Fictions of Ecoterror

Since the emergence of radical environmentalism, two major shifts in the cultural imaginary of the United States can be identified: shaped by 9/11 on the one hand, and the intensifying climate crisis on the other. Sarah Marak examines these shifts analyzing fictional representations in US-American literature and film from 1975 to 2023. Drawing on a range of texts from The Monkey Wrench Gang to How to Blow Up a Pipeline, she demonstrates how fictional portrayals of eco-activists oscillate between reaffirming dominant understandings of environmentalism as »ecoterrorism« and critically intervening in prevailing terrorism discourses that reassess radical activism.

Sarah Marak is a doctoral research in American studies at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.