Wow! eBook
Plant Poetics: Literary Forms and Functions of the Vegetal
Author(s): Joela Jacobs (Editor), Isabel Kranz (Editor), Solvejg Nitzke (Editor)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: May 29, 2025
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 232 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004727817
- ISBN-13: 9789004727816
Book Description
Plant Poetics explores the forms and functions of the vegetal across a broad body of literature. From Homer to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and from Jamaica Kincaid to Esther Kinsky, the contributions to this volume trace plants in literary works from around the world. Based on nuanced theoretical and historical groundwork, these readings bring together interdisciplinary perspectives on literary and cultural plant studies. The volume shows how vegetal beings have impacted the ways humans think about narrative time, genre, and writing as a literary practice. Plant Poetics illustrates the capacity of plants to make (literary) worlds and shape their forms.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Joela Jacobs is Associate Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona and maintains the Literary and Cultural Plant Studies Network. She works in plant and animal studies, environmental humanities, Jewish studies, the history of sexuality and of science.
Isabel Kranz is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She is currently completing a monograph about plants as figures of knowledge from 1700 to 2000 and co-editing a handbook on cultural theory and the vegetal.
Solvejg Nitzke is Interim Professor for Comparative Literature at Ruhr-University Bochum. Her publications range from catastrophes and climate to village fiction. Her book Making Kin with Trees: A Cultural Poetics of Interspecies Care will appear in 2025.
