1st Edition

The Discourses of Environmental Collapse Imagining the End

Edited By Alison E. Vogelaar, Brack W. Hale, Alexandra Peat Copyright 2018
    216 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    216 Pages 14 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    In recent years, ‘environmental collapse’ has become an important way of framing and imagining environmental change and destruction, referencing issues such as climate change, species extinction and deteriorating ecosystems. Given its pervasiveness across disciplines and spheres, this edited volume articulates environmental collapse as a discursive phenomenon worthy of sustained critical attention. Building upon contemporary conversations in the fields of archaeology and the natural sciences, this volume coalesces, explores and critically evaluates the diverse array of literatures and imaginaries that constitute environmental collapse. The volume is divided into three sections— Doc- Collapse, Pop Collapse and Craft Collapse —that independently explore distinct modes of representing, and implicit attitudes toward, environmental collapse from the lenses of diverse fields of study including climate science and policy, cinema and photo journalism.

    Bringing together a broad range of topics and authors, this volume will be of great interest to scholars of environmental communication and environmental humanities.

    Introduction, Brack W. Hale and Alison E. Vogelaar 1. This is the End of the World as We Know It: Narratives of Collapse across Genres, Guy D. Middleton Part I: Doc Collapse 2. The Limits to Growth and the Birth of Collapse Science, Brack W. Hale and Alison E. Vogelaar 3. Clandestine Disposal: Toxic Waste and the Fear of Collapse in the American 1980s, Michael Egan 4. Collapse, the Great and the Slow: Climate Science and Policy in a Changing Climate, Sergio Fava Part II: Pop Collapse 5. Act Now or Survive Later: Coming to Terms with "Environmental Collapse" in Wasteland 2 and Post-Apocalyptic/Survivalist Video Games, Jennifer England 6. Relishing the Collapse? The Uncertain Effect of Climate Change News Photographs, Joanna Nurmis 7. Cinematic Ecocide: Environmental Collapse and Entertainment in Hollywood Film, Alexa Weik von Mossner Part III: Craft Collapse 8. The Resilience of Symbols: Posthuman Hopefulness in Atwood’s "MaddAddam" Trilogy, Bjarke Liboriussen 9. Salvage in the Ruins: Virginia Woolf and Modernist Literature, Alex Peat 10. Visualizing Disaster in Comics: Josh Neufeld’s A.D. New Orleans,

    Biography

    Alison E. Vogelaar is Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Franklin University Switzerland, and co-editor of Changing Representations of Nature and the City: The 1960s-1970s and their Legacies (with Gabriel Lee, Routledge 2018).

    Brack W. Hale is Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Franklin University Switzerland, where he is co-director of the Center for Sustainability Initiatives.

    Alexandra Peat is Associate Professor of Literature at Franklin University Switzerland, and author of Travel and Modernist Literature: Sacred and Ethical Journeys (Routledge, 2011).