An Island in the Stream: Ecocritical and Literary Responses to Cuban Environmental Culture

An Island in the Stream, a collaboration between Cuban and American writers and scholars, is a diverse collection of ecocritical and literary responses to the natural environment in Cuba and to Cuban environmental culture. The chapters explore Cuba’s vibrant cultural history with particular attention to literature and the visual and performing arts, which are viewed through such lenses as ecofeminism, postcolonial ecocriticism, multiculturalism, and the nuclear imaginary, among others. American environmentalists have long viewed modern Cuba as a model of progressive environmental thinking. In the 1990s, the Cuban government made sustainability a centerpiece of national policy initiatives. This book explores some of the historical foundations of contemporary sustainability efforts in Cuba, while also describing the current environmental situation in that part of the world. From José Martí to Excilia Saldaña, from Antonio Nuñez Jiménez to Lydia Cabrera, the chapters here aim to provide a starting point for others who wish to learn about Cuban environmental thought. The conjunction of scholarly and creative work is a gesture toward the interdependence of humanities research and artistic expression, both of which seek to encourage environmental and cultural mindfulness and sensitivity.

Scott Slovic is University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Idaho, USA, where has been teaching since 2012-previously he was a professor at Texas State University and the University of Nevada, Reno. He served as founding president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) from 1992 to 1995, and since 1995 he has edited ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment for ASLE and Oxford University Press. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of twenty-seven books, including, most recently, The Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication (with Swarnalatha Rangarajan and Vidya Sarveswaran). His forthcoming books include Nature in Literary Studies (coedited with Peter Remien) for Cambridge University Press's Critical Concepts Series. He coedits Routledge Studies in World Literatures and the Environment with Swarnalatha Rangarajan and Routledge Environmental Humanities with Joni Adamson and Yuki Masami.

David Taylor was Director of Inspection at Olfsted. He is the author of Cicero and Rome (1996), and The Greek and Roman Stage (1999) also in the same Inside the Ancient World series.

George B. Handley is Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brigham Young University, USA. His previous publications include New World Poetics: Nature and the Academic Imagination of Whitman, Neruda, and Walcott (2007) and, as co-editor, Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment (2011).