Ecocritics and Ecoskeptics: A Humanist Reading of Recent French Ecofiction [Paperback]

Ecocritics and Ecoskeptics examines environmental themes and questions about the evolving relationship between humans and animals in nine modern and contemporary French novels. Considering arguments from both environmentalists and ecoskeptics, it concludes that, far from distancing itself from humanism as it often has, environmentalism must embrace an inclusive and ecological humanism.In France, the fundamental intellectual debate over ecology might best be summarized by the contrasting views of Michel Serres and Luc Ferry. In The Natural Contract, Serres calls for an end to humans' war on nature: Our world view must turn from anthropocentric to ecocentric, and our relationship to the earth must become symbiotic instead of parasitic. Luc Ferry's response to Serres in The New Ecological Order ridicules the metaphor of a natural contract, by which humans (and humanism) would no longer reign over the earth. Ferry accuses Serres and other ecological thinkers of being premodern and prehumanistic ; valuing nonhuman life as much as human life evokes the ridiculous trials of five centuries ago when beetles and rats were threatened with excommunication if they did not cease their antihuman activities.

After analyzing the Serres-Ferry debate, Ecocritics and Ecoskeptics examines environmental themes in novels by Michel Tournier, St?phane Audeguy, and Chantal Chawaf. It then considers the complex and evolving relationship between humans and animals as expressed in novels by Vercors and Olivia Rosenthal, and in philosophical works by Jacques Derrida, ?lisabeth de Fontenay, and Peter Singer, among others. Two novels each by the humanist J.-C. Rufin and the humorist Iegor Gran provide a dose of healthy skepticism. Rufin's stories reveal the potential dark side of extreme environmentalism - authoritarianism and terrorism - while Gran's hilarious satires critique some environmentalists' piousness, opportunism, humorlessness, and antihumanism. The book concludes that envirolCÛ