Ecopoetics of Reenchantment: Liminal Realism and Poetic Echoes of the Earth tackles the reenchantment process at work in a part of contemporary ecoliterature that is marked by the resurfacing of the song of the earth topos and of Gaia images. Focusing on the postmodernist braiding of various, indigenous, and ecofeminist ontologies, close readings of the animistic and totemic dimensions of the stories at hand lead to the theorizing of liminal realism-a mode that shares much with magical realism but that is approached through an ecopoetic lens, specifically working an interspecies kind of magic, situating readers in-between human and other-than-human worlds. This book promotes a worldview based on relationships of reciprocity and symbiosis. It restores our capacity for wonder together with our sensitive intelligence. Liminal realism adopts a stance in-between scientific, mythical, and poetic worldviews as it calls attention to the soundscapes, odorscapes, feelscapes, and landscapes of the world. This monograph offers an original, transdisciplinary, and cross-Atlantic take on ecopoetics as it straddles the two academic worlds and sparks a conversation between artworks, theories, and studies emerging from the English-speaking world as well as from Francophone contexts.
Benedicte Meillon is associate professor at the University of Perpignan and affiliated with the LARCA- CNRS at the Universite de Paris.
Part One: From Disenchantment to an Ecopoetics of Reenchantment Chapter One: Disenchanted, Enchanted, and Reenchanted Worldviews Chapter Two: Toward an Ecofeminist, Ecopoetic Project of a Rational Reenchantment Chapter Three: An Ecofeminist Remystification of Narrative: The Many Faces of Gaia in the Anthrop-o(bs)cene Chapter Four: Sowing the Seeds of an Ecopoet(h)ics of Wonder and Enchantment: Reincorporating Language and the Human into the Flesh and Song of the World Part Two: Ecopoetic Reenchantment via Liminal Realism Chapter Five: Why Liminal, Rather than "Magical," "Spiritual," "Mystical," "Ontological," or "Epistemological" Realism? Chapter Six: Postcolonial Liminality and (Re)initiation into a Multispecies World: Moving betwixt and between Human and Other-than-Human Realms in Linda Hogan's Power and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony Chapter Seven: Post-Pastoral, Non-Indigenous Thought-Experiments with Totemic and Animistic Liminality Chapter Eight: Liminal Realism and Interspecies Thought-Experiments in Contemporary Fiction Part Three: Writing and Dwelling Ecopoetically Chapter Nine: Ecopoets and the Art of Anamorphosis Chapter Ten: Postmodern Shamanism: Making Headway Toward Other-than-Human Perspectives Chapter Eleven: Reweaving Word to World: Ecopoets as Instruments of the Sympoietic Song of the Earth Chapter Twelve: Restor(y)ing and Rewor(l)ding: Writing in a Grounded Middle Voice Chapter Thirteen: Translating the Song of the Earth: Reen-chanting Earthly Harmonies
