This publication is the first and the only survey of methods of ecocritical analysis in art history. Their range gives a strong indication of the diversity of approaches that show ecocritical art history to be a vital new nexus for the discipline. The book also indicates clearly what the interdisciplinary project of ecocriticism stands to gain from art historians, by presenting the specific ways in which climate emergency is appraised and countered through methods and practices of art history.
The book brings together established scholars and new voices shaping this burgeoning field. Moving beyond subjects explicitly environmental in meaning or procedures, authors engage with the widest range of artefacts and objects drawn from across the globe, spanning chronologies from early medieval to contemporary. Each of the twenty-three chapters engages closely with case studies, but their approach is couched in explicit methodological terms. The spectrum of methodological approaches covered in this book includes ecofeminism, planetary ecologies, material ecocriticism, ecopolitics, and Indigenous ecopoetics.
The chapters are framed by a series of editorial introductions. Their aim is to provide orientation within a disciplinary territory that is still in a state of flux, yet already complex. Written in clear, jargon-free language, they are accompanied by thematically arranged bibliographies to facilitate further study. By empowering readers to approach the study of art enriched with ecocritical tools, this book makes an indispensable addition to art-historical pedagogies.