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The Radical Ecology of the Shelleys: Eros and Environment is the first full-length study to explore a radically queer ecology at work in writings by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as their discussions of nature and the natural consistently link ecology and erotic practice.
List of contents
List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsPrimary Works and AbbreviationsIntroduction
Chapter 1: Queer Ecology and Its Romantic Roots
Chapter 2: "The Nature of Love and Friendship": Ecotones and Other Fine Lines in Percy Shelley's Writings on Romantic Friendship
Chapter 3: Percy's Shelley's Hermaphroditus: Queer Nature & the Sex Lives of Plants in
The Sensitive Plant and
The Witch of AtlasChapter 4: Communal Ecology & the Queer Domesticities of Mary Shelley's
Maurice and
ValpergaChapter 5: Osculate Wildly: Earth-Kissing & Tree-Kissing in Mary Shelley's
The Last Man and
LodoreConclusion: Tangled, or the Shelleyan Network
Index
About the author
Colin Carman earned his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2008. A former fellow at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, he has contributed to three book collections,
Lacan and Romanticism (2019),
Romantic Ecocriticism: Origins and Legacies (2016) and
The Brokeback Book: From Story to Cultural Phenomenon (2011). His articles have appeared in such journals as
ISLE, European Romantic Review,
GLQ,
Studies in Scottish Literature and
Horror Studies. A Contributing Writer at
The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, he is currently an Instructor of English at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Summary
The Radical Ecology of the Shelleys: Eros and Environment is the first full-length study to explore a radically queer ecology at work in writings by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley as their discussions of nature and the natural consistently link ecology and erotic practice.
Additional text
"Carman's account of its queerness makes The Radical Ecology of the Shelleys a really interesting, important contribution to Shelley studies and to Romantic ecocriticism. While the strangeness of the natural world is well-established in Romantic scholarship, the strangeness of human sexuality is less established, and the strength of Carman's book lies in his synthesis of the two."
- Seth T. Reno, Aubern University, Review 19
"This book will be invaluable to any scholar with an interest in the Shelleys and Romantic ecocriticism. As Carman demonstrates, ecology is already queer and erotic, but due to nature’s association with the heteronormative and masculine, it has been overlooked in previous Shelley scholarship."
-Katherine Warby, Romance, Revolution & Reform, Issue 3: January 2021
