welcome Reader's 🤗: Eco criticism

Introduction:-🧐

the environment from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature.It takes an interdisciplinary point of view by analyzing the works of authors, researchers and poets in the context of environmental issues and nature. Some ecocritics brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation, though not all ecocritics agree on the purpose, methodology, or scope of ecocriticism.

Session video:-🤨

The session on 'sitanshu yashaschandra's poem and 'Ecocriticism'by Devang Nanavati.

Environmental issues:-🙄

Environmental issues are harmful effects of human activity on the biophysical environment. Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the natural environment on the individual, organizational or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the environment and humans. Environmentalism, a social and environmental movement, addresses environmental issues through advocacy, education and activism.

Major current environmental issues may include climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource depletion. The conservation movement lobbies for protection of endangered species and protection of any ecologically valuable natural areas, genetically modified foods and global warming.

Scientific grounding

The level of understanding of Earth has increased markedly in recent times through science, especially with the application of the scientific method. Environmental science is now a multi-disciplinary academic study taught and researched at many universities. Many other scientific disciples, including ecology, toxicology, forest science, fisheries science, etc. are necessary for obtaining full scientific understanding. Credible, comprehensive, and readily accessible scientific knowledge is essential for addressing environmental issues.

Large amounts of data have been gathered and these are collated into reports, of which a common type is the State of the Environment publications. A recent major report was the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, with input from 1200 scientists and released in 2005, which showed the high level of impact that humans are having on ecosystem services.

Deforestation:-😤

Deforestation, clearance, clearcutting is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land which is then converted to a non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests.Between 15 - 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Belgium are destroyed every year, on average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute.

The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in habitat damage, biodiversity loss, and aridity. Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations, as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. Deforestation also has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing negative feedback cycles contributing to global warming. Global warming also puts increased pressure on communities who seek food security by clearing forests for agricultural use and reducing arable land more generally. Deforested regions typically incur significant other environmental effects such as adverse soil erosion and degradation into wasteland. According to a study published in Nature Scientific Reports if deforestation continue in current rate in the next 20 – 40 years, it can trigger a full or almost full extinction of humanity. To avoid it humanity should pass from a civilization dominated by the economy to "cultural society" that "privileges the interest of the ecosystem above the individual interest of its components, but eventually in accordance with the overall communal interest"

Chipko andolan:-😳

The Chipko movement or Chipko Andolan, was a forest conservation movement in India. It began in 1973 in Uttarakhand, then a part of Uttar Pradesh (at the foothills of Himalayas) and went on to become a rallying point for many future environmental movements all over the world. It created a precedent for starting nonviolent protest in India.,However, it was Sunderlal Bahuguna, a Gandhian activist, who gave the movement a proper direction and its success meant that the world immediately took notice of this non-violent movement, which was to inspire in time many similar eco-groups by helping to slow down the rapid deforestation, expose vested interests, increase social awareness and the need to save trees, increase ecological awareness, and demonstrate the viability of people power.

He used the slogan , "Ecology is the permanent economy."Above all, it stirred up the existing civil society in India, which began to address the issues of tribal and marginalized people. And it's true that the support for the movement came mainly from the womenfolk.

The Chipko Andolan or the Chipko movement is a movement that practiced methods of Satyagraha where both male and female activity cests from Uttarakhand played vital roles, including Gaura Devi, Suraksha Devi, Sudesha Devi, Bachni Devi and Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Virushka Devi and others. Today, beyond the eco-socialism hue, it is being seen increasingly as an ecofeminism movement. Although many of its leaders were men, women were not only its backbone, but also its mainstay, because they were the ones most affected by the rampant deforestation, which led to a lack of firewood and fodder as well as water for drinking and irrigation. Over the years they also became primary stakeholders in a majority of the afforestation work that happened under the Chipko movement.

In 1987, the Chipko movement was awarded the Right Livelihood Award "for its dedication to the conservation, restoration and ecologically-sound use of India's natural resources."

