Madness in the Woods: Representations of the Ecological Uncanny

The eco-psychopathologies presented in these essays range from medieval literature to contemporary film. The romantic or gothic trope of getting lost in the forest, but also its recreational function (forest-bathing) reflect mental states humans develop when they step into the woodland.

Since storytelling began, narratives of getting lost in the woods or of choosing to live in the heterotopian space of the woods have remained popular and are, at the time of writing, experiencing a new revival. The theory of ecopsychology supplies a productive paradigm for understanding mental well-being in a cultural landscape suffused with reimaginings of nature as 'unspoiled wilderness'. The eco-psychopathologies presented in the essays in this volume range in origin from medieval literature to contemporary films and online games. The classic romantic or gothic trope of getting lost in the forest, but also its recreational function (forest-bathing) reflect mental states humans develop when they step into the culturally constructed entity of the woodland. These ecocritical analyses present different facets of such encounters.

Autorentext

Tina Karen Pusse, Dr phil (University of Cologne 2004), is a Lecturer of German Literature at NUI Galway, and Associate Director of the Moore Institute. She has published in the areas of environmental humanities, gender studies, modern German poetry, autobiography, theory of laughter. Heike Schwarz, Dr phil, studied American studies, politics and philosophy. She completed her Ph.D on the representation of psychiatric diagnoses at the University of Augsburg. She publishes in the fields of psychiatry and fiction, film studies, environmental humanities, ecopsychology, medical humanities, dementia and disability studies. Rebecca Downes, PhD (NUI Galway 2017), works as an editor and independent scholar. Her dissertation on Mortality in late works by John Banville, Philip Roth and J. M. Coetzee was funded by the Irish Research Council. She has published on death in contemporary fiction, John Banville and Philip Roth.

Inhalt
Introduction ............................................................................................................. 9 Section 1 Literature Feargal Ó Béarra The Arboreal in Buile Shuibhne ............................................................................ 25 Nick Kankahainen A Voice! A Voice!: The Foucauldian Silence of Mr Kurtz .............................. 41 Elena Campero A Burst of Magic in the Shadows: The Woods' in Marosa di Giorgio's Poetry .................................................................................................. 59 Maureen O'Connor Extremely Nervous on This Earth: Fairy Tales and Madness in Edna O'Brien's in the Forest ............................................................................................. 75 Jennifer Coralie Kindling Gatherers and Lost Children: The Peopled Forests of Kerstin Ekman ...................................................................................................................... 91 Helen R. Andretta Scenes of Mad Pursuits in Allegories by Hawthorne and O'Connor ............ 105 June-Ann Greeley To Wander in the Shadowed Land: The Fearsome Enchantment of Tolkien's Woods ...................................................................................................... 119 Section 2 Visual Media Pat Brereton Eco-Sustainability, Nature, Gender and Trees: A Case Study of Avatar, How Harry Became a Tree, and The Tree of Life .................................................. 145Brenda S. Gardenour Walter At the Mercy of the Maddening Mother: Gothic and Medieval Constructions of the Haunted Forest in Modern Horror Films ...................... 165 Emmanuelle Patrice Eerie Encounters: The Bewitchery of the Dryads in the Film The Woods ...... 181 Michael Fuchs When the Forest Is Not Quite What It Seems to Be: The Simulacral Spaces of Nature in The Cabin in the Woods .................................................... 199 Fernando Pagnoni Berns The Woods Are for the Poor (and Also for Monstrous Beings): Forests as Liminal Spaces in Spanish Films ..................................................................... 219 Melissa Bianchi Lost in the Woods: Procedurality and the Uncanny in The Legend of Zelda Series ............................................................................................................. 233