Weak planet literature and assisted survival / Wai Chee Dimock.

Author/creator Dimock, Wai-chee, 1953-
Format Electronic
Publication InfoChicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2020.
Description228 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Supplemental ContentFull text available from eBooks on EBSCOhost
Subjects

Contents Introduction : Endangered -- Revamped genres. Still hungry : Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie edit Mary Rowlandson ; Almost extinct : elegy, pastoral, and sounds in and out of Thoreau ; Less than tragic : C. L. R. James, Frank Stella, and Amitav Ghosh dilute Melville -- Rebuilt Networks. Contagiously Irish : Colm Toíbín, W. B. Yeats, and Gish Jen infect Henry James ; Vaguely Islamic : Henri Matisse, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Langston Hughes, with Paul Bowles ; Remotely Japanese : William Faulkner indigenous and trans-Pacific -- Afterword : Not paralyzed.
Abstract "What can literature teach us about resilience in the face of climate change and planetary-scale vulnerability? In "Weak Planet," Wai Chee Dimock proposes a way forward by showing how writers have met past hazards with experiments in non-paralysis, and how their works still inspire readers to "find their strength." Dimock looks for hope not in heroic resistance but in the unspectacular and inconclusive. Focusing on tenuous networks among authors and unstable phenomena such as genre, she shows that literature's durability is at once weak but vital. Dimock's literary history pays special attention to low-grade, low-threshold phenomena that, in not being developed to their fullest or most forceful extent, have often been overlooked. Along the way, she considers Louise Erdrich's and Sherman Alexie's reclamation of Mary Rowlandson; elaborations of Moby-Dick in works by C. L. R. James, Frank Stella, and Amitav Ghosh; weak forms of Irishness in Colm Toíbín, Oscar Wilde, and W. B. Yeats, and the appearance of an atmospheric Islam in works by Henri Matisse, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Langston Hughes. Joining conversations in environmental humanities, disability studies, and several other fields, "Weak Planet" offers a new literary history along with new ways to think about our collective future"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 177-211) and index.
Access restrictionAvailable only to authorized users.
Technical detailsMode of access: World Wide Web
Genre/formElectronic books.
LCCN 2020006489
ISBN9780226477077 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
ISBN9780226477107 (softcover ; alk. paper)
ISBN(e-book)

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