Ursula K Heise - Böcker

Sense of Place and Sense of Planet analyzes the relationship between the imagination of the global and the ethical commitment to the local in environmentalist thought and writing from the 1960s to the present. Part One critically examines the emphasis on local identities and communities in North American environmentalism by establishing conceptual connections between environmentalism and ecocriticism, on one hand, and theories of globalization, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism, on the other. It proposes the concept of "eco-cosmopolitanism" as a shorthand for envisioning these connections and the cultural and aesthetic forms into which they translate. Part Two focuses on conceptualizations of environmental danger and connects environmentalist and ecocritical thought with the interdisciplinary field of risk theory in the social sciences, arguing that environmental justice theory and ecocriticism stand to benefit from closer consideration of the theories of cosmopolitanism that have arisen in this field from the analysis of transnational communities at risk. Both parts of the book combine in-depth theoretical discussion with detailed analyses of novels, poems, films, computer software and installation artworks from the US and abroad that translate new connections between global, national and local forms of awareness into innovative aesthetic forms combining allegory, epic, and views of the planet as a whole with modernist and postmodernist strategies of fragmentation, montage, collage, and zooming.

We are currently facing the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of life on Earth, biologists claim the first one caused by humans. Activists, filmmakers, writers, and artists are seeking to bring the crisis to the public's attention through stories and images that use the strategies of elegy, tragedy, epic, and even comedy. Imagining Extinction is the first book to examine the cultural frameworks shaping these narratives and images. Ursula K. Heise argues that understanding these stories and symbols is indispensable for any effective advocacy on behalf of endangered species. More than that, she shows how biodiversity conservation, even and especially in its scientific and legal dimensions, is shaped by cultural assumptions about what is valuable in nature and what is not. These assumptions are hardwired into even seemingly neutral tools such as biodiversity databases and laws for the protection of endangered species. Heise shows that the conflicts and convergences of biodiversity conservation with animal welfare advocacy, environmental justice, and discussions about the Anthropocene open up a new vision of multispecies justice.Ultimately, Imagining Extinction demonstrates that biodiversity, endangered species, and extinction are not only scientific questions but issues of histories, cultures, and values.

In Chronoschisms Ursula Heise explores the way developments in transportation, communication and information technology have led to the emergence of a different culture of time in Western societies. The radical transformation in our understanding and experience of time has also profoundly affected the structure of the novel. Heisse argues that postmodern novels are centrally concerned with the possibility of experiencing time in an age when temporal horizons have been drastically foreshortened. Drawing on theories of postmodernism and narratology, she shows how postmodern narratives break up the concept of plot into a spectrum of contradictory story lines. The coexistence of these competing experiences of time then allows new conceptions of history and posthistory to emerge, and opens up comparisons with recent scientific approaches to temporality. This wide-ranging study offers readings of postmodernist theory and fresh insight into the often vexed relationship between literature and science.

In Chronoschisms Ursula Heise explores the way developments in transportation, communication and information technology have led to the emergence of a different culture of time in Western societies. The radical transformation in our understanding and experience of time has also profoundly affected the structure of the novel. Heisse argues that postmodern novels are centrally concerned with the possibility of experiencing time in an age when temporal horizons have been drastically foreshortened. Drawing on theories of postmodernism and narratology, she shows how postmodern narratives break up the concept of plot into a spectrum of contradictory story lines. The coexistence of these competing experiences of time then allows new conceptions of history and posthistory to emerge, and opens up comparisons with recent scientific approaches to temporality. This wide-ranging study offers readings of postmodernist theory and fresh insight into the often vexed relationship between literature and science.

Featuring contributions from key names in the field alongside some of the most exciting new voices, this collection presents cutting-edge work on species extinction from a wide variety of perspectives across the environmental humanities.Biodiversity loss threatens to transform the ecological foundations of all biological life on the planet, yet solutions to this crisis are fiercely contested. This book addresses extinction – along with climate change, the most urgent environmental crisis of the twenty-first century - by exploring species decline and conservation with a particular emphasis on divergent cultural framings, temporal scales, and media.Contributors explore what ethical guidelines underlie acceptable and unacceptable ways of interacting with plants and animals, what social, aesthetic, and affective perceptions and meanings are attributed to particular species, how human-nonhuman relations are construed as part of a particular social order and which species are considered worth conserving, and at what cost.Drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, cultural geography, environmental history, philosophy, literary studies, media studies, and studies of religion, this book explores how the engagement with biodiversity loss challenges basic assumptions in these disciplines and opens up new avenues of thought and activism for shaping the multispecies communities of the future.

Featuring contributions from key names in the field alongside some of the most exciting new voices, this collection presents cutting-edge work on species extinction from a wide variety of perspectives across the environmental humanities.Biodiversity loss threatens to transform the ecological foundations of all biological life on the planet, yet solutions to this crisis are fiercely contested. This book addresses extinction – along with climate change, the most urgent environmental crisis of the twenty-first century - by exploring species decline and conservation with a particular emphasis on divergent cultural framings, temporal scales, and media.Contributors explore what ethical guidelines underlie acceptable and unacceptable ways of interacting with plants and animals, what social, aesthetic, and affective perceptions and meanings are attributed to particular species, how human-nonhuman relations are construed as part of a particular social order and which species are considered worth conserving, and at what cost.Drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, cultural geography, environmental history, philosophy, literary studies, media studies, and studies of religion, this book explores how the engagement with biodiversity loss challenges basic assumptions in these disciplines and opens up new avenues of thought and activism for shaping the multispecies communities of the future.

Environment and Narrative in Vietnam brings together essays about Vietnam’s natural environments and environmental crises from the perspective of culture, with particular attention to narrative templates that have shaped perceptions and interactions with nature on the part of different communities.