Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction

Heather Houser

Heather Houser

Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction

Environment and Affect

In: Literature Now

Columbia University Press | 2014

https://doi.org/10.7312/hous16514

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About this book

The 1970s brought a new understanding of the biological and intellectual impact of environmental crises on human beings. As efforts to prevent ecological and bodily injury aligned, a new literature of sickness emerged. "Ecosickness fiction" imaginatively rethinks the link between ecological threats and the sick body to bring readers to environmental consciousness. With chapters on David Foster Wallace, Richard Powers, Leslie Marmon Silko, Marge Piercy, Jan Zita Grover, and David Wojnarowicz, Heather Houser shows how narrative affects such as wonder and disgust organize perception of an endangered world and orient us ethically toward it. Houser connects contemporary literature, ecocriticism, affect studies, and the medical humanities and positions ecosickness fiction relative to technoscientific innovations and emergent forms of environmentalism.

Heather Houser traces the development of ecosickness, which links ecological and bodily injury, through a compelling archive of contemporary U.S. novels and memoirs, Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction shows how narrative affects such as wonder and disgust organize perception of an endangered world and orient us ethically toward it.

Author information

Heather Houser is associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin.

Reviews

Houser engages with affect theory to push the boundaries of material ecocriticism in an innovative and necessary direction she insightfully complicates the role of "writer-activist" and asks her audience to consider critically what shape this activism might take and what its future might entail.

This well-researched argument draws on psychology, sociology, cognitive science, and other disciplines to illuminate the contributions artists make in conversations--typically dominated by scientists, environmentalists, and politicians--about environmental policy, and aims to encourage and enrich those conversations.

In its analytical poise and sharp close readings, Ecosickness in Contemporary US Fiction itself is a valuable addition to affect studies and ecocriticism.

Priscilla Wald, Duke University, author of Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative:
The 'ecosickness' that Heather Houser explores offers yet another example of the dangers of humanity's efforts to 'master' nature. The novels and memoirs she studies demonstrate the intricate connections between somatic and ecological damage. Yet it is the literary critical argument that most distinguishes this work. Houser elegantly shows how these novels and memoirs produce narratives with unpredictable affects and how that unpredictability in turn generates an ethics that, she argues, might lead to new ways of addressing ecological damage. This timely book is crucial not only for its ecocritical insights, but for its depiction of the importance of humanistic inquiry to planetary ethics.

Lawrence Buell, Harvard University:
This sophisticated reconnaissance of an impressive range of turn-of-the-twenty-first-century works both adroitly builds upon and convincingly takes issue with the new 'materialist' ecocriticism by offering a subtly compelling assessment of the place of affect in works of environmental imagination and environmental intervention generally. Not contemporary U.S. fiction specialists alone, but ecocritics in all bailiwicks are sure to profit from Heather Houser's insights.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	ix
1. Ecosickness Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
2. AIDS Memoirs out of the City: Discordant Natures Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	31
3. Richard Powers’s Strange Wonder Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	77
4. Infinite Jest’s environmental Case for Disgust Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	117
5. The Anxiety of Intervention in Leslie Marmon Silko and Marge Piercy Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	167
Conclusion: How Does It Feel? Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	217
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	229
Works Cited Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	269
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	295

Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction

Environment and Affect

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