Literature and Ecotheology

"“George Handley’s wise and generous book urges scientists and artists, political activists and Christians, ecocritics and ecotheologians, to recognize their mutual need, and he proposes imaginative literature as a locus where those who often find themselves at loggerheads might instead cultivate common ground. His perceptive argument exemplifies how personal convictions can inspire rigorous scholarship that illuminates fraught public discourse and helps us imagine ways of caring for damaged communities and places.” Jeffrey Bilbro, Associate Professor of English at Grove City College, USA “A thought-provoking book full of deep insights into the finite transcendence of the natural world. While ecological science today is predominately materialist in approach, Handley's “ecotheology” looks to literature to give voice to the stifled spiritual forces that underlie our environmental anxieties. It makes a lucid case for the pressing need to re-sacralize our relation to nature in its terrestrial as well as cosmic reaches.” Robert Pogue Harrison, author of Forests: The Shadow of Civilization ""George Handley calls for an end to culture wars that pit secular environmental scholars against ecotheology. The power of environmental literature evokes the transcendence of ecotheology, just as ecotheology needs the earthly grounding of ecocriticism. Both aspire to transform chaos and meaninglessness into hope and moral action. It is time ecocritics got religion!"" Lisa H. Sideris, Professor of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA"