Synopses & Reviews
The essays in this collection make a contribution to the greening of film studies and expand the scope of ecocriticism as a discipline traditionally rooted in literary studies. In addition to highlighting particular films as productive tools for raising awareness and educating us about environmental issues, Framing the World: Explorations in Ecocriticism and Film encourages its readers to become more ecologically minded viewers, sensitive to the ways in which films reflect, shape, reinforce, and challenge our perceptions of nature, of human/nature relations, and of environmental issues.
The contributors to this volume offer in-depth analyses of a broad range of films, including fictional and documentary, Hollywood and independent, domestic and foreign, experimental and indigenous. Drawing from disciplines including film theory, ecocriticism, philosophy, rhetoric, environmental justice, and American and Indigenous studies, Framing the World offers new and original approaches to the ecocritical study of cinema. The twelve essays are gathered in four parts, focusing on ecocinema as activist cinema; the representation of environmental justice issues in Hollywood, independent, and foreign films; the representation of animals, ecosystems, and natural and human-made landscapes in live action and animation; and ecological themes in the films of two eco-auteurs, Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Peter Greenaway. Willoquet-Maricondi's introduction provides an overview of the field of ecocriticism and offers both philosophical and theoretical foundations for the ecocritical study of films.
Contributors
Beth Berila, St. Cloud State University * Lynne Dickson Bruckner, Chatham College * Elizabeth Henry, University of Denver * Joseph K. Heumann, Eastern Illinois University * Harri Kilpi, University of East Anglia * Jennifer Machiorlatti, Western Michigan University * Mark Minster, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology * Robin L. Murray, Eastern Illinois University * Tim Palmer, University of North Carolina, Wilmington * Cory Shaman, Arkansas Tech University * Rachel Stein, Siena College * Paula Willoquet-Maricondi, Marist College
Synopsis
Discussion of Hollywood film has dominated much of the contemporary dialogue on ecocriticism and the cinemaandmdash;until now. With
Transnational Ecocinemas, the editors open up the critical debate to look at a larger variety of films from many different countries and cultures. By foregrounding these films with their economic and political contexts, the contributors offer a more comprehensive and nuanced look at the role of place in ecocinema. The essays also interrogate proposed global solutions to environmental issues by presenting an ecocritical perspective on different film cultural considerations from around the globe.
About the Author
Tommy Gustafsson is a senior lecturer in film studies at the School of Language and Literature Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University.
Pietari Kandauml;andauml;pandauml; is a research fellow in the School of Film and Television Studies at the University of Helsinki. He has published extensively on transnational Finnish cinema.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Part I: Introduction to Transnational Ecocinema
Introduction: Transnational Ecocinema in an age of Ecological Transformation
Pietari Kand#228;and#228;pand#228; and Tommy Gustafsson
Transnational Approaches to Ecocinema: Charting an Expansive Field
Pietari Kand#228;and#228;pand#228;
Part II: Documentary Politics and the Ecological Imagination
Colorful Screens: Water Imaginaries in Documentaries from China and Taiwan
Enoch Yee-Lok Tam
From My Fancy High Heels to Useless Clothing: and#8216;Interconnectednessand#8217; and Ecocritical Issues in Transnational Documentaries
Kiu-wai Chu
Ecocinema and and#8216;Good Lifeand#8217; in Latin America
Roberto Forns-Broggi
Dimensions of Humanity in Earthlings (2005) and Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
Ilda Teresa de Castro
Part III: Popular Film and Ecology
China Has a Natural Environment, Too!: Consumerist and Ideological Ecoimaginaries in the Cinema of Feng Xiaogangand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Corrado Neri
And the Oscar Goes toand#8230;Ecoheroines, Ecoheros and the Development of Ecothemes from The China Syndrome (1979) to GasLand (2010)
Tommy Gustafsson
Part IV: (In)Sustainable Footprint of Cinema
Climate Change Films: Fear and Agency Appeals
Inand#234;s Crespo and and#194;ngela Pereira
Envisaging Environmental Change: Foregrounding Place in Three Australian Ecomedia
Initiatives
Susan Ward and Rebecca Coyle
Afterword-Towards a Transnational Understanding of the Anthropocene
Tommy Gustafsson and Pietari Kand#228;and#228;pand#228;
Contributor Details
Index