The main goal of this thesis is to question in what way the concept of urban rewilding can be redefined, based on its inherent narrative, aesthetic goals, and location-bound desires. This thesis...Show moreThe main goal of this thesis is to question in what way the concept of urban rewilding can be redefined, based on its inherent narrative, aesthetic goals, and location-bound desires. This thesis will attempt to show how both projects of urban rewilding and Elizabeth Kent’s Flora Domestica can be exemplary of a right way to interact with nature in city environments: one that should inspire not just a change in policy, but an ethical and cultural change of heart.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Film- en literatuurwetenschap (BA)
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Perceptief activisme laat zien welke rol de perceptie van de dode en verloren natuur speelt in Joy Williams’ roman Harrow (2021). De roman beschrijft hoe een klimaatcatastrofe heeft geleid tot...Show morePerceptief activisme laat zien welke rol de perceptie van de dode en verloren natuur speelt in Joy Williams’ roman Harrow (2021). De roman beschrijft hoe een klimaatcatastrofe heeft geleid tot pessimisme en leegte in de mentale belevingswereld van de personages. Een bespreking van Felix Guattari’s The Three Ecologies (1989) laat zien hoe de nauwe banden tussen de ecologische omgeving, het individu en de maatschappij ook leidt tot het verval van deze laatste twee. Tegelijkertijd wekt de interpretatie en beleving van levende elementen in de natuur ook hoop op, en biedt het de ruimte voor een nieuwe manier van leven in de post-natuur. Dit wordt uitgewerkt aan de hand van Isabelle Stengers concept ‘the art of paying attention’ uit haar werk In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism (2015). De thesis onderzoekt hoe de tekstualiteit van het landschap hierin een belangrijke rol speelt. Vooral het hoofdpersonage en haar vermogen om deze ecologische leegte als betekenisvol en levendig te zien maakt duidelijk hoe perceptie een activistisch potentieel krijgt. Ondanks het onvermogen om maatschappelijke verandering teweeg te brengen, blijft dit perceptief activisme toch krachtig, juist doordat het binnen een precaire situatie de omgeving als waardevol blijft zien. Dit wordt beargumenteerd via een bespreking van Terry Eagletons Hope Without Optimism (2015) en een analyse van schaaleffecten binnen de roman. Via close-readings van Harrow richt deze thesis zich voornamelijk op het narratologisch concept focalisatie, de manier waarop literaire beschrijvingen gevormd worden binnen de visie van een personage. Hierdoor leidt de perceptie van het hoofdpersonage tot een herwaardering van de natuur, en vecht zo de ideologische krachten van Harrows kapitalistische maatschappij aan. Door zich open te stellen voor de indrukken van haar leefomgeving, vormt ze een nieuw wereldbeeld dat zich bewuster is van de invloed van de ecologische omgeving op het individu en de maatschappij. Dit vormt de basis voor een nieuw mens-zijn voorbij het destructieve maatschappelijk klimaat in Harrow.Show less
Master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (MA)
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In this thesis I analyze the reciprocal relationship between the farmer and the land, presented by Xenophon in his Socratic dialogue the Oeconomicus. I approach the text with an ecocritical...Show moreIn this thesis I analyze the reciprocal relationship between the farmer and the land, presented by Xenophon in his Socratic dialogue the Oeconomicus. I approach the text with an ecocritical perspective to shed new light on how Xenophon envisions and conceptualizes the natural world and the position of humankind within the natural world.Show less
In the face of complex and interrelated ecological and social sustainability crises, the outstanding responsibilities of Western industrial nations are frequently underlined. As political awareness...Show moreIn the face of complex and interrelated ecological and social sustainability crises, the outstanding responsibilities of Western industrial nations are frequently underlined. As political awareness for these crises has arguably increased in the past decade, political language concerning them has too. However, altered discourses have not led to more sustainable and just policies. The world, and most importantly the largely responsible industrial states, continue to fail in combatting and mitigating global ecological and social hardhships. This thesis uses the young critical theoritcal body of Postcolonial Ecocriticism to scrutinise political discourses of Austrian and German political parties, revealing underlying attitudes and motives regarding sustainability politics, which might explain this inability or unwillingness for counteractions. Finally, it concludes that majorities in both countries show concerningly ignorant and uncritical crisis perceptions. In fact, the analysed parties' discourses often do not reflect the severity and complexity of global crises, and frequently neglect and perpetuate existing exploitative dynamics.Show less
In recent years, in the field of contemporary literature, greater attention has been put on literary productions dealing with environmental pollution or destruction, prompting the surge of...Show moreIn recent years, in the field of contemporary literature, greater attention has been put on literary productions dealing with environmental pollution or destruction, prompting the surge of environmental criticism – ecocriticism – to a well developed and independent discipline within the environmental humanities. Nevertheless, the field, as Karen Thornber correctly noted, has been mainly focused on issues raised by western literary works. Environmental fictions – or ecofictions – produced in East Asia, despite their preoccupations with pollution and environmental disaster, are usually excluded from the analyses of ecocritics. In Japan in particular, after the Fukushima disaster of March 3, 2011, varied literary works – from short stories to novels and poems – have addressed topics of nuclear pollution and environmental disaster. Therefore, it becomes paramount to focus on this gap in ecocriticism and start to develop more comprehensive studies of ecofictions expanding beyond literary production in English or western languages. This thesis, presenting as a case study the novel Somersault (1999) – by the Japanese author O̅e Kenzaburō, tries to address this gap by focusing on the narrativization of nuclear disaster in relation to the representations of time and space. After the introduction of an analytical tool comprehensive of various theoretical concepts, this study endeavors to demonstrate the importance of accounting for those elements revealing deeper environmental concerns that are often overlooked by critics in literary productions. My study of narrrativizations of time and space, as they take shape in this Japanese case study, shall prove productive also for the analysis of other ecofictions produced in different languages and arising from varied cultural traditions. Furthermore, an analytical tool linking together temporality and space could enable comparative studies between East Asian and Western ecofictions. This study could thus contribute to the field of ecocriticism by allowing for a diversification in the understanding of perceptions of time and space in literary works from different literary and cultural traditions dealing with the threat, or in the aftermath, of an environmental disaster.Show less
Masterthesis for Literature in Society track on the concepts of postmodernism and post-postmodernism in the work of Jonathan Franzen, more specifically an ecocritical study on what the presence of...Show moreMasterthesis for Literature in Society track on the concepts of postmodernism and post-postmodernism in the work of Jonathan Franzen, more specifically an ecocritical study on what the presence of particular characteristics of the latter literary movement in The Corrections (2001) and Freedom (2010) could mean for the idea of climate change and how serious that is taken in novels todayShow less
This thesis examines the depiction of pastoral nature in four novels set in the Interbellum period and written in the 1940s, using ecocritical theory to explore how these authors view the English...Show moreThis thesis examines the depiction of pastoral nature in four novels set in the Interbellum period and written in the 1940s, using ecocritical theory to explore how these authors view the English landscape. The chosen novels, Philip Larkin’s A Girl in Winter, Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and L.P. Hartley’s The Shrimp and the Anemone, show different views on the English rural landscape but also share elements like childhood innocence and country estates. The analysis focuses on topics such as nostalgia, escapism and “Englishness”, using ecocritical concepts, for example retreat and return and the machine in the garden. The text argues that although nature is often idealised in connection with the past, the authors do not represent the landscape before the war as a merely idealised one. Realistic aspects disturb the harmony and nostalgic elements can become active examples for the future, which shows that the pastoral can be a functional genre in the field of ecocriticism.Show less
