Green Cultural Studies: Nature in Film, Novel, and Theory

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Summary: Review from CHOICE May, 99
Review: "Because it is one of the first sustained studies to use the analytical tools of cultural studies and to focus entirely on the environment, this volume is an important contribution to the literature. Hochman engages the greening of cultural studies, and in so doing strenuously foregrounds nature. In these highly adroit analyses, nature stops being backdrop and becomes primary subject. The author looks at many texts, including primary works such as Women in Love, Deliverance (the film), Beloved, and Silence of the Lambs and such scholarly discussions as Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology (Ch, Jul '77) and Donna Haraway's Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (1991), the latter (along with Alexander Wilson's The Culture of Nature, Ch, Dec'92) a theoretical antagonist that informs Hochman's study. Ultimately, Hochman rails against the theorization of nature, insisting that the natural world is more worthy by far than to be commodified and diminished. Though Hochman at times indulges in overly sophisticated and ingenious readings and portmanteaus ("worldnature," "culturescape") and provides no clear rationale for separating the bibliography into two parts, this groundbreaking book is highly recommended for all upper division undergraduate and graduate programs in literature and environmental studies. It should greatly widen the appeal of ecocriticism.-B. Adler

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Summary: Perhaps predictably...
Review: cultural studies managed to ignore it and stay just the same, after all.

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Summary: From Book News:
Review: From Booknews: A work of cultural criticism arguing that destroying the boundaries between animal and human, between nature and technology, as mainstream green critics propose, would promote culture over and against the needs of nature. Offers instead a new way of thinking about difference. Also contends that the differences between culture and nature impact the treatment not only of nature, but also of human groups currently coded as race, class, gender, and sexuality. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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Summary: Choice Award
Review: Green Cultural Studies was selected as a Choice magazine Outstanding Academic Title of 1999.