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Author:

Dimock, Wai-chee, 1953- author.

Title:

Weak planet : literature and assisted survival / Wai Chee Dimock.

Publisher:

University of Chicago Press,

Copyright Date:

2020

Description:

228 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Subject:

1900-2099
Literature, Modern--20th century--History and criticism.
Literature, Modern--21st century--History and criticism.
American literature--History and criticism.
English literature--History and criticism.
American literature.
English literature.
Literature, Modern.
Literary criticism.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Literary criticism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents:

Introduction : Endangered -- Revamped genres. Still hungry : Louise Erdrich and Sherman Alexie edit Mary Rowlandson ; Almost extinct : elegy, pastoral, and sounds in and out of Thoreau ; Less than tragic : C. L. R. James, Frank Stella, and Amitav Ghosh dilute Melville -- Rebuilt Networks. Contagiously Irish : Colm Tóibín, W. B. Yeats, and Gish Jen infect Henry James ; Vaguely Islamic : Henri Matisse, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Langston Hughes, with Paul Bowles ; Remotely Japanese : William Faulkner indigenous and trans-Pacific -- Afterword : Not paralyzed.

Summary:

"What can literature teach us about resilience in the face of climate change and planetary-scale vulnerability? In "Weak Planet," Wai Chee Dimock proposes a way forward by showing how writers have met past hazards with experiments in non-paralysis, and how their works still inspire readers to "find their strength." Dimock looks for hope not in heroic resistance but in the unspectacular and inconclusive. Focusing on tenuous networks among authors and unstable phenomena such as genre, she shows that literature's durability is at once weak but vital. Dimock's literary history pays special attention to low-grade, low-threshold phenomena that, in not being developed to their fullest or most forceful extent, have often been overlooked. Along the way, she considers Louise Erdrich's and Sherman Alexie's reclamation of Mary Rowlandson; elaborations of Moby-Dick in works by C. L. R. James, Frank Stella, and Amitav Ghosh; weak forms of Irishness in Colm Toíbín, Oscar Wilde, and W. B. Yeats, and the appearance of an atmospheric Islam in works by Henri Matisse, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Langston Hughes. Joining conversations in environmental humanities, disability studies, and several other fields, "Weak Planet" offers a new literary history along with new ways to think about our collective future"-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

022647710X
9780226477107
022647707X
9780226477077

OCLC:

(OCoLC)1141031622

LCCN:

2020006489

Locations:

OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)