ASLE-UKI Seminar - Eighteenth-Century Literature and Environment

Welcome to the ASLE-UKI Seminar - Eighteenth-Century Literature and Environment! Join us online for a deep dive into the intersection of literature and the environment during the eighteenth century.

Eighteenth-century literature has not always been the first port of call for environmental criticism, but a new wave of ecocritics are drawing attention to the period’s sustained engagement with both the natural and built environments.

The eighteenth was the century of both the agrarian and the industrial revolutions in which the coal-powered steam engine was invented, sustained population and economic growth commenced, and European empires massively scaled up the colonial exploitation of people and resources.

Eighteenth-century authors reflected these changes, sometimes welcoming and sometimes excoriating them. But whether in prose, verse, or on the stage, eighteenth-century literature was fully engaged with environmental change.

In this double-session seminar, eight leading scholars, all contributors to the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Literature and Environment, will share their research and lead discussion into literature and environment in this period. Please join us for what promises to be a fascinating insight into new approaches to the eighteenth century.

SEMINAR SCHEDULE AND SPEAKERS

Session One 3pm – 4.45pm GMT

Brycchan Carey (Northumbria University) ‘Religion and the Natural World’

Eric Gidal (University of Iowa): ‘Landscape’

James Metcalf (University of Manchester): ‘Georgic and Pastoral’

Nicolle Jordan (University of Southern Mississippi): Gardens and Farms’

4.45pm-5.15pm: Break

Session Two 5.15pm – 7pm GMT

Alessio Mattana (University of Turin): ‘Nonfiction prose and Environment’

Annette Hulbert (Willamette University): ‘The Environment and the Rise of the Novel’

Jodie Matthews (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘Water’

Tobias Menely (University of California, Davis): ‘Human and Nonhuman Life’