Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinemas

Pietari Kääpä is Lecturer in Media and Communications at University of Stirling, UK. His research work synergizes transnational film and media studies with ecocriticism. Kääpä has published widely on transnational Nordic cinema and issues relating to ecocinema, including collections and articles exploring ecocritical concerns in Chinese cinema, in relation to audiences, documentary politics and minority film production.

The quality and depth of the references in this book provide a new platform and focus for ecocinema scholarship... [With] fascinating chapters including studies of deer western and road movies; the horror film; children’s film; crime and urban eco-narratives, alongside specific Nordic multicultural and minority concerns, drawing from a broad corpus of films and documentaries. This multi-faceted and convincing study will inspire scholars and help to draw further comparisons with Hollywood and other national cinemas well into the future.

• Introduction: Environmental History and Nordic Film CultureChapter 1. Nation-Building in the Nordic Context: Natural History?Chapter 2. The Role of Nature in the Deer Western and the Road MovieChapter 3. The Horror Film in an Ecological ContextChapter 4. Ecocritical Approaches to Children’s FilmChapter 5. Human Ecology and the Nordic Welfare StateChapter 6. Green Economics and the Brownfields of the Welfare State: Crime Thrillers and Human EcologyChapter 7. Intercultural Approaches to Nordic CinemaChapter 8. Ecocritical Approaches to Multicultural and Minority CinemasChapter 9. Responsibility and the Nordic Model: Global Nordicness and Ecocosmopolitan ExceptionalismChapter 10. Ecodocumentaries and the Sense of Global ResponsibilityChapter 11. Representing the End Times: Ecological Melancholia and the End of the WorldOpenings and Conclusions: Transvergent Perspectives on Nordic EcocinemaBibliographyIndex