Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee Postcolonial Environments 2010 Rob Nixon

Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, Postcolonial Environments (2010) Rob Nixon, Slow Violence (2011) Patricia Yaeger (ed. ), “Literature in the Ages of Wood, Tallow, Coal. . . ” (2011)

Wai-chee Dimock and Lawrence Buell, Shades of the Planet: American Literature as World Literature (2007) Ursula Heise, Sense of Place, Sense of Planet: Environmental Imagination of the Global (2008) Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffen, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment (2009) Bonnie Roos and Alex Hunt, Postcolonial Green: Environmental Politics and World Literature (2010). Anthony Carrigan, Postcolonial Tourism: Literature, Culture, and Environment (2010) Elizabeth De. Loughrey and George B. Handley, Postcolonial Ecologies (2011)

Postcolonial Studies and Ecocriticism �Both emerge as distinct fields of academic specialization in the 1970 s; institutionally consolidated by the 1990 s �Postcolonial studies as a response to end of post-war boom, long downturn, and new imperialist offensives in the 1970 s �Ecocriticism as a response to shift in environmental consciousness signalled by, eg. , Earth Day, 1970; Stockholm, 1972; Club of Rome report, 1972; ‘Blue Marble’ earth shot, 1972; The Good Life, 1975/ Survivors, 1975.

‘Deep Ecology’ vs. ‘Social Ecology’ Deep Ecology (eg. Arne Naess): �sought to change the reflexive anthropomorphic position held by human beings to the environment �to stress the relationality all living and non-living forms �protest the impact of industrial capitalism on nature BUT �Stuck in Cartesian binary – human and natural world �Idealist; lack of attention to material structures that produce specific socio-ecological configurations �First-worldist / typical solution is US-centric – vision of the pioneer farmer working the land

Social Ecology (eg. Raymond Williams; Ramachandra Guha) �Nature and society as a dialectical unity �Emphasis on the particular forms of economic and social domination enabled by / embedded in specific configurations of socio-ecological relations �Attention to colonial and imperial histories �Guha, “Environmentalism of the Poor” – struggles over social justice as simultaneously struggles over environmental justice

They dazzle me with the tonnage of cotton or coca that has been exported, the acreage that has been planted with olive trees or grapevines. I am talking about natural economies that have been disrupted – harmonious and viable economies adapted to the indigenous population – about food crops destroyed, malnutrition permanently introduced, agricultural development oriented solely toward the benefit of the metropolitan countries, about the looting of products, the looting of raw materials. Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism

“Yet it seems largely true that the conceptual importance of the environment to anti-colonial struggles in Africa, Asia and the Latin American countries appears to be ignored in the foundational writings of the triumvirate of Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak that formed the academic field of postcolonial studies in the mid-1970 s and 1980 s. ” Postcolonial Environments, 48

“Once we have grasped this idea of postcolonial India as a globalized entity within a world-system, it is impossible not to see that its condition speaks simultaneously at local and global, specific and general, levels. What is happening in India is also happening, has happened and will happen in the rest of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Since at the heart of both colonialism and neo-colonialism lies the historical fact of unfolding, expanding capital, India (and all the other ‘new’ postcolonies) can be seen as a part of a singular, but radically uneven, world. ” Postcolonial Environments, 7

“Instead of divvying up literary works into hundredyear intervals (or elastic variants like the long eighteenth or twentieth century) or categories harnessing the history of ideas (Romanticism, Enlightenment), what happens if we sort texts according to the energy sources that made them possible? ” Yaeger, “Editor’s Column”, 305 http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Bg. RYnc. R 1 Nog

“Roadunner”, The Modern Lovers (1970) Roadrunner, roadrunner Going faster miles an hour Gonna drive past the Stop 'n' Shop With the radio on I'm in love with Massachusetts And the neon when it's cold outside And the highway when it's late at night Got the radio on I'm like the roadrunner Alright I'm in love with modern moonlight 128 when it's dark outside I'm in love with Massachusetts I'm in love with the radio on It helps me from being alone late at night It helps me from being lonely late at night I don't feel so bad now in the car Don't feel so alone, got the radio on Like the roadrunner That's right Said welcome to the spirit of 1956 Patient in the bushes next to '57 The highway is your girlfriend as you go by quick Suburban trees, suburban speed And it smells like heaven And I say roadrunner once Roadrunner twice I'm in love with rock & roll and I'll be out all night Roadrunner That's right Well now Roadrunner, roadrunner Going faster miles an hour Gonna drive to the Stop 'n' Shop With the radio on at night And me in love with modern moonlight Me in love with modern rock & roll Modern girls and modern rock & roll Don't feel so alone, got the radio on Like the roadrunner

The dominant energy sources through which the world-system as re-made itself; the “great energy transitions of the modern world”: Peat and charcoal – 1450 s-1830 s Coal – 1750 s-1950 s Oil and natural gas – 1870 s-present. Moore, “Transcending the Metabolic Rift”, 22.

Castle of Otranto, 1764 Moore, “Sometime after 1760, the ‘first’ agricultural revolution was showing clear signs of exhaustion. Within England, per-acre yield growth stagnated after mid-century, and most of European agriculture experienced the same effect. ” Dracula, 1897 Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974 Podobnik, “coal panics”; “end of the expansionary cycle of the global coal system” Oil shocks, 1973, 1979; long downturn Peat/Charcoal Coal (1750 s-1950 s) Oil and natural gas (1870 s-present) (1450 s-1830 s) 1760 -1810 1820 -1860 1870 -1910 1950 -1960 1970 Gothic Form Present