I Dune: Messiah (1969) sker en förändring av klimatet, en terraformning som människan initierar. Vatten introduceras i rikliga mängder på planeten Arrakis och detta påverkar planetens ekologi såväl som människans kultur. Uppsatsen granskar Frank Herberts roman genom att teoretiskt utgå ifrån ett ekokritiskt perspektiv och tematiskt ifrån vatten, dess varande och relation till människan samt planeten. Människans medvetenhet av sig själv som en art på planeten och sin kulturella koppling till både planeten och vatten är centralt i analysen. Klimatförändringen som sker när människan terraformar planeten och hur detta påverkar människan behandlas också. Även postkolonialism väger in i analysen.  I Dune: Messiah är vattnet, människan och planeten starkt kopplade till varandra. Människan utgår från sin antropocentriska världssyn och betraktar planeten som en plats vilken kan förbättras till människans fördel. Eftersom fremenfolkets kultur är djupt grundad i naturen skapar terraformningen av planeten en identitetskris. Kulturen blir kopplingen som får människan att vilja bevara planeten som den är. Vattnets värde kulturellt men även som valuta gör den till en maktskapande vara. För människan är terraformningen en strävan mot förbättring, vilket speglar de teman av stora strukturer som finns genomgående i Dune-serien. Den här långsiktiga visionen som Frank Herbert målar upp, avbildar människan med en större medvetenhet, en möjlighet att tänka stort. Jag menar (likt andra inom ekokritiken) att detta större tänkande är en väg framåt som ger mänskligheten ett större perspektiv – därmed förståelse av – ekologiska förhållanden. / In Dune: Messiah (1969) the climate changes due to terraforming caused by humans. Water is introduced on the planet Arrakis, and this affects the planet’s ecology as well as the people’s culture. This paper is an exploration of Frank Herbert’s novel, theoretically anchored in ecocriticism and thematically in water, its nature of existence, relationship to humankind and the planet. Humanity’s awareness of themselves as a species on the planet, and their cultural connection to both the planet and water is central to the analysis. The climate-change which occurs when humanity terraforms the planet and how this affects humankind is also touched upon. Post-colonialism also plays a role in the analysis. Water, people, and the planet are strongly connected to each other in Dune: Messiah. Humans see the planet as a place which can be improved to their own benefit due to their anthropocentric worldview. Because the Fremen culture is deeply rooted in nature, an identity-crisis occurs when the planet is terraformed. It is culture that enables humans to want to preserve the planet as it is. Water is a resource that creates power due to its cultural and economical value. The terraforming is humanity aiming for improvement, which mirrors the themes  of larger structures that can be found continuously in the Dune-series. This long-term vision which Herbert paints, pictures humans with a broader consciousness, a capability to think in a larger magnitude. This I (as others within ecocriticism), consider to be a path forwards which offers a broader perspective – therefore an understanding of – ecological conditions.

