Trees in Literatures and the Arts

Embracing the intersectional methodological outlook of the environmental humanities, the contributors to this edited collection explore the entanglements of cultures, ecologies, and socio-ethical issues in the roles of trees and their relationships with humans through narratives in literature and art.

Carmen Concilio is associate professor at the University of Turin. Daniela Fargione is assistant professor at the University of Turin.

Part I Human-Tree Kinship Chapter 1: On Becoming-Tree. An Alter-native, Arbo-real Line of Flight in World Literatures in English Chapter 2: Pacific Perspectives of the Anthropocene: Trees and Human Relationships Chapter 3: Becoming-botanic: Vegetal Forms of Mourning in Deborah Levy's Swimming Home and Han Kang's The Vegetarian Chapter 4: Russian Bodies, Russian Trees: Examples of Interconnections between the Tree of the Motherland and the Soviet People Part II Spiritual Trees Chapter 5:Trees as the Masters of Monks. Some Observations on the Role of Trees in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers Chapter 6: The Ash-Tree as 'Unwobbling Pivot' in Pound's Early and Late Poetry Chapter 7: Seamus Heaney's Arboreal Poetry Chapter 8: Between Ecology and Ritual. Images of New Zealand Trees in Grace, Finlayson, Hilliard and Sargeson Chapter 9: The Tree that Therefore I Am. Humans, Trees and Gods in Cosimo Terlizzi's Cinema Part III Trees in/and Literatures Chapter 10: Flora J. Cooke's Tree Stories: Progressive Education and Nature in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century United States Chapter 11: Talking Trees in Amazonian "Novels of the Jungle" Chapter 12: Gardens of Hell, Trees of Death: For a Poetics of Urban Nature in the Lyrics of George Bacovia Chapter 13: The Poetization of the Exotic in Early 20th Century Russian Literature: Nikolaj Gumilëv's Palm Tree Part IV Trees in the Arts Chapter 14: Mother Sequoia. Awaiting an Imperceptible Enlightenment Among Millennial Trees Chapter 15: Performing with Spruce Stumps and Old Tjikko. On the Individuality of Trees Chapter 16: Tuning and Being Tuned by a Patch of Boreal Forest: Works from the Boreal Poetry Garden, Newfoundland, Canada Part V Trees and Time Chapter 17: Tree Photography, Arboreal Timescapes and the Archive in Richard Powers's The Overstory Chapter 18: Family Trees: Mnemonics, Genealogy, Identity and Cultural Memory