ecocriticism

Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Drawing on literary theory, cultural studies, environmental humanities, and the social sciences, ecocriticism examines how texts represent nature, landscapes, and nonhuman life, and how cultural values, economic systems, and political power shape those representations. It often investigates the boundaries between human culture and the nonhuman world, as well as how communities imagine place, ecology, and sustainability.

The term ecocriticism was popularized in the 1990s, building on William Rueckert’s early usage in 1993, and more fully developed by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm in The Ecocriticism Reader (1996) and by Lawrence Buell in The Environmental Imagination (1995). The field has since expanded to include postcolonial ecocriticism, ecofeminism, indigenous ecologies, climate justice, and transnational readings, as well as connections to environmental humanities and ecological linguistics.

Common methods include close reading and contextual analysis that foreground ecological content, as well as interdisciplinary approaches that incorporate science, geography, history, and political economy. Topics range from representations of wilderness and degradation to urban ecologies, agricultural landscapes, and debates over sustainability, conservation, and disaster. Some scholars explore how literature contributes to environmental awareness or critique of power structures.

Despite influence, ecocriticism faces critiques about its reach and methodological commitments, concerns about anthropocentrism, and debates over the role of literature in social change versus scientific or policy interventions. Nevertheless, it remains a productive framework for examining cultural imaginaries of nature and for connecting literary study with environmental thought and activism.