Bioregional Imagination

Bioregionalism is an innovative way of thinking about place and planet from an ecological perspective. Although bioregional ideas occur regularly in ecocritical writing, until now no systematic effort has been made to outline the principles of bioregional literary criticism and to use it as a way to read, write, understand, and teach literature. The twenty-four original essays here are written by an outstanding selection of international scholars. The range of bioregions covered is global and includes such diverse places as British Columbia’s Meldrum Creek and Italy’s Po River Valley, the Arctic and the Outback. There are even forays into cyberspace and outer space. In their comprehensive introduction, the editors map the terrain of the bioregional movement, including its history and potential to inspire and invigorate place-based and environmental literary criticism. Responding to bioregional tenets, this volume is divided into four sections. The essays in the “Reinhabiting” section narrate experiments in living-in-place and restoring damaged environments. The “Rereading” essays practice bioregional literary criticism, both by examining texts with strong ties to bioregional paradigms and by opening other, less-obvious texts to bioregional analysis. In “Reimagining,” the essays push bioregionalism to evolve—by expanding its corpus of texts, coupling its perspectives with other approaches, or challenging its core constructs. Essays in the “Renewal” section address bioregional pedagogy, beginning with local habitat studies and concluding with musings about the Internet. In response to the environmental crisis, we must reimagine our relationship to the places we inhabit. This volume shows how literature and literary studies are fundamental tools to such a reimagining.

The Bioregional Imagination makes a valuable contribution to the Venn diagram field of ecocriticism, where literature, science, and yes, activism, can and should coexist.--Christopher Cokinos "Science Magazine", [T]he editors [of The Bioregional Imagination] elegantly illustrate the wide variety of practices occurring in communities all over the world that are bioregional in nature, while providing a succinct and lucid history of how the bioregional philosophy and movement has evolved. . . . For anyone working in ecocriticism, environmental writing, or bioregional sustainability, it promises to be of much value, reaching classic status in the bioregional literature canon.--Corey Lewis "Terrain.org", [T]he strength of this collection comes through the focus on the alliance of 'bioregional literature (and be extension, art) and criticism' in encouraging and creating enriching and beneficial experiences of place. . . . It is a mark of success of The Bioregional Imagination that readers are compelled to reappraise and rethink their relationship with place: to understand that to think and act bioregionally is to do much more than endorse stylised images of regional localities (the 'heritage' versions of local identity and place) and to subscribe obediently to 'green' values.--Stephen Harris "Australian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology", The bioregional perspective has been around for over forty years now. It has persistently and quietly examined and analyzed the ways modern people live in their landscapes. Combining ecological and geomorphological science with culture and politics, it lays the groundwork for better ways to be on earth. This welcome anthology of cultural papers brings together a range of well-imagined texts and puts the bioregional project front and center for humanists, educators, and scientists.--Gary Snyder "author of The Practice of the Wild", This anthology of well-crafted, thoughtful essays is a genuine pleasure to read and may become as much of a treasured and well-thumbed document as The Ecocriticism Reader (1996).--Pamela Banting "ISLE"

CHERYLL GLOTFELTY is a professor of literature and the environment at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is the editor of Literary Nevada: Writings from the Silver State and a coeditor of The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place. She is a founding officer of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment.