Article detail · 2012
Theorizing Material Ecocriticism A Diptych
Journal
Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and EnvironmentISSN 1076-0962
The ISSN points to another catalog journal; the name is from the YÖKSİS record.
- Year
- 2012
- Type
- article
Data source split
- YÖKSİS YÖKSİS article record
- YÖKSİS venue Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
- Catalog match (ISSN) ISLE Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
- OpenAlex OpenAlex enrichment (abstract, citations, topics)
Abstract
OpenAlex · English
What is a diptych? A diptych is a painting on two panels, or an ancient writing tablet made of two hinged leaves. In both cases, it is a material object—possibly consisting of wood or canvas, and covered with pigments or wax—which discloses and articulates a “discursive” message. Whether an artwork on an altar, or a tablet in the hands of a scribe, the diptych exceeds its “merely” material dimension, and creates a double bridge of meanings between the “text” it conveys and the world in which it occurs. In view of the increasing attention ecocritics are paying to the many ways material realities are enmeshed with meanings and narratives, our “diptych” provides an articulated vision about the key concepts of what can be called a “material ecocriticism.” Interlacing reflections on oceanic plastic, trash, subatomic particles, toxic bodies, semiotic emergences, and discursive practices, we propose to approach this interpretive model from two converging angles: that of the new materialist theories and of ecological postmodernism. Though independent from one another, our two panels form a conversation. Moving from different standpoints and experiences, they tell a conceptual story about a newly explored territory: one where material realities merge into discursive dynamics tracing the signs of new configurations much like two hinged panels or an opening book—the one that is now in your hands.
Topics
Citations
OpenAlex cited_by_count. Not a WoS or Scopus citation count; those sources have no separate column here.
218 citations
OpenAlex cited_by_count (cache / database)
9 publications in the local catalog that cite this work (OpenAlex reference match; not the full global list).
- Nature’s narrative agencies as compound individuals 2017
- Ecophobia as Artistic Entertainment 2019
- Spread the word: mattertext as bio-art 2022
- Spinning toxic yarns of matter: material environments and marginalized toxic bodies in Latife Tekin's Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills and John Burnside's Glister 2020
- Yeni Çöp Etiko-Onto-Epistemolojileri 2026
- Tides of Transformation: Storied Waters and Material Narrativity in Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide 2025
- Before the ‘New’: Reclaiming Indigenous Relational Ontologies through Linda Hogan’s Memoir The Woman Who Watches Over the World 2025
- The Entanglement of the Human and Place as a “Storied Matter” in the Womb: Ian McEwan’s Nutshell 2024
- Lethal Narratives and the Breakdown of Human/Nonhuman Spheres: What Viruses Tell and What We Imagine 2021