3. Applied Literature
Maryam Azizi; Mohammad-Javad Haj'jari; Naser Maleki
Abstract
Encouraging a transformative perspective that nurtures a harmonious bond between humans and Nature has been the most important concern in ecocriticism and among its proponents. One enduring concept throughout human history, and the subject of harsh criticism in this regard, is “anthropocentrism”, ...
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Encouraging a transformative perspective that nurtures a harmonious bond between humans and Nature has been the most important concern in ecocriticism and among its proponents. One enduring concept throughout human history, and the subject of harsh criticism in this regard, is “anthropocentrism”, which prioritizes human welfare over nature. Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic” theory vehemently rejects this human-centered stance and advocates for the moral inclusion of non-human natural beings in all human-made decisions about nature. In this light, as a literary call to active environmentalism, Richard Powers’ Bewilderment (2021) directly challenges anthropocentric ideologies by arguing for environmental equity and underscoring the inherent worth of all living entities. Drawing upon the anthropocosmic ethical approach of the “land ethic” theory, this study adopts an interdisciplinary approach to question anti-environmental behaviors that build upon the so-called anthropocentric human supremacy over non-humans. It argues that Bewilderment vividly criticizes the ethos of industrialized societies that exploit the Earth for immediate gain, ignoring the long-term consequences of anthropocentrism and degrading the natural rights of animals as co-architects of the human realm.
3. Applied Literature
Maryam Azadanipour; Naser Maleki; Mohammad-Javad Hajjari
Abstract
The 21st-century literature has experienced a shift of ideas reflected in metamodernism, introduced by Vermeulen and Akker in 2010. Although metamodernism is a critical approach in its naissance, it is observable in a large body of the 21st-century literature through certain narrative and thematic features ...
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The 21st-century literature has experienced a shift of ideas reflected in metamodernism, introduced by Vermeulen and Akker in 2010. Although metamodernism is a critical approach in its naissance, it is observable in a large body of the 21st-century literature through certain narrative and thematic features which have proven to move in line with contemporary socio-cultural issues. Although metamodernism plays with and modifies specific elements of modernism and postmodernism, it is exclusive to the artworks of the last two decades in which certain terminologies such as the “infinite Real,” an aversion of the “Real” in former philosophical and psychological disciplines, suggest that truth and reality are infinite and that the past and the future are connected through a plastic connection. A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) by Jennifer Egan makes a good example of the metamodernist novel regarding the author’s network of characters in their approaches toward the reality of their lives as it is constantly redefined in association with their past. In this light, the novel is to thematically embed the concept of the “infinite Real” in the first decade of the third millennium.
