French Écocritique is the first book-length study of the culturally specific ways in which contemporary French literature and theory raise questions about nature and environment. Stephanie Posthumus’s ground-breaking work brings together thinkers such as Guattari, Latour, and Serres with recent ecocritical theories to complicate what might otherwise become a reductive notion of "French ecocriticism." Working across contemporary philosophy and literature, the book defines the concept of the ecological as an attentiveness to specific nature-culture contexts and to a text’s many interdiscursive connections. Posthumus identifies four key concepts, ecological subjectivity, ecological dwelling, ecological politics, and ecological ends, for changing how we think about human-nature relations. French Écocritique highlights the importance of moving beyond canonical ecocritical texts and examining a diversity of cultural and literary traditions for new ways of imagining the environment.
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‘Highly recommended.’
" - Choice Magazine vol 55:10:2018
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"Posthumus’s book appears destined to become one of the most important resources for scholars interested in French ecological thought and fiction. It also promises to spark more interest in a field of study that has been relegated to the periphery in French and Francophone studies."
" - The French Review
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"…Posthumus’s goal is to provide (eco)critical points of convergence, and she does so with great attention to coherence and detail…The book will of course be a reference for scholars working in French ecocriticism, but should not be overlooked by ecocritics from other linguistic traditions…"
" - H-France Review Vol. 19, no 76