Desert in Modern Literature and Philosophy: Wasteland Aesthetics

Aidan Tynan challenges ecocriticism and the environmental humanities by exploring the significance of deserts and wastelands in literature since the Romantics, highlighting their role in articulating anxieties over cultural significance in the Anthropocene. He examines the influence of Nietzsche's warning on Heidegger, Derrida, and Deleuze, and explores the desert as a terrain of desire in Western imagination.

Format: Hardback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 31 August 2020
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Aidan Tynan challenges traditional ecocritical and environmental humanities perspectives by highlighting the significance of deserts and wastelands in literature since the Romantics. He argues that the desert has been a powerful tool for expressing anxieties about the cultural significance of space in the Anthropocene. Tynan explores how Nietzsche's warning that the desert grows has been taken up by Heidegger, Derrida, and Deleuze in their critiques of modernity. He also examines how the desert has been a terrain of desire, inspiring the Western imagination of space and place in various literary works, ranging from T.S. Eliot to Don DeLillo, from imperial travel writing to postmodernism, and from the Old Testament to salvagepunk.

Weight: 526g
Dimension: 162 x 240 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474443357