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<p>This dissertation draws on a broad range of postcolonial literature in order to explore literary representations of environmentalism in the global South. Although this project draws heavily on the particular environmental histories of different nations and geographic regions, I am also interested in areas of overlap. In this study I do two interrlated and simultaneous things that I hope will refine postcolonial ecocriticism. The first involves a broadening of the definition of 'environment,' informed by the environmental justice movment, in ways that make it more applicable and accountable to people's lived lives. This expanded definition of the environment includes those spaces where people live and work. Such a redefinition, I argue, is a crucial counter-measure to ecocriticism's Anglo-American focus, where traditional American environmental values of conservation, preservation, and the cult of the wilderness prevail. The second intervention involves using ecocriticism alongside this expanded notion of the environment to unearth the everyday environmentalisms at work in postcolonial literature that may go unnoticed through traditional ecocritical approaches. I argue that this everyday approach successfully avoids some of the common hurdles in postcolonial ecocriticism. These hurdles include debates over the origins of environmental thought, questions about the link between affluence and environmental consciousness, and the contentious space of animals in postcolonial thought and literature. By beginning with an examination of the ways in which people interact with their own local environments, I am able to explore environmental thought and action on the ground and can begin theorizing there. What is revealed through these analyses is that this expanded definition of environmentalism and this new ecocritical approach open the door to viewing environmentality as a common and foundational feature of postcolonial literature. My chapters explore various facets of these everyday environmentalisms, including ecofeminist perspectives, anthropocentric versus biocentric representations of the environment, urban space, and finally the idea of going back to the land. The issues that I explore throughout these chapters include legacies of colonialism, globalization, racism and speceism, ecolocial/ecocritical imperialism, and postcoloniality.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Mon mémoire explore les représentations d’environnements matériels et naturels dans des œuvres littéraires de Virginia Woolf et Mina Loy, et comment ces écrivaines conçoivent les connections entre leurs personnages féminins et leurs environnements. À travers l’analyse de leurs œuvres respectives et à l’aide de préceptes de l’écocritique et de sujets connexes tels la matérialité, l’écoféminisme et la trans-corporalité, j’établis la possibilité de réévaluer la perception anti-nature du Modernisme et des opportunités pour enrichir les études écocritiques et modernistes. En premier lieu, j’observe l’inséparabilité entre l’humanité et ces environnements de vie dans Between the Acts, dernier roman complété par Woolf, et comment cela constitue une évolution par rapport à sa nouvelle « Kew Gardens ». De plus, je présente les bénéfices de cette relation pour les femmes et leurs ambitions artistiques en me basant sur les arguments de Woolf dans son essai A Room of One’s Own et en conversant avec des études qui explorent les éléments écocritiques de l’œuvre de Woolf. En deuxième lieu, je m’intéresse à une sélection des premiers poèmes de Mina Loy pour leurs examens de thèmes féministes et leur intégration dans les représentations des lieux visités dans les poèmes. J’illustre le rôle actif d’espaces domestiques et publics dans le maintien de discours dominants du patriarcat, et donc dans la résultante subjugation des femmes à son pouvoir. Ce travail d’analyse me permet de conclure avec de nouvelles avenues de recherche pour solidifier la place des femmes modernistes au sein du mouvement à l’aide de leurs intérêts environnementaux et pour reforger les liens ignorés ou effacés entre elles. / My thesis explores the depictions of material and natural spaces in literary works by Virginia Woolf and Mina Loy, and how both writers conceive the interconnections between their female characters and their surrounding environments. With the help of precepts of ecocriticism and of related fields such as materiality, ecofeminism and trans-corporeality in analyzing Woolf’s and Loy’s respective works, I demonstrate how the misguided preconception of Modernism’s contempt for nature can be reassessed to offer new opportunities for both ecocritical and modernist studies. Firstly, I observe the inseparability between humanity and its living environments in Woolf’s last completed novel Between the Acts and how this evolved from her earlier short story “Kew Gardens.” I also discuss the benefits of this relation for women and their artistic ambitions with the aid of Woolf’s own claims in her essay A Room of One’s Own and in conversation with studies which have attested the ecocritical elements of Woolf’s work. Secondly, I take an interest in Mina Loy’s early poetry for its exploration of feminist themes and how those intertwine with her depictions of her poems’ environments. I illustrate the active role of domestic and public spaces in the maintenance of ambient ruling patriarchal discourses and the subjugation of women to their power. This work of analysis allows me to conclude with new avenues from which to solidify the places of women modernists in the movement by the means of their environmental interests and to reforge the ignored or erased affiliations between them.

