Eco-Cosmopolitanism, Place, and the Novel - Einzelansicht

"Think globally, act locally." This phrase is said to have been coined by René Dubos, advisor to the United Nations in the planning of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment which resulted in the creation of the UN Environmental Programme. Since its emergence in 1978, it has become one of the best known slogans of environmentalism. Given the high frequency with which it has commonly been quoted, one might think that it refers to a clear connection between the experience of the everyday in particular places and an understanding of global environmental systems and relations. The problem is, however, that there are many different kinds of ecological thought that approach the relation between the global and the local in quite significantly different and often problematic ways. This course is designed to look at the various renderings of this complicated relation in fiction, the novel in particular, and ecocritical writing. Specifically, it is meant to consider the significance of the broad and evasive notion of "place" with respect to a recent shift in the ecocritical thought towards eco-cosmopolitan, and more broadly cosmopolitan theories. The rejection of the global and its seamless integration into the local, manifested through various concepts of a ”sense of place” and ”ethics of proximity” in the ecocritical discourse, has until recently posed both conceptual and political difficulties. Yet, the question remains as to whether environmental responsibility and political action in times of global environmental crisis are to some extent and in some cases still bound to particular places. Can specificities of particular places be considered of importance in the time of global risks and global environmental threats? What conceptions and/or artistic representations of place effectively negotiate both the local and global cultural, socio-economic and environmental relations of particular places?