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This is the first study to examine the intersections of Indigenous scholarship, theories of New Materialism and Native American fiction regarding the Anthropocene future. The book discusses selected speculative fiction novels by North American Indigenous female writers such as Zainab Amadahy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Cherie Dimaline and Louise Erdrich. They offer a distinctive contribution to the emerging trend in Native American literature called Indigenous futurisms. The writers challenge established paradigms of science fiction genre by presenting alternative worlds where Indigenous people are heroes and Native knowledge means power. The book discusses how academic theory and selected Indigenous speculative fiction address the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-than-human world.

This book indicates that postmodern literature might reveal much in common with radical environmental movements. It also offers discussions for how an ecological postmodern literary theory can provide significant contributions to the paradigm shift in social and individual dimensions before the extant environmental crisis turns into a deeper turmoil. In this context, concerning ecological images and environmental discussions they provide, A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters by Julian Barnes, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and The Collector by John Fowles are analyzed through the lens of such radical ecological movements like deep ecology, social ecology and ecofeminism.

Hispanic Ecocriticism finds a rich soil in the main topics of environmental concern in the literature of Latin America and Spain, not only as a source for renewing critical analysis and hermeneutics, but also for the benefit of global environmental awareness. In a renewed exchange of transatlantic relationships, Hispanic Ecocriticism intermingles Latin American ecocritical issues of interest — the oil industry; contamination of forests and rivers; urban ecologies; African, Andean, and Amazonian biocultural ecosystems — with those of interest in Spain — animal rights and the ecological footprints of human activity in contemporary narratives of eco-science fiction, in dystopias, and in literature inspired by natural or rural landscapes that conceal ways of life and cultures in peril of extinction.

Auf Basis des Ecocriticism analysiert der Band literarische Repräsentationen des Umweltwandels im 20./21. Jahrhundert. Im Zentrum stehen die engen Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Mensch und Umwelt sowie die Frage nach ästhetischen Möglichkeiten einer nicht-anthropozentrischen Darstellung von Natur. Die Beiträge nehmen die Auseinandersetzung mit gegenwärtigen Krisenphänomenen im Wechselspiel von Ökologie, Ökonomie und Gesellschaft in den Blick und betten die in den literarischen Texten artikulierten Phänomene ökologischen Wandels in ästhetische, historische und philosophische Kontexte ein. Wie hängen Risikobewusstsein und Handlungsoptionen zusammen? Was sind die Gründe der menschlichen Ignoranz von Umweltzerstörung? Welche Antworten auf die ökologische Krise können literarische Texte bieten?