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"Part manifesto, part toolkit, part proof of concept, and part dialogue, Empirical Ecocriticism studies the influence of environmental stories on our affects, attitudes, and actions. The contributors leverage case studies on topics ranging from the impact of climate fiction on readers' willingness to engage in activism to the political empowerment that results from participating in environmental theater, ultimately pointing toward a novel and fruitful synthesis of the environmental humanities and social sciences"--
List of contents
Contents
Introduction: Toward an Integrated Approach to Environmental Narratives and Social Change
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W. P. Malecki, and Frank Hakemulder
Part I. Methods
1. Experimental Methods for the Environmental Humanities: Measuring Affects and Effects
W. P. Malecki
2. Qualitative Approaches to Empirical Ecocriticism: Understanding Multidimensional Concepts, Experiences, and Processes
Paul Sopcak and Nicolette Sopcak
3. Exploring the Environmental Humanities through Film Production
Rebecca Dirksen, Mark Pedelty, Yan Pang, and Elja Roy
Part II. Case Studies
4. Does Climate Fiction Work? An Experimental Test of the Immediate and Delayed Effects of Reading Cli-Fi
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Abel Gustafson, Anthony Leiserowitz, Matthew H. Goldberg, Seth A. Rosenthal, and Matthew Ballew
5. The Roles of Exemplar Voice, Compassion, and Pity in Shaping Audience Responses to Environmental News Narratives
Jessica Gall Myrick and Mary Beth Oliver
6. The Reception of Radical Texts: The Complicated Case of Alice Walker’s “Am I Blue?”
Alexa Weik von Mossner, W. P. Malecki, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Marcus Mayorga, and Paul Slovic
7. Screening Waste, Feeling Slow Violence: An Empirical Reception Study of the Environmental Documentary
Plastic China Nicolai Skiveren
8. All the World’s a Warming Stage: Applied Theater, Climate Change, and the Art of Community-Based Assessments
Sara Warner and Jeremy Jimenez
9. Tracing the Language of Ecocriticism: Insights from an Automated Text Analysis of
ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment Scott Slovic and David M. Markowitz
Part III. Reflections
10. Empirical Ecocriticism and the Future of (Eco)Narratology
Ursula K. Heise
11. Two Cheers for Empirical Ecocriticism
Greg Garrard
12. Empirical Ecocriticism and Modes of Persuasion
David I. Hanauer
13. Stories about the Environment for Diverse Audiences: Insights from Environmental Communication
Helena Bilandzic
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index
About the author
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson is Associate Professor of English and Environmental Studies at Rice University. He is author of
Peak Oil: Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture and coeditor of
An Ecotopian Lexicon (Minnesota, 2019).
Alexa Weik von Mossner is associate professor of American studies at the University of Klagenfurt. She is author of
Affective Ecologies: Empathy, Emotion, and Environmental Narrative and
Cosmopolitan Minds: Literature, Emotion, and the Transnational Imagination.
W. P. Malecki is university professor of literary theory at the University of Wroc¿aw. He is coeditor of
What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics and
Human Minds and Animal Stories: How Narratives Make Us Care about Other Species.
Frank Hakemulder is affiliated full professor at the Reading Center (Stavanger) and teaches media psychology and communication at Utrecht University. He is coeditor of
Science and Humanities: New Research Methods and
Muses and Measures: Empirical Research Methods for the Humanities.
