Geocriticism Meets Ecocriticism: Bertrand Westphal and Environmental Thinking

Abstract

Since 2010, a significant amount of the American interest in geocriticism has been coming from ecologically minded literary critics, with Scott Slovic, founding president of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) and editor of ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment), writing approvingly of Bertrand Westphal’s approach and encouraging the integration of his work into the ecocritical canon.1 Given their mutual interest in issues like place, space, landscape, and nature, it is not surprising to find this kind of convergence between ecocriticism and geocriticism. Nonetheless, the differences between geo-criticism and eco-criticism, like those between geography and ecology, are significant and worthy of close examination. Although the two approaches are clearly complementary, the questions and goals that shaped them differ in important respects. The purpose of this essay is to examine some of the zones of overlap between the two fields in order to consider some ways in which the two approaches can complement, correct, and inspire each other.