This essay aim to explore how human and nature is presented in Bröderna Lejonhjärta and Ronja Rövardotter, by Astrid Lindgren. It also tries to answer the question how the relationship between the two is shaped; can any hierarchic structures be exposed in the relationship, and how do these, in that case, appear? The essay also problematize words and concepts along the way, such as nature, anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. The method for this study is an ecocritical theoretical base, with thematic analyzes of the books, regarding plot, relationships between characters and their surroundings, and also linguistic narratological techniques, such as the use of metaphorical elements. The different thematic episodes are put in relation to theories about vital materialism, presented in Vibrant Matter – A Political Ecology of Things, by Jane Bennett. I also do a comparative analysis between the two books by Lindgren, with the purpose of highlighting important differences and similarities. The essay ends by discussing how the main characters can be seen as very caring in their relationship to their surroundings, and how one, by applying the theories presented by Bennett, can interpret this caring as a strive towards existing in harmony with, and equal to, nature; a sort of mode or view that Bennett describes as a horizontal position. During the discussion I describe how this strive and position is expressed, and how these are interacting with cyclical systems such as the changes of the seasons and shift between life and death. The books as literature for children, and the main characters as children, is discussed in relation to this, supported by the text “När du är bättre än vi – Jantelagen, skammen och barnlitteraturen” by Maria Jönsson, from the book Du ska inte tro att du är något – Om Jantelagens aktualitet. / Denna uppsats behandlar och syftar till att undersöka hur människa och natur skrivs fram i Bröderna Lejonhjärta och Ronja Rövardotter, av Astrid Lindgren. Den försöker även att svara på hur relationen mellan dessa ser ut; huruvida man kan se hierarkiska strukturer i förhållandet, samt hur dessa i så fall ter sig. Uppsatsen gör det även till sin uppgift att längs vägen problematisera begrepp som bl.a. natur, antropocentrism, ekocentrism. Metoden för studien är en ekokritisk hållning, som går ut på olika tematiska nedslag i de båda verken, där handling, karaktärers förhållande till varandra och till sin omgivning, samt språkliga berättartekniska grepp så som användning av metaforiska inslag, lyfts och analyseras. De olika tematiska avsnitten prövas även mot Jane Bennetts vitala materialitetsteorier som presenteras i Vibrant Matter – A Political Ecology of Things. En komparativ analys görs mellan de båda verken av Lindgren, i syfte att synliggöra viktiga likheter och skillnader. Uppsatsen avslutar med att diskutera hur man kan se ett, hos huvudkaraktärerna, påtagligt vurmande för omgivningarna, samt hur man genom att applicera Bennetts teorier kan tolka detta vurmande som en slags strävan mot att existera likställt med naturen, ett slags läge som Bennett beskriver som det horisontella planet. Under diskussionen lyfter jag hur denna strävan och detta läge yttrar sig, samt hur dessa samspelar med cykliska system, så som årstidernas växlande, samt skiftet mellan liv och död. Verken som barnlitteratur och huvudkaraktärerna som barn lyfts och diskuteras i relation till detta med hjälp av Maria Jönssons ”När du är bättre än vi – Jantelagen, skammen och barnlitteraturen”, ur Du ska inte tro att du är något – Om Jantelagens aktualitet.

