What is Ecocriticism?

by Christopher Cokinos

For those already engaged in what necessarily must be a diverse and (yes, I hope) contentious project, a definition seems somewhat beside the point. For others (i.e. the vast majority of the literary profession), perhaps a definition is in order: ecocriticism is the critical and pedagogical broadening of literary studies to include texts that deal with the nonhuman world and our relationship to it. (Such a definition, of course, draws on the work of critics like Glen Love, Cheryll Glotfelty, and others.) Ecocriticism necessarily entails a shift away from approaches that strictly privilege language and the difficulty of referentiality to approaches that re-emphasize the real work of words in a world of consequence, joy, and despair. Like feminism at its best, ecocriticism is fundamentally an ethical criticism and pedagogy, one that investigates and helps make possible the connections among self, society, nature, and text. That said, I neither encourage nor welcome an ecocritical atmosphere that may be developing which is hostile to and ignorant of language-centered literary theory. Also like feminism, we need a diversity of approaches. It is time for ecocritics to try to develop an ecologically oriented poststructuralism (as SueEllen Campbell has suggested). I might call such an approach "compoststructuralism."

Two concerns: 1) that we do not allow ecocriticism to become merely another "ism"-machine for publication and tenure, thus transforming it from crucial professional and social necessity to just another generator in the academic factory; and 2) that we start now to use ecocritical lenses to seriously call into question the various canons we have received as "given" and which continue to be taught as though nonhuman nature and the human place within it didn't matter.

Revising canons has become somewhat of a cliche recently, but this is the work that may have the most immediate and long-lasting effects. I am suggesting here that it's not enough to offer nature writing and nature literature classes alone (though goodness knows we need to) but that the entire range of canons--from children's literature to modern poetry--must be called into question anew. Problematic as this may sound, I think we'll find that ecocritical approaches to canon formation will complement quite intelligently the feminist and multicultural approaches to canons that already have been underway with no little success.

Christopher Cokinos, Kansas State University (now at Isotope journal)