Overview

In Allegories of the Anthropocene Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey traces how indigenous and postcolonial peoples in the Caribbean and Pacific Islands grapple with the enormity of colonialism and anthropogenic climate change through art, poetry, and literature. In these works, authors and artists use allegory as a means to understand the multiscalar complexities of the Anthropocene and to critique the violence of capitalism, militarism, and the postcolonial state. DeLoughrey examines the work of a wide range of artists and writers-including poets Kamau Brathwaite and Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Dominican installation artist Tony Capellan, and authors Keri Hulme and Erna Brodber-whose work addresses Caribbean plantations, irradiated Pacific atolls, global flows of waste, and allegorical representations of the ocean and the island. In examining how island writers and artists address the experience of finding themselves at the forefront of the existential threat posed by climate change, DeLoughrey demonstrates how the Anthropocene and empire are mutually constitutive and establishes the vital importance of allegorical art and literature in understanding our global environmental crisis.

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9781478004103

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Reviews

DeLoughrey brings her considerable background in environmental humanities and postcolonial literature studies to bear in this volume. . . . This book is not to be missed by those interested in keeping up with recent conversations, across the environmental humanities, around issues of the Anthropocene. -- L. C. Bayne * Choice * Allegoriesof the Anthropocene brings human histories of dispossession, toxicity, and creative survival to the fore where they might get lost in the geologic fixation on sediment. . . . It is powerful that this rich and careful book should end with a turn to the reader, showing how allegory at its most potent is about the entanglement, not leap, between part/whole or island/planet. -- Isabel Lockhart * Journal of British Studies * DeLoughrey's new book is to be strongly recommended for its highly original tack: focusing upon the rising importance of allegory as a way of making sense of times of rupture and catastrophic environmental change. -- Jonathan Pugh * Island Studies Journal * Whenever Elizabeth DeLoughrey makes a critical intervention within a specific theoretical or literary field, established certainties, or matters of general consensus, seem suddenly in need of recalibration.... Allegories of the Anthropocene does something similar to the overburdened discourse surrounding the proposed geological epoch.... Like an exciting crossword puzzle, the book is delightfully difficult as it deconstructs the complexities and inconsistencies of the Anthropocene discourse. -- Malcolm Sen * New West Indian Guide * This is a meticulously researched, compellingly argued and richly suggestive book that builds on various strands in DeLoughrey's previous research to produce an important and timely intervention into ecocritical, indigenous and literary / visual studies. DeLoughrey has an enviable ability to summarize and synthesize enormous bodies of scholarship across multiple disciplines, and to bring them into productive relation, also deploying highly nuanced close reading skills in relating (social) scientific discourses to specific literary, artistic and filmic 'texts.' -- Michelle Keown * Literary Research * [DeLoughrey] shows how thinking beyond the Anthropocene . . . is now required. Then, evoking striking examples from poetry, literature, art, and philosophy, she demonstrates that allegory has been pervasive in modern times and that it remains pointedly relevant to creativity in our contemporary situation. -- Terry Smith * Art Bulletin *

