Robert P. MARZEC, An Ecological and Postcolonial Study of Literature: From Daniel Defoe to Salman Rushdie, Houndmills, Palgrave MacMillan, 2007, 200 p.
ISBN13 9781403976406
ISBN10 1403976406
SUMMARY
The Earth’s land and its inhabitants are in jeopardy. Ecosystems arethreatened in every corner of the world. Neocolonial forces definehuman relations increasingly in fundamentalist terms. Land settlementpatterns formulated during the colonial era have left more and morepeople on today’s planet without property, without the resources neededto sustain a livable existence, and with only a combative understandingof identity. This book argues that humanity’s relationship to the landhas undergone a fundamental change, and reveals how the historicalphenomenon known as the “enclosure movement” has come to have aprofound effect on how we relate to the earth, and on how we conceiveof ourselves as human beings. Analyzing narratives by Daniel Defoe,Henry Fielding, E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, Salman Rushdie, andothers, Marzec reveals the extent to which the legacy of enclosurescontinues to dictate the geopolitical reality of the present.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert P. Marzec is Associate Professor of English literature,postcolonial studies, global studies, and contemporary criticism at theState University of New York at Fredonia. He is currently at work on asecond book project tentatively entitled Land and Empire: Literature inthe Era of Globalization. He has had articles published in boundary 2,The Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, rhizomes, andJanus Head. He is also the editor of the book Regional AmericanCultures: the Mid-Atlantic States (2004).