Bargains! PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Wild Abandon

American Literature and the Identity Politics of Ecology

Alexander Menrisky (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth)

$92.95   $79.39

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Cambridge University Press
23 October 2025
The American wilderness narrative, which divides nature from culture, has remained remarkably persistent despite the rise of ecological science, which emphasizes interconnection between these spheres. Wild Abandon considers how ecology's interaction with radical politics of authenticity in the twentieth century has kept that narrative alive in altered form. As ecology gained political momentum in the 1960s and 1970s, many environmentalists combined it with ideas borrowed from psychoanalysis and a variety of identity-based social movements. The result was an identity politics of ecology that framed ecology itself as an authentic identity position repressed by cultural forms, including social differences and even selfhood. Through readings of texts by Edward Abbey, Simon Ortiz, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Jon Krakauer, among others, Alexander Menrisky argues that writers have both dramatized and critiqued this tendency, in the process undermining the concept of authenticity altogether and granting insight into alternative histories of identity and environment.
By:  
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Weight:   436g
ISBN:   9781108829458
ISBN 10:   1108829457
Series:   Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture
Pages:   266
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Alexander Menrisky is a Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He teaches in the Department of English and Communication and the Honors College.

See Also