Document Type
Review
Abstract
[First paragraph]
In her introduction to The Ecocriticism Reader from 1995, a landmark in the short and dynamic development of this new field of knowledge, Cheryl Glotfelty anticipated that "Ecocriticism has been predominantly a white movement. It will become a multi-ethnic movement when stronger connections are made between the environment and issues of social justice, and when a diversity of voices are encouraged to contribute to the discussion" (Glotfelty 1996, xxv). The collection of essays reviewed here, published in 2003, fills this gap in ecocritical research. The nine contributors to Sylvia Mayer's edition have critically evaluated various aspects of African American literature and brought ecocritical theories and critique into dialogue with historical as well as contemporary texts. Although the essay collection has been published eight years after Glotfelty's visionary demand and, meanwhile, academic work has been done regarding African American and other multicultural concepts of literature, culture and the environment, Mayer's essay collection constitutes a longed-for furthering of this debate, especially in the European arena.
Repository Citation
Küchler, Uwe. "Review of Restoring the Connection to the Natural World: Essays on the African American Environmental Imagination." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 7, no. 2, 2007, pp. 1–7. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol7/iss2/20