Hubert Zapf – författare

Ecocriticism has emerged as one of the most fascinating and rapidly growing fields of recent literary and cultural studies. From its regional origins in late-twentieth-century Anglo-American academia, it has become a worldwide phenomenon, which involves a decidedly transdisciplinary and transnational paradigm that promises to return a new sense of relevance to research and teaching in the humanities. A distinctive feature of the present handbook in comparison with other survey volumes is the combination of ecocriticism with cultural ecology, reflecting an emphasis on the cultural transformation of ecological processes and on the crucial role of literature, art, and other forms of cultural creativity for the evolution of societies towards sustainable futures. In state-of-the-art contributions by leading international scholars in the field, this handbook maps some of the most important developments in contemporary ecocritical thought. It introduces key theoretical concepts, issues, and directions of ecocriticism and cultural ecology and demonstrates their relevance for the analysis of texts and other cultural phenomena.

Ecocriticism has emerged as one of the most fascinating and rapidly growing fields of recent literary and cultural studies. From its regional origins in late-twentieth-century Anglo-American academia, it has become a worldwide phenomenon, which involves a decidedly transdisciplinary and transnational paradigm that promises to return a new sense of relevance to research and teaching in the humanities. A distinctive feature of the present handbook in comparison with other survey volumes is the combination of ecocriticism with cultural ecology, reflecting an emphasis on the cultural transformation of ecological processes and on the crucial role of literature, art, and other forms of cultural creativity for the evolution of societies towards sustainable futures. In state-of-the-art contributions by leading international scholars in the field, this handbook maps some of the most important developments in contemporary ecocritical thought. It introduces key theoretical concepts, issues, and directions of ecocriticism and cultural ecology and demonstrates their relevance for the analysis of texts and other cultural phenomena.

This collection comprises essays from various interdisciplinary perspectives – e.g. literary scholarship, intermediality, art history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and medicine – to analyze and interpret the fictional and non-fictional works by Siri Hustvedt, an author whose reputation and public presence have been growing steadily in the 21st century and who is recognized as one of the most widely read and appreciated contemporary American writers. In her significance and stature as a public intellectual, she is not merely an American writer but a transnational, cosmopolitan author, who develops new forms not only of literary narrative but of interdisciplinary thought and writing, bringing together otherwise separated genres and branches of knowledge in a broad spectrum between literature and philosophy, historiography and art, psychoanalysis and neuroscience, narrative and medicine. The present volume is structured into the parts “Literary Creation and Communication,” Psychoanalysis and Philosophy,” “Medicine and Narrative,” “Vision, Perception, and Power,” and “Trauma, Memory, and the Ambiguities of Self” and closes with an interview of Siri Hustvedt by Susanne Becker in which Hustvedt elucidates her personal conception of her own creative processes of writing.

This collection comprises essays from various interdisciplinary perspectives – e.g. literary scholarship, intermediality, art history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and medicine – to analyze and interpret the fictional and non-fictional works by Siri Hustvedt, an author whose reputation and public presence have been growing steadily in the 21st century and who is recognized as one of the most widely read and appreciated contemporary American writers. In her significance and stature as a public intellectual, she is not merely an American writer but a transnational, cosmopolitan author, who develops new forms not only of literary narrative but of interdisciplinary thought and writing, bringing together otherwise separated genres and branches of knowledge in a broad spectrum between literature and philosophy, historiography and art, psychoanalysis and neuroscience, narrative and medicine. The present volume is structured into the parts “Literary Creation and Communication,” Psychoanalysis and Philosophy,” “Medicine and Narrative,” “Vision, Perception, and Power,” and “Trauma, Memory, and the Ambiguities of Self” and closes with an interview of Siri Hustvedt by Susanne Becker in which Hustvedt elucidates her personal conception of her own creative processes of writing.

Dieses Buch ist der Versuch, die Beziehung von Literatur und Kultur auf der Grundlage eines ökologisch definierten Funktionsmodells literarischer Texte näher zu bestimmen und an Beispielen des amerikanischen Romans zu erläutern. In dem hier vorgeschlagenen Ansatz spielt die Dimension des Ästhetischen, die in neueren kulturwissenschaftlichen Textzugängen eher unterbelichtet blieb, eine konstitutive Rolle. Es geht nicht primär um eine inhaltliche Untersuchung der Literatur auf ökologische Themen. Es geht vielmehr um Analogien zwischen ökologischen Prozessen und den spezifischen Strukturen und kulturellen Wirkungsweisen der literarischen Imagination. These des Buchs ist es, daß Literatur sich in Analogie zu einem ökologischen Prinzip oder einer ökologischen Kraft innerhalb des größeren Systems ihrer Kultur verhält.

Dieser Ansatz wird im ersten Teil theoretisch entwickelt und zunächst im Rahmen gegenwärtiger, vor allem im angloamerikanischen Raum sich abzeichnender Tendenzen zu einer Literary Ecology situiert, danach in den Kontext anderer funktionsorientierter Literaturtheorien gestellt und schließlich in einem kulturökologischen Funktionsmodell imaginativer Texte zusammengefaßt. Im zweiten Teil wird die Reichweite und Tragfähigkeit dieses Modells an sechs repräsentativen amerikanischen Romanen aus verschiedenen Epochen demonstriert: Nathaniel Hawthorne, »The Scarlet Letter«; Herman Melville, »Moby-Dick«; Mark Twain, »The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn«; Kate Chopin, »The Awakening«; Toni Morrison, »Beloved«; Don DeLillo, »Underworld«.