Ecocriticism and Women Writers: Environmentalist Poetics of Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, and Ali Smith

by J. Kostkowska

Overview

Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, and Ali Smith share an ecological philosophy of the world as one highly interconnected entity comprised of multiple and equal, human and non-human participants. This study argues that these writers' texts have an ecological significance in fostering respect for and understanding of difference, human and nonhuman.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349339020
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/01/2013
Edition description:	1st ed. 2013
Pages:	189
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Justyna Kostkowska is Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, USA. She teaches and publishes in Modern British literature and Twentieth Century women writers, especially Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, and Wislawa Szymborska. She is the author of Virginia Woolf's Experiment in Genre and Politics 1926-1931: Visioning and Versioning The Waves (2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. 'Kew Gardens" Narrative Ecology: Virginia Woolf's Ecofeminist Imagination and the Narrative Discovery of Jacob's Room 2. 'All Taken Together': Ecological Form in Mrs. Dalloway 3. Singing the World in The Waves: Ecopoetics of Woolf's Play-Poem 4. Living with the Other: Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body 5. Multiplicity and Coexistence in The Powerbook 6. The Fiction of Abundance and Awareness: Jeanette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping. 7. Hotel World: A Symbiotic Narrative Space 8.Getting Close: Ecopoetics of Intimacy in Ali Smith's Like 9. Stories that Change the World: Ali Smith's Ecological 'Realityfiction' Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"This book performs the graceful task of creating desire for the actual texts of literature, as well as the actual texts of nature and environments. Reading these chapters, we wonder if we too will perceive the world differently, now that we've understood the rapture possible in offering clear attention to the worlds we live in, and the worlds that live in each of us." - Greta Gaard, University of Wisconsin, USA

'[An] intriguing study... Kostkowska, a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, has produced a sophisticated and eclectically argued study of three interestingly interlinked women writers: Virginia Woolf, Jeanette Winterson, and Ali Smith.' Dan Wylie, Partial Answers: The Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas

From the Publisher