This presentation is a rapid overview of the current trajectory of literary studies as it further seeks to contextualize the text. Literary study in the 20th century situated itself in relation to the psyche and to social forces. The 21st century trajectory sees these relationships now being extended outward toward the natural world that predates and subtends both. While all of human discourse is dependent upon natural systems remaining viable, nevertheless "nature" is socially constructed. Our representations of nature have consequences -- to the extent that we now live in a postnatural environment of "risk" that threatens the very sustainability of major species, most notably that of homo sapiens.
Eco-criticism is one the most vital and dynamic areas of literary study today. I argue that it will have been destined to be so by two causes:
1. The logic of inclusive contextualization that drove the progress of literary study in the 20th century to engage with cultural texts and texts as discourses, enfolding psychoanalysis and social confl icts along the way. This trajectory of inclusive contextualization must inevitably encounter its environment.
2. The historic advent of our own threatened ecology on a now global scale: climate change, species extinctions, genetically engineered accidents, and the collapse of ocean ecosystems. Nature itself has become a social problem while civilization endangers its own niche.
Ecocritical literary theory and belle lettristic nature writing have a greater role to play in facing these challenges than many academics realize at this crucial moment.