205 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
M. Middeke, C. Reinfandt (eds.), Theory Matters,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-47428-5_15
CHAPTER 15
In the following, I would like to discuss some of the implications of the
new ecological paradigm in literary and cultural studies regarding the role,
importance, and current dynamics of cultural and literary theory. I will
frst of all briefy sketch the emergence of ecocriticism and some of its main
directions as a new transdisciplinary feld of literary and cultural studies;
then trace the relationship between ecological thought and critical the-
ory which has led to signifcant transformations in both felds; and fnally
delineate in somewhat more detail the assumptions and implications of
a cultural ecology of literature that I have proposed in my recent work
within the framework of this volume’s question of why and in which ways
literary theory matters today.
EMERGENCE AND DIRECTIONS OF ECOCRITICISM
As an academic movement, ecocriticism frst appeared on the scene of
literary and cultural studies in the later twentieth century as a rather mar-
ginal and regional phenomenon in a phase when poststructuralist, new
historicist, and discourse-analytical theories dominated the feld (cf. Buell;
Clark 2011; Westling 2013; Garrard). Meanwhile, it has become one of
Ecological Transformations of Critical
Theory
Hubert Zapf
H. Zapf ()
University of Augsburg, Germany