This issue considers the (textual) implications of dying worlds and dying words. The understanding of the Anthropocene as a geological epoch has highlighted humanity’s ineffable impact on the planet we inhabit, but simultaneously, the Anthropocene continually draws attention to humanity’s inability to act upon that understanding. The cultural apathy that arises in discussions about the planet and our future illustrates our inability to think and write about such matters. What happens when we find ourselves without the vocabulary to express the loss we experience around us? Is