This is a meticulously researched, compellingly argued and richly suggestive book that builds on various strands in DeLoughrey's previous research to produce an important and timely intervention into ecocritical, indigenous and literary / visual studies. DeLoughrey has an enviable ability to summarize and synthesize enormous bodies of scholarship across multiple disciplines, and to bring them into productive relation, also deploying highly nuanced close reading skills in relating (social) scientific discourses to specific literary, artistic and filmic 'texts.' -- Michelle Keown * Literary Research * Whenever Elizabeth DeLoughrey makes a critical intervention within a specific theoretical or literary field, established certainties, or matters of general consensus, seem suddenly in need of recalibration.... Allegories of the Anthropocene does something similar to the overburdened discourse surrounding the proposed geological epoch.... Like an exciting crossword puzzle, the book is delightfully difficult as it deconstructs the complexities and inconsistencies of the Anthropocene discourse. -- Malcolm Sen * New West Indian Guide * DeLoughrey's new book is to be strongly recommended for its highly original tack: focusing upon the rising importance of allegory as a way of making sense of times of rupture and catastrophic environmental change. -- Jonathan Pugh * Island Studies Journal * Allegoriesof the Anthropocene brings human histories of dispossession, toxicity, and creative survival to the fore where they might get lost in the geologic fixation on sediment. . . . It is powerful that this rich and careful book should end with a turn to the reader, showing how allegory at its most potent is about the entanglement, not leap, between part/whole or island/planet. -- Isabel Lockhart * Journal of British Studies * DeLoughrey brings her considerable background in environmental humanities and postcolonial literature studies to bear in this volume. . . . This book is not to be missed by those interested in keeping up with recent conversations, across the environmental humanities, around issues of the Anthropocene. -- L. C. Bayne * Choice *

DeLoughrey brings her considerable background in environmental humanities and postcolonial literature studies to bear in this volume. . . . This book is not to be missed by those interested in keeping up with recent conversations, across the environmental humanities, around issues of the Anthropocene. -- L. C. Bayne * Choice *

DeLoughrey's new book is to be strongly recommended for its highly original tack: focusing upon the rising importance of allegory as a way of making sense of times of rupture and catastrophic environmental change. -- Jonathan Pugh * Island Studies Journal * Allegoriesof the Anthropocene brings human histories of dispossession, toxicity, and creative survival to the fore where they might get lost in the geologic fixation on sediment. . . . It is powerful that this rich and careful book should end with a turn to the reader, showing how allegory at its most potent is about the entanglement, not leap, between part/whole or island/planet. -- Isabel Lockhart * Journal of British Studies * DeLoughrey brings her considerable background in environmental humanities and postcolonial literature studies to bear in this volume. . . . This book is not to be missed by those interested in keeping up with recent conversations, across the environmental humanities, around issues of the Anthropocene. -- L. C. Bayne * Choice *

DeLoughrey brings her considerable background in environmental humanities and postcolonial literature studies to bear in this volume. . . . This book is not to be missed by those interested in keeping up with recent conversations, across the environmental humanities, around issues of the Anthropocene. -- L. C. Bayne * Choice * Allegoriesof the Anthropocene brings human histories of dispossession, toxicity, and creative survival to the fore where they might get lost in the geologic fixation on sediment. . . . It is powerful that this rich and careful book should end with a turn to the reader, showing how allegory at its most potent is about the entanglement, not leap, between part/whole or island/planet. -- Isabel Lockhart * Journal of British Studies * DeLoughrey's new book is to be strongly recommended for its highly original tack: focusing upon the rising importance of allegory as a way of making sense of times of rupture and catastrophic environmental change. -- Jonathan Pugh * Island Studies Journal * Whenever Elizabeth DeLoughrey makes a critical intervention within a specific theoretical or literary field, established certainties, or matters of general consensus, seem suddenly in need of recalibration.... Allegories of the Anthropocene does something similar to the overburdened discourse surrounding the proposed geological epoch.... Like an exciting crossword puzzle, the book is delightfully difficult as it deconstructs the complexities and inconsistencies of the Anthropocene discourse. -- Malcolm Sen * New West Indian Guide * This is a meticulously researched, compellingly argued and richly suggestive book that builds on various strands in DeLoughrey's previous research to produce an important and timely intervention into ecocritical, indigenous and literary / visual studies. DeLoughrey has an enviable ability to summarize and synthesize enormous bodies of scholarship across multiple disciplines, and to bring them into productive relation, also deploying highly nuanced close reading skills in relating (social) scientific discourses to specific literary, artistic and filmic 'texts.' -- Michelle Keown * Literary Research *

Author Information

Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey is a Professor with appointments in the English Department and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of numerous books, including Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island Literatures. The author's proceeds from the sale of this book go to The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES).

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