Ecological Crisis and Literary Representation - A seminar presented by the Hawke Institute for Sustainable Societies

The Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies presents

Ecological Crisis and Literary Representation

Presented by

Dr Emily Potter, Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Hawke Institute for Sustainable Societies

Scholars in the eco-humanities contend that the greatest impediments to environmental change at a time of ecological crisis are cultural, and yet the fictional stories that circulate in our society are often considered ecologically disengaged. This paper responds to suggestions that contemporary Australian fiction, in particular, is failing to take up these concerns. It suggests that the kind of representations that are familiar in environmental discourse - of a world condemned to environmental decline and looming catastrophe - restrict the role of fiction in an environmental ethics. If we look outside this paradigm, however, the possibilities for Australian literature as a site of ecological engagement open up.