Modernism and the Anthropocene

Within the growing field of ecocritical modernist studies, examining literary modernism’s relationship to the Anthropocene is a particularly urgent task. By theorizing twentieth-century modernisms as literatures of an ‘emergent Anthropocene,’ this book opens an important conversation about the extent to which modernist aesthetic practices—from experimental novels and poetics to sci-fi, comics, and popular science writing—anticipate current concerns about the scale of human impact on the planet, the entanglement of human with more-than-human agencies, and the discrepancy between phenomenological, historical, and planetary timescales. Representing a range of critical perspectives, the chapters offer thought-provoking starting points for further investigation.

-- Anne Raine, University of Ottawa

This important volume spotlights modernist engagement with the nonhuman world. Scholars and students conscious of their unraveling natural setting and strained social context are focusing on just these tensions. Modernism and the Anthropocene succeeds by mingling the ecological turn in modernist studies with the cultural-historical experience of the Anthropocene. The result is a timely contribution for literary scholars, environmental humanists, and students of our unfolding climate emergency.

-- Jeffrey Mathes McCarthy, University of