Overview

This book evaluates twentieth century British and Global Anglophone literature in relation to the growth of ecological thinking in the United Kingdom. Restless modernists such as D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Djuna Barnes, and Jean Rhys developed a literary aesthetic of slowness and immediacy to critique the exhausting and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and industrial life. At the same time, environmental groups such as the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves and the Smoke Abatement League moved from economic registers of 'value' and 'trust' to more cultural terms of 'recovery' and 'regeneration' to position nature as a healing force in the postwar era. Through a variety of literary, scientific, and political texts, an environmental movement emerged alongside the fast, fragmented, and traumatic aspects of modernization in order to sustain place and community in terms of lateral influence and ecological dependence.

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9781108745222

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Reviews

'… a significant contribution to this nascent but rapidly growing body of modernist eco-criticism.' William Kupinse, James Joyce Literary Supplement 'In his introduction, Kalaidjian expresses the need for both modernism and ecocriticism to advance each other and not “simply reinterpret one through the other's lens”. Exhausted Ecologies therefore has much to offer to those studying Europe and its empires, environmental historians, modernist literary critics, and ecocritical scholars alike. Kalaidjian's work here overall is timely in light of the increasing threat of climate disaster, as well as a fascinating view into the connections between modernist literature and the beginnings of modern environmentalism.' Leanna Lostoski-Ho, EuropeNow

Author Information

Andrew Kalaidjian is Assistant Professor of English at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He received his Ph.D. in English from University of California, Santa Barbara and his BA from Columbia University. A former University of California Graduate Fellow in Humanities, he is the recipient of the Seymour Brick Prize for Playwriting, the Albert and Elaine Borchard Fellowship for European Research, and the Richard Helgerson Graduate Student Achievement Award.

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