| dc.description.abstract | My dissertation project takes an ecocritical approach towards literature in the francophone world by exploring the French colonial underpinnings of environmental perceptions and policies. While the ecocriticism approach in literature has been particularly exploited in North America, it has recently made its appearance in the francophone world. I am interested in exploring how vast spaces, like the Pacific Ocean and its islands as well as the Amazonian jungle, have been depicted in French literature. For example, I explore how the breadfruit tree plays a crucial role in the mutiny of the Bounty in the works of Jules Verne or the way that the jaguar figure and other representations from a fantastical bestiary in the adventure novels of Louis-Henri Boussenard serve to complete French heroism.
The first part of the project undertakes a comparative study of French Guyana and Polynesia and show how literary depictions contributed to the Othering of the Tropics as either a paradise or l'enfer vert in the Western collective consciousness. The second part centers on contemporary indigenous voices in these regions and their tactical, even radical, refashioning of the imposed ecological outlook of the French colonial gaze. The interdisciplinary nature of my research draws from an array of perspectives, from literary and historical to anthropological and socio-economic, to shed light on the cultural dimensions of environmental representations and prevailing biases. | |
