“Rooted in Earth”: Nature, Traditionalism, and Modernity in Joe Ushie’s A Reign of Locusts.

Autor: Kehinde, John Olorunshola, Egya, Sule Emmanuel
Zdroj: Human Ecology Review; 2024, Vol. 28 Issue 1, p55-69, 15p
Abstrakt: This study attempts to widen the scope of African ecocriticism and emphasize the roles of nonhuman life forms in literary representations of sustainable environments. Using Joe Ushie’s poetry collection, A Reign of Locusts, for a discourse situated within the African material ecocritical problematic, the study submits that some African poets valorize their birthplaces’ natures not only in recognition of the agency of their places, but also in deployment of traditionalism against the failures of modernity. That is, such African poets often shift from the romanticization of their indigenous ecologies to activism against the force that modernity exerts on the environment. While recognizing the enduring force of modernity, the poets, through their poetics of nature, suggest that the promotion of traditional ways of relating to the earth is one of the ways in which humans can ensure a sustainable environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Supplemental Index