Text in English / This thesis investigates the relationship between humans and the nonhuman world or natural environment in selected literary works by black female writers in colonial and post-colonial Namibia and Zimbabwe. Some Anglo-American scholars have argued that many African writers have resisted the paradigms that inform much of global ecocriticism and have responded to it weakly. They contend that African literary feminist studies have not attracted much mainstream attention yet mainly to raise some issues concerning ecologically oriented literary criticism and writing. Given this unjust criticism, the study posits that there has been a growing interest in ecocriticism and ecofeminism in literary works by African writers, male and female, and they have represented the social, political (colonial and anti-colonial) and economic discourse in their works. The works critiqued are Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (1988) and The Book of Not (2006), Neshani Andreas’ The Purple Violet of Oshaantu (2001) and No Violet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2013). The thrust of this thesis is to draw interconnections between man’s domination of nature and the subjugation and dominance of black women as depicted in different creative works. The texts in this study reveal that the existing Anglo-American framework used by some scholars to define ecocriticism and ecofeminism should open up and develop debates and positions that would allow different ways of reading African literature. The study underscored the possibility of black female creative works to transform the definition of nature writing to allow an expansion and all encompassing interpretation of nature writing. Contrary to the claims by Western scholars that African literature draws its vision of nature writing from the one produced by colonial discourse, this thesis argues that African writers and scholars have always engaged nature and the environment in multiple discourses. This study breaks new ground by showing that the feminist aspects of ecrocriticism are essential to cover the hermeneutic gap created by their exclusion. On closer scrutiny, the study reveals that African women writers have also addressed and highlighted issues that show the link between African women’s roles and their environment. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

Text in Afrikaans / This study investigates postcolonial aspects of the prose oeuvre of André P. Brink, with specific reference to his historiographical texts `n Oomblik in die wind, Houd-den-Bek, Die eerste lewe van Adamastor, Inteendeel, Sandkastele and Donkermaan. The texts can be described as links in a textual history of South Africa: a history corresponding to the official version, revisioning it in an imaginative way. The texts also criticize political (mal)practices, and the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial social contexts of the country are critically scrutinized. The texts offer suggestions for a new political dispensation. Since the seventies the Brink oeuvre has developed a multi-dimensional postcolonial approach. Aspects of post-colonialism, post-structuralism, magical realism and feminism as articulated in the texts, are analyzed and interpreted. Brink's investigation of problems concerning historiography, and the relation between history and fiction, comprised an important aspect of the research leading to this report. / Afrikaans & Theory of Literature / D.Litt. et Phil

La forêt a été, et reste encore, un sujet clé de la littérature hispano-américaine. Ce travail étudie les images de la forêt dans le roman hispano-américain du dernier siècle, tout en mettant l’accent sur l’analyse d’ouvrages dont l’action se situe dans la forêt amazonienne, le milieu sylvestre latino-américain par excellence. Quelles sont les visions de la forêt qui priment dans la production narrative ? Comment la crise écologique mondiale a-t-elle influencé les manières de « raconter la forêt » ? De quelle façon reflètent-elles la tournure prise par la situation environnementale aujourd’hui ? Quelles sortes de rapports entre les sociétés humaines et les écosystèmes forestiers sont représentés dans ces ouvrages ? Quelle est la participation des peuples autochtones dans les faits racontés ? Et celle des animaux, des plantes et d’autres entités non humaines ? Est-ce que les œuvres expriment des notions de « nature » et de « culture » différentes de celles de l’Occident moderne, ou des besoins et regards différents de ceux des humains ? Pour trouver une réponse à ces questions, le travail se focalise sur quatre sujets clés de la production romancière : la construction d’une conscience historique des images de la nature, les rapports entre les peuples de la forêt et les colonisateurs occidentaux, la vision de la forêt comme un écosystème complexe et fragile, et la quête de façons coopératives de bâtir notre relation avec l’environnement. Bien que la méthodologie choisie favorise les outils de l’écocritique et de l’écologie politique, le travail s’appuie aussi sur l’essor récent de la philosophie environnementale, la biogéographie des forêts tropicales et l’anthropologie culturelle. Par le truchement d’une telle approche, nous misons sur la possibilité d’ouvrir une plateforme de dialogue entre la critique littéraire et d’autres champs du savoir. L’objectif est d’utiliser les textes littéraires comme des fenêtres pour explorer la dimension environnementale