Green cultural studies : nature in film, novel, and theory

This multifaceted work of cultural criticism shows how comparisons of culture with nature, or nature with nurture, influence not only nature's treatment, but that of human beings sorted into categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality. While a predominant current in green studies favors breaking down boundaries between human and animal, and between nature and technology, the author of Green Cultural Studies shows these attempts at border busting to inadvertently reaffirm what they would erase: the promotion of culture over and against the needs of nature. Green Cultural Studies is not merely a political work. Beginning with a groundbreaking introduction that defines, historicizes, and evaluates the field of green cultural studies (aka, green studies), the text proceeds to investigate representations of nature in selected films, novels and works of theory. Through these examinations of nature as setting, character, and motif, Hochman produces careful and provocative readings of important twentieth-century works that illuminate creator, work, and their interplay with a politics of nature. Green Cultural Studies--a work of textual analysis and polemical theory--will upset and delight a variety of readers. Film critics will be challenged by Hochman's illustrating readings of film. Marxists will find splendid capitalist critiques. Comparatists, myth critics, ecocritics, and intellectuals will find engaging observations, as will literary critics, deconstructionists, philosophers of technology and science, cultural critics and environmental activists. Green Cultural Studies is a valuable source to anyone teaching, writing, or thinking about the intricate issues coupling nature and culture. This multifaceted work of cultural criticism shows how differences separating culture from nature influence not only nature's treatment, but the treatment of human groups currently demarcated by the categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality. While the predominant current in green criticism - especially the seminal works of Donna J. Haraway and Andrew Ross - favors breaking down boundaries between animal and human, between nature and technology, Jhan Hochman shows these attempts at border crossing to reaffirm what they would erase: the promotion of culture over and against the needs of nature. While Hochman also shares the current suspicion of boundaries and borders, he is less intent on a melodrama of destruction than on a conversation concerning difference. Green Cultural Studies - a work of textual analysis and polemical theory - will upset and delight a variety of readers. Film critics will be challenged by Hochman's illuminating readings of film. Marxists will find splendid capitalist critiques. Comparatists, myth critics, ecocritics, and intellectuals will find engaging observations, as will literary critics, deconstructionists, philosophers of technology and science, cultural critics, and environmental activists. Green Cultural Studies is a valuable reference book to anyone teaching, writing, or thinking about the intricate issues of nature and culture. Jhan Hochman defines and evaluates the field of Green Cultural Studies in films, novels, and works of theory.