1. New & Other Directions Literature and Nature University of Helsinki/ Comparative Literature 25.11.2014

2. Apocalypse, End of Time Book of Revelation Greek; Apokálypsis; literally ”lifting of the veil"

3. Enviromental Imagination and Apocalypticism Thomas Malthus => Population growth and limited resources Paul Erlich: The Population Bomb (1972) Deep Ecology From Judeo-Christian to secular context

4. In contemporary fiction and culture Buell (1995) ”[…] in the era of Cat’s Cradle, Dr. Strangelove, and Star Wars it is hard for apocalypticism to keep a straight face” Don De Lillo: White Noise (1984) Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake (2003)

5. Criticism? Malthus’s theory not scientifically valid Media uses environmental catastrophes as narratives for its own ends Leads to dogmatic thinking, ”ecofascism”?

6. Locus Classicus; Joseph Conrad The Heart of Darkness Edgar Allan Poe: Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym J. M. Coetzee: Life of Michael K. Yan Martel: Life of Pi Postcolonialism and Ecocriticism – Texts and Study

7. Feminism and Ecology – Carolyn Merchant (s.1936) The Death of Nature (1980) => From Renaissance ”female earth” and holistic cosmology to Scientific Revolution Reinventing Eden (2003) => Judeo- Christian tradition has seen nature as female=> Narratives structure our view of nature

8. WILLIAM FAULKNER Modernism and Nature

9. ”The Bear”; Go Down Moses (1942) A collection of short stories or a novel? ”The Bear” – Protagonist Isaac ”Ike” McCaslin Hunting and ritual – ”Old Ben” Vanishing wilderness – Plantation economy and deforestation (Evans 1999; Palmer 2002)

10. Other themes in Faulkner Topography, sense of place Legacy of slavery, blood inheritence (Light In August; Go Down Moses etc) Sexuality, woman’s position in the South (The Wild Palms; Absalom, Absalom; The Hamlet) (Faulkner and the Natural World, University Press of Mississippi 1999)

11. Postmodernism – Margaret Atwood Surfacing (1971), on surface a Bildunsroman of a young woman The impossibility of depicting nature A fish or ”the idea of a fish”? (Blomberg & Säntti 2008)

12. New directions for study and research Science fiction, fantasy, utopias and dystopias Children’s literature Ecocritical Shakespeare Cross-disciplinary research

13. Thank You For the Course and Good Luck with the Exam!