Teaching Jesmyn Ward and William T. Vollmann in Finland: Genres of Environmental Justice

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Jesmyn Ward and William T. Vollmann, two U.S. authors whose works can be taught in such ways as to probe thematically and formally the material limits of environment and society. Krieg argues that, in the European classroom in particular, these authors offer opportunities to introduce environmental approaches to the study of U.S. literature and politics in a transnational context, since environmental justice has become an increasingly important framework for addressing overlapping social and ecological crises in the twenty-first century. By foregrounding the relationship between literary narrative and histories of environmental injustice, these authors allow teachers to showcase literary genre as a critical and cultural response to anthropogenic environmental crises under global capitalism.