A ´green´ approach to the reading of cultural texts: theory and case studies

Córdoba Capital

Conferencia; PRO-T Conference (Professional Development for Teachers).; 2009

Mark Twain School

In spite of the fact that environmental concerns had been a priority for a long time by the seventies, it was not until the end of that decade and the beginning of the eighties that literary studies started to focus on that field. By that time, nature, the planet Earth and, more specifically, the relationship between man and the environment start to appear in cultural texts within a new perspective which is problematic, critical, analytical and, sometimes, politically committed. At the same time, new methods of analysis evolve in response to the new environmental challenges, and insights that permeate the fictional and social discourse. Ecocriticism, then, unfolds as "the study of the relations between literature and the physical environment" (Glotfelty and Fromm 1996) and as an attempt to examine those relations under a new light with the insights and contributions from different disciplines and approaches. ?These (perspectives) would include ecological theory, environmentalism, conceptions of nature and their depictions, the human/nature dichotomy and related concerns.? (Glotfelty xviii) The texts that will be analyzed in this presentation are the following: ?The Age of Lead? (Margaret Atwood); The Constant Gardener (F. Meirelles, director); Erin Brockovich (S. Soderbergh, director); ?It was that Indian? (Simon Ortiz); ?Starting at the Bottom? (Simon Ortiz); All these texts show a concern for the environment which varies from a narrow to a very wide perspective. The aim of this work then is to discuss and trace the development of ecocriticism, its main concerns and methodological implications and to show the productivity of this approach in the analysis of cultural texts.