with Stacy Alaimo

The interview was mainly conducted at Tallinn University in January 2019, when Stacy Alaimo visited the Graduate Winter School “The Humanities and Posthumanities: New Ways of Being Human” and gave a plenary lecture titled “Onto-epistemologies for the Anthropocene, or Who will be the Subject of the Posthumanities?”, and completed in spring 2020, to address immediately unfolding issues. Alaimo is an internationally recognized scholar of American literature, ecocultural theory, environmental humanities, science studies, gender theory, and new materialism. She is the author of three monographs on environmental theory and ecocultural studies: Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature as Feminist Space (Cornell University Press, 2000); Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (Indiana University Press, 2010); and Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). Alaimo has edited and co-edited essay collections, including Science Studies and the Blue Humanities (essay cluster for SLSA journal, Configurations. Fall 2019); Matter (MacMillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks, 2017); Material Feminisms (with Susan Hekman, Indiana University Press, 2008), and is the author of a significant number of essays and book chapters. She co-edits a book series, “Elements,” at Duke University Press. Her current work focuses on oceans and marine life: she is currently finishing a book tentatively titled, Composing Blue Ecologies: Science, Aesthetics, and the Creatures of the Abyss. Alaimo served as co-President of ASLE (The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment), and created and directed the cross-disciplinary minor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies at the University of Texas and Arlington. She joined the faculty of the University of Oregon in 2019, where she is Professor of English and core faculty member in environmental studies. The interview addresses the evolution of her views as represented in Undomesticated Ground (2000), as well as the connections and tensions of feminism and environmentalism; it moves on to Bodily Natures (2010), in which she develops her seminal concept of transcorporeality; and looks into her ongoing interest in the deep sea and its representation in culture, the focus of her current book project, Composing Blue Ecologies. The interview discusses the importance of transcorporeality in the Anthropocene, as an alternative to “self-aggrandizing” accounts “in which some transhistorical ‘Man’ acts upon the inert, external matter of the world.” Examples from both science and culture illustrate the concepts discussed, reaching out into important political concerns of the day, such as climate refugees, sustainability as a labour and power issue, divisive dichotomies and understanding difference. The theme of water as an example of transcorporeality and a burning ecological issue is taken up, touching upon the current vulnerability of the Baltic Sea and elaborating on the material and ideas developed in the new book that Stacy Alaimo is working on. The final part of the interview addresses the environmental implications of the COVID-19 crisis.

Pedestrian Pedagogy: The Walking Library for Women Walking

The Walking Library for Women Walking (2016-18) is an edition of the ongoing creative research project, The Walking Library. Co-created and launched in 2012 by Dee Heddon and Misha Myers, The Walking Library explores the multiple relationships between walking, literature, and environment (see Heddon & Myers 2014, 2017, in press). For each edition of The Walking Library, we invite donations and suggestions of books to accompany what we propose is a pedestrian pedagogy: a learning that takes place on foot and on the move in the company of others (present and virtual), sharing and creating knowledge side-by-side, step-by-step and without hierarchy. Pedestrian pedagogy facilitates meaning-making as emergent and re-orientating (Osberg et al., 2008). In this pedestrian pedagogy learning is improvisatory and relational, engendered through the collaborative and collective body of walkers moving through space and time, side by side, in the company of each other and a diverse collection of books.

ECO CRITICISM IN THE HUNGRY TIDE

The novel speaks about the efforts taken by Piyali Roy, an Indian American biologist to make a study on marine mammals, especially on Irrawaddy dolphins.The novel is set in Sundarbans. Piya arrives at Sundarbans which is considered by her as a suitable place for carrying out her study. She lands on an island in Sunderbans and gets acquainted with an inhabitant of that place named Fokir. He remains to be a guide for her and instructs her about the marine habitats. Fokir being a resident of that place, he knows about the tides occurrence in the seas and the perils. Though he knows these, to the dismay of the readers, Fokir dies when a storm breaks out followed by heavy rain and powerful and devouring tides. As ideas given by Fokir could be the sources for decades of ‘research’,with the sponsorship of Nilima and involvement of local fisherman, Piya starts an institution in the memory of Fokir. The novel deals with the dislocation of people due to tide. Tide causes great havoc to the life and property of the inhabitants of the islands in Sunderbans. The poor people who have become victims of natural catastrophe suffer from hunger. I would like to bring out the human environmental relationship in the novel. Human beings depend on nature and environment. Eco Criticism on this novel helps to evaluate this literary text in the literature and environment perspective.

AN ECOCRITICAL APPROACH TO AMITAV GHOSH’S THE HUNGRY TIDE

The aim of this paper to Projects the impact of ecology in literature Ecocriticism is the interdisciplinary area which includes the study literature and environment. The literary scholar analyzes the text not only for the environmental concerns but also to the treatment of ecology as the subject of nature in literature. The word ecocriticism may have been first used William Rueckart's essay which entitled “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism”. The Hungry Tides tells the very present story of the present day adventure, identity, history and love. Ghosh here presents the nature not as the setting of picturesque beauty alone it also aprosis as hungry of human blood. The tide and its surages stand for all the devastating the aspects of nature. Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide set in the Sunder bans, is a sage of Indo-American marine biologist Piya Roy. She has been to the Tide country of sunder bans in Bengal with a view to studying river dolphins.Two characters Fokir, a local fisherman who helps her to locate dolphins in Garijiontda pool and Kanai Dutta, a Delhi- based business man who meets her on his way to visit his aunt Nilima come closer to Priya's heart in course at time. Nirma's human Nirmal once had a mission for helping the displaced refugee who settled on the sunder bans island of Morichjhapi. He has this commitment to work for and help the refugee as he falls in love with a refugee, Kusum, mother of inbant Fokir. The novelist inborns that Kanai visits the 'tide country' together the lost journal written by his dead uncle Nirmal. The journal is an account of the lives of the Morichjhapi Island which is later ruthlessly evicted by military troops which claims the life of Kusum. A sudden cyclone kills Fokir when he is assisting Piya on a journey on waterways. Finally Piya determines to establish a research trust in memory of Fokir and seeks help from Nilima and Kanai to translate her dream into reality.