Indian Feminist Ecocriticism

257 Pages·2022·1.949 MB·English

by  Douglas A. Vakoch, Nicole Anae

Indian Feminist
Ecocriticism
ECOCRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE
Series Editor: Douglas A. Vakoch, METI
Advisory Board
Sinan Akilli, Cappadocia University, Turkey; Bruce Allen, Seisen University,
Japan; Zélia Bora, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil; Izabel Brandão,
Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil; Byron Caminero-Santangelo,
University of Kansas, USA; Chia-ju Chang, Brooklyn College, The City
College of New York, USA; H. Louise Davis, Miami University, USA; Simão
Farias Almeida, Federal University of Roraima, Brazil; George Handley,
Brigham Young University, USA; Steven Hartman, Mälardalen University,
Sweden; Isabel Hoving, Leiden University, The Netherlands; Idom Thomas
Inyabri, University of Calabar, Nigeria; Serenella Iovino, University of Turin,
Italy; Daniela Kato, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan; Petr Kopecký,
University of Ostrava, Czech Republic; Julia Kuznetski, Tallinn University,
Estonia; Bei Liu, Shandong Normal University, People’s Republic of China;
Serpil Oppermann, Cappadocia University, Turkey; John Ryan, University
of New England, Australia; Christian Schmitt-Kilb, University of Rostock,
Germany; Joshua Schuster, Western University, Canada; Heike Schwarz,
University of Augsburg, Germany; Murali Sivaramakrishnan, Pondicherry
University, India; Scott Slovic, University of Idaho, USA; Heather Sullivan,
Trinity University, USA; David Taylor, Stony Brook University, USA; J.
Etienne Terblanche, North-West University, South Africa; Cheng Xiangzhan,
Shandong University, China; Hubert Zapf, University of Augsburg, Germany
Ecocritical Theory and Practice highlights innovative scholarship at the
interface of literary/cultural studies and the environment, seeking to foster an
ongoing dialogue between academics and environmental activists.
Recent Titles
Indian Feminist Ecocriticism, edited by Douglas A. Vakoch and
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Avian Aesthetics in Literature and Culture: Birds and Humans in the
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Lupenga Mphande: Eco-critical Poet and Political Activist by Dike Okoro
Environmental Postcolonialism: A Literary Response edited by Shubhanku
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Reading Aridity in Western American Literature edited by Jada Ach and
Gary Reger
Reading Cats and Dogs: Companion Animals in World Literature edited by
Françoise Besson, Zelia M. Bora, Marianne Marroum, and Scott Slovic
Turkish Ecocriticism: From Neolithic to Contemporary Timescapes edited
by Sinan Akilli and Serpil Oppermann

Indian Feminist
Ecocriticism
Edited by Douglas A. Vakoch
and Nicole Anae
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Contents
Introduction ix
Nicole Anae and Douglas A. Vakoch
PART 1: ECOFEMINIST LITERATURE ACROSS INDIA 1
Chapter 1: Reading Ecofeminist Approaches: Postcolonial Women’s
Writing in Hindi Literature 3
Prachi Priyanka
Chapter 2: Ecofeminist Consciousness in Select Folktales of the
Dungri Garasiya Bhils 19
Pronami Bhattacharyya
Chapter 3: Spiritual Ecology: An Ecofeminist Study of the Jhumur
Songs of Tribal Bengal 35
Anindita Chatterjee
PART 2: NORTHEAST INDIAN PERSPECTIVES 49
Chapter 4: Ecofeminism in Assamese Literature 51
Nibedita Mukherjee
Chapter 5: Red Earth, Resisting Women: Violence and Conflict in
Literature from the Northeast—An Ecofeminist Perspective 65
Shibani Phukan and Triveni Goswami Vernal
Chapter 6: Indigenous Ecofeminism and Contemporary Northeast
Indian Literature: Lessons in Eco-Swaraj 79
Panchali Bhattacharya
Chapter 7: Ecofeminism and Bodo Folktales and Folk Songs 93
Esther Daimari and Ivy Daimary
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viii Contents
Chapter 8: Women and Natural Resource Management in Naga
Folktales and “Peoplestories”: Situating Easterine Kire’s
Fiction 107
Nilanjana Chatterjee
PART 3: SOUTH INDIAN PERSPECTIVES 123
Chapter 9: Tinai and Representations of Nature and Women in
Tamil Cankam Literature 125
N. Depak Saravanan and A. Edwin Jeevaraj
Chapter 10: Ecofeminism and Its Impasses: Women Writing Nature
in Malayalam Literature 137
Shalini M.
Chapter 11: Postcolonial Women’s Writing in Malayalam Literature
and Ecofeminism 151
Anupama Nayar CV
Chapter 12: Magic(al), Environment and Malayalam Literature:
Narrating the Slow Death of Aathi and Kasargod 163
Rahul V. and Nagendra Kumar
PART 4: INTERSECTIONALITY, QUEERNESS, AND
SURVEILLANCE 175
Chapter 13: The Intersectional Spectrum and the Critical Legacy of
the Novelists of the Indian Green 177
Ananya Chatterjee and Debajyoti Sarkar
Chapter 14: Conceptualizing a Queer Ecopoetics: The Politics of
Intersectionality in the Postcolonial Era 191
Meghna Prabir and Shreyashi Sarkar
Chapter 15: Ecofeminism in Two Indian Dystopian Novels 205
Jayjit Sarkar and Anik Sarkar
Index 217
About the Contributors 229
Introduction
Nicole Anae and Douglas A. Vakoch
The term ecocriticism was first coined by William Rueckert in “Literature and
Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism” (1978). Rueckert defined the con-
cept of ecocriticism as “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to
the study of literature, because ecology (as a science, as a discipline, as the
basis for human vision) has the greatest relevance to the present and future of
the world” (1996, 107). The term’s usage in the context of literary criticism
appears to have emerged a few years earlier; through ecocritic Karl Kroeber’s
application of the term “ecological” in his journal article “Home at Grasmere:
Ecological Holiness” (1974). Yet both conceptual terms (Kroeber’s “ecologi-
cal” and Rueckert’s “ecological”) appear to have remained underrepresented
in the scholarly literature until the appearance of The Ecocriticism Reader:
Landmarks in Literary Ecology (1996), edited by Cheryll Glottfelty and
Harold Fromm.
Around the same time, the first books that examined literary criticism
from ecofeminist—a branch of ecocriticism—perspectives began to appear
in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Patrick D. Murphy followed his work
Literature, Nature, and Other: Ecofeminist Critiques (1995) with an anthol-
ogy coedited with Greta Gaard titled Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory,
Interpretation, Pedagogy (1998). These works were soon followed by
Glynis Carr’s New Essays in Ecofeminist Literary Criticism (2000) and a
decade later by Andrea Campbell’s New Directions in Ecofeminist Literary
Criticism (2008). Douglas A. Vakoch’s Feminist Ecocriticism: Environment,
Women, and Literature (2012) provided a similar focus, but used the term
“feminist ecocriticism” as a synonym for “ecofeminist literary criticism.”
These early volumes included almost exclusively essays by authors from the
United States.
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