The ISLE Reader

Book excerpt: This volume gathers nineteen of the most representative and defining essays from the journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment over the course of its first ten years. Following an introduction that traces the stages of ecocriticism's development, The ISLE Reader is organized into three sections, each of which reflects one of the general goals the journal has sought to accomplish. The section titled "Re-evaluations" provides new readings of familiar environmental writers and new environmental perspectives on authors or literary traditions not usually considered from a green perspective. The writings in "Reaching Out to Other Disciplines" promote cross-pollination among various disciplines and methodologies in the environmental arts and humanities. The writings in the final section, "New Theoretical and Practical Paradigms," are especially significant for the conceptual and methodological terrain they map. The ISLE Reader documents the state of research in ecocriticism and related interdisciplinary fields, provides a survey of the field, and points to new methodologies and possibilities for the future.