La selva contada por los narradores : ecología política en novelas y cuentos hispanoamericanos de la selva (1905-2015)
The forest has been, and remains, a key theme in Hispanic American literature. This research examines images of the forest in the Hispanic American narrative of the last century, stressing the analysis of works of writing set in the Amazon rainforest, Latin America’s quintessential natural setting. What are the most common imaginaries of the rainforest in this narrative production? What impact has the global ecological crisis had on different ways of “narrating the forest”? What types of relationships between human societies and rainforest ecosystems are represented in this corpus? What environmental and ecological problems are thematized in the texts? What role do Indigenous peoples play in the stories? And what role do animals, plants, and other nonhuman entities play? Do these works give a voice to notions of “nature” and “culture” that are different from Western ones? Do they give a voice to needs and perspectives that are different from human ones? To answer these questions, my work delves into four key issues of canonical rainforest narratives: the cultural perceptions of a tropical rainforest setting, the relationships between Indigenous peoples and settlers, the development of a historical consciousness of images of nature, and the search for new forms of relating to the natural environment. Although the proposed methodology favors the tools of ecocriticism and political ecology, the work also draws on current developments in environmental philosophy, rainforest biogeography, and cultural anthropology. By means of such an interdisciplinary approach, my work seeks to create a suitable setting for dialogue between literary criticism and other areas of knowledge. Ultimately, I aim to use these chosen literary texts as a window to exploring the human condition’s environmental dimension, providing ideas and viewpoints that could contribute to building a distinct, symbiotic and not merely extractive relationship between human societies and natural ecosystems.
Rainforest imagery Twentieth Century Hispanic American narratives Green hell Virgin paradise Fragile rainforest Political ecology Ecocriticism