The field is ripe: Christian literary scholarship, postcolonial ecocriticism, and environmentalism

Abstract

Christian literary scholars and ecocritics have generally not engaged each other in sustained and productive conversation. This article therefore updates and extends Timothy J. Burbery’s 2012 call for a Christian ecocriticism by showing that ecocriticism’s recent postcolonial turn has opened new opportunities for Christian literary scholars. Ecocriticism’s heightened attention to ways that environmental problems threaten the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people provides an opportunity for Christians to become involved in both the scholarly project of ecocriticism and in the work of advancing global environmental justice. The author holds out hope that a rigorous Christian ecocriticism could pave the way for a potent new Christian environmentalism.