Sitanshu yashaschandra :-🤔

Sitanshu Yashaschandra Mehta (born 1941), better known as Sitanshu Yashaschandra, is a Gujarati language poet, playwright, translator and academic from India.

He wrote mainly in Gujarati but his works are translated into Hindi and other languages. He has translated some works of poetry, drama and criticism from English to Gujarati. Surrealism is considered as his signature style.

Odysseus nu Halesu (1974), Jatayu (1986) and Vakhar (2008) are his collections of poetry. Mohen-jo-dado is a collection of poems published in August 1970 in Sanskriti magazine and later released on audio cassette in 1978.

He has written and adapted several plays. He adapted Eugène Ionesco's The Lesson in Gujarati. He also adapted Thomas Hardy's story, Day After The Fair as a play, Vaishakhi Koyal in Gujarati. He also adapted Peter Shaffer's Equus as Tokhar in Gujarati. It was produced by Pravin Joshi, Shafi Inamdar, and Mahendra Joshi. All three adaptations were successful literary and commercially.His Aa Manas Madrasi Lage Chhe (This Man Looks Madrasi, 1978) was directed by Satyadev Dube. Kem Makanji, Kya Chalya? (Hello Makanji, Where Are You Going?, 1985) appeared as a radio play was directed by Nimesh Desai of Chorus. Grahan (Eclipse, 1989), directed by P. S. Chari, was inspired from Oedipus.

In 1999, his six plays, all performed on stage, were published, which included Chhabili Ramati Chhanumanu, Kem Makanji, Kya Chalya?, Lady Lalkunwar, Aa Manas Madrasi Lage Chhe, Tokhar and Khagras. Lady Lalkunvar (1999) is a Gujarati adaptation of Eduardo De Filippo's play, Filumena Marturano. Ashvatthama and Grahan are his unpublished works. Jagine Joyu To is his another work. He has edited Natya-Kesuda.

Simankan ane Simollanghan (1977), Ramaniyata no Vagvikalpa (1979) and Asyaha Sarga Vidhau (2002) are his works of criticism, theory of literature and literary historiography.

He had written a screenplay of 1993 Hindi film Maya Memsaab, which was based on Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

Eco criticism:-😱

In comparison with other 'political' forms of criticism, there has been relatively little dispute about the moral and philosophical aims of ecocriticism, although its scope has broadened from nature writing, romantic poetry, and canonical literature to take in film, television, theatre, animal stories, architectures, scientific narratives and an extraordinary range of literary texts. At the same time, ecocriticism has borrowed methodologies and theoretically informed approaches liberally from other fields of literary, social and scientific study.

In response to the question of what ecocriticism is or should be, Camilo Gomides has offered an operational definition that is both broad and discriminating: "The field of enquiry that analyzes and promotes works of art which raise moral questions about human interactions with nature, while also motivating audiences to live within a limit that will be binding over generations".He tests it for a film adaptation about Amazonian deforestation. Implementing the Gomides definition, Joseph Henry Vogel makes the case that ecocriticism constitutes an "economic school of thought" as it engages audiences to debate issues of resource allocation that have no technical solution.

Ashton Nichols has recently argued that the historical dangers of a romantic version of nature now need to be replaced by "urbanatural roosting", a view that sees urban life and the natural world as closely linked and argues for humans to live more lightly on the planet, the way virtually all other species do.

Salient feature of eco criticism:-😲

Ecological criticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the environment. This field of study was established in the United States in the 1960s. It was initially titled environmental literary criticism, ecopoetics, and green cultural studies. As opposed to its contemporaneous critical approaches, ecocriticism adopts an earth-centric approach and raises new questions. It studies the impact of physiological conditions on the literary process and adopts a color of resistance by raising questions on the causes of climate change. This essay attempts to explain the background of ecocriticism and sheds light on its origins and evolution. It further elaborates on the methodology of ecocriticism by differentiating it from contemporaneous critical approaches.