de la condition humaine, en fournissant des idées et des points de vue féconds pour les débats actuels autour du changement de paradigme qu’il faut opérer afin que la civilisation humaine soit capable de créer un nouveau rapport, symbiotique et non simplement extractif, avec les écosystèmes naturels. / The forest has been, and remains, a key theme in Hispanic American literature. This research examines images of the forest in the Hispanic American narrative of the last century, stressing the analysis of works of writing set in the Amazon rainforest, Latin America’s quintessential natural setting. What are the most common imaginaries of the rainforest in this narrative production? What impact has the global ecological crisis had on different ways of “narrating the forest”? What types of relationships between human societies and rainforest ecosystems are represented in this corpus? What environmental and ecological problems are thematized in the texts? What role do Indigenous peoples play in the stories? And what role do animals, plants, and other nonhuman entities play? Do these works give a voice to notions of “nature” and “culture” that are different from Western ones? Do they give a voice to needs and perspectives that are different from human ones? To answer these questions, my work delves into four key issues of canonical rainforest narratives: the cultural perceptions of a tropical rainforest setting, the relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers, the development of a historical consciousness of images of nature, and the search for new forms of relating to the natural environment. Although the proposed methodology favors the tools of ecocriticism and political ecology, the work also draws on current developments in environmental philosophy, rainforest biogeography, and cultural anthropology. By means of such an interdisciplinary approach, my work seeks to create a suitable setting for dialogue between literary criticism and other areas of knowledge. Ultimately, I aim to use these chosen literary texts as a window to exploring the human condition’s environmental dimension, providing ideas and viewpoints that could contribute to building a distinct, symbiotic and not merely extractive relationship between human societies and natural ecosystems. / La selva ha sido, y sigue siendo, un tema central de la literatura hispanoamericana. Este trabajo estudia las imágenes de la selva en la narrativa hispanoamericana durante el último siglo, enfatizando el análisis de obras cuya acción se sitúa en la selva amazónica, el entorno natural latinoamericano por excelencia. ¿Cuáles son los imaginarios de la selva más comunes en la producción novelística y cuentística? ¿Cuál ha sido el impacto de la crisis ecológica global en las formas de «contar la selva»? ¿Qué tipos de relación entre las sociedades humanas y los ecosistemas selváticos aparecen representados en estas obras? ¿Qué problemas ambientales y ecológicos son tematizados en ellas? ¿Qué papel desempeñan en los hechos narrados las poblaciones autóctonas? ¿Y cuál desempeñan, a su vez, los animales, las plantas y otras entidades no-humanas? ¿Las obras le dan voz a nociones de «naturaleza» y «cultura» distintas a las de Occidente, o a necesidades u ópticas distintas a las de los humanos? Para responder estas preguntas, el trabajo profundiza en temas claves del canon de las narrativas de la selva, como las percepciones culturales del ambiente selvático, las relaciones entre los pobladores indígenas de la selva y los colonizadores, el desarrollo de una conciencia histórica de las imágenes de la naturaleza y la búsqueda de nuevas formas de relación con el entorno ambiental, entre otros. Si bien la metodología escogida privilegia las herramientas del ecocriticismo y la ecología política, el trabajo se apoya igualmente en desarrollos recientes de la filosofía ambiental, la biogeografía de las selvas tropicales y la antropología cultural. Mediante este enfoque pluridisciplinar, el trabajo procura abrir un escenario de diálogo fecundo entre la crítica literaria y otras áreas del conocimiento. El objetivo último es aprovechar los textos literarios seleccionados como una ventana para explorar la dimensión ambiental de la condición humana, proveyendo ideas y puntos de vista que contribuyan en la construcción de una relación distinta, simbiótica y no simplemente extractiva, entre las sociedades humanas y los ecosistemas naturales.

The paper is an ecocritical analysis of the Empire of the ants, a book written in 1991 by Bernard Werber. Through this green reading, the author seeks to better understand how climate change is created from a social point of view and why, by inherence, it is so difficult to avert. As the book is largely a juxtaposition of the human society and that of ants, the author compares the two species in order to determine which one is better equipped to tackle climate change, as well as which factors, cultural, political or biological, allow for the necessary measures to be taken. The study finds that the complexity of climate change exceeds our understanding of time and space, making it impossible for us to imagine and consequently tackle in any satisfactory manner. Though ants display features superior to ours when it comes to carrying out this task, the study further concludes that there is an accompanying moral dilemma to such actions, as the environmentally profitable not always is in the best interest of individual lives.