Description:
In Irish Anthropocene, Malcolm Sen traces the ways in which contemporary Irish literature responds to climate breakdown. Drawing upon concepts of sovereignty, precarity, and disaster, Sen examines Irish literary works to reveal how they engage with the entangled relations between ecology, economy, and politics. Irish writers not only critique the association of greenness with Ireland and the corporatization of sustainability discourses, they also illuminate the acute challenges that the climate crisis poses to political, social, and cultural forms in addition to ecosystems.
The Irish canon has historically played a crucial role in Irish nationalism. But contemporary works are written at a time when questions of statehood and citizenship are yielding to the cross-border, multi-generational pressures of climate breakdown. Writing in the shadow of modernity's rhetorical and carbon emissions, contemporary authors are skeptical of business-as-usual sustainability jargon emanating from institutions. Instead, they focus on the local variations of the planetary-level threats dominating the discourse of the Anthropocene, placing the country in a webwork of ecological and geo-political relations.
Sen argues that Ireland's postcolonial identity can be especially helpful to analyze the cultural footprint of the climate crisis. Contemporary literature can be instrumental in charting a path forward in an overheated world. Cleverly written and groundbreaking in scope, Sen's analyses dissect the connection between Irish sovereignty, its literature, and the urgencies of climate breakdown.
Brief description: Malcolm Sen is the director of the Environmental Humanities Specialization and an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the editor of A History of Irish Literature and the Environment and Race in Irish Literature and Culture.
Review Quotes: This is a sorely needed, brilliantly conceived book on the entanglements of Irish literature and history with earth history and the Anthropocene. Sen's unique expertise in Irish Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and the Environmental Humanities makes him the perfect guide. Every page brims with conceptual insights and keen-eyed readings of Ireland's rich lineage of environmentally-minded writers. A tour de force.-- "Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor"