Free standard shipping on all orders
  • Visa
  • Master Card
  • American Express
  • Apple Pay
  • Google Pay
  • JCB

Ecological Trauma: Resource Extraction and Settler-Colonialism in African Literature book cover

1st Edition

Ecological Trauma Resource Extraction and Settler-Colonialism in African Literature

By Christopher Hebert Copyright 2027
220 Pages
by Routledge

Intervening in debates across literary trauma theory and ecocriticism, this book argues that in an age increasingly defined by the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on society and ecology, it is necessary to graft the ethical concerns of trauma studies onto the lessons of ecocriticism, especially in the context of African literatures. Drawing upon a corpus of African literary texts... Read more

Introduction: The Question of Ecological Trauma  1. Imagining the Natural World in West African Ecofiction  2. Resource Extraction as Ecological Trauma in the Niger Delta and Beyond  3. Settler-Colonialism and Environmental Violence in South African Fiction  4. Cultivation, Disintegration, and Regeneration in the Works of Southern African Women Writers  5. Africanfuturist Visions of Ecological Crisis  Conclusion

Biography

Christopher R. Hebert is an independent scholar working at the intersection of ecocriticism and literary trauma theory. He holds a B.S. in English from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in African Studies from Ghent University, Belgium where he was a Fulbright Scholar from 2021-2022.  His work has previously been published in Research in African Literatures and ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature.

'This book is a bold and compelling intervention at the intersection of trauma theory, ecocriticism, and African literary studies. Its concept of ecological trauma opens new ways of understanding the entangled effects of resource extraction, settler colonialism, and environmental degradation in African contexts, while also reimagining trauma as an experience that exceeds the human. Traversing canonical and contemporary texts—from Tutuola and Okri to Mbue, Mda, and Serpell—this lucid and richly contextualized study not only traces how fiction bears witness to ecological harm, but also develops a capacious green trauma theory that is both ethically attuned and methodologically innovative. An important contribution to the environmental humanities, it will be of great interest to scholars of African literature, trauma studies, and planetary crisis.'

- Stef Craps, Professor of English Literature, Ghent University

 

'From the folkloric fever dreams of Amos Tutuola to the worldbuilding imagination of Namwali Serpell, Chris Hebert offers green trauma theory as a framework for engaging African literary production. His readings of texts from West and Southern Africa illuminate the toxic impact of capitalism and settler colonialism on African environments, but also how African writers have envisioned aesthetic, philosophical, and cosmological responses to this ecological moment.'

 - J. Roger Kurtz, Professor of English Literature, Drexel University

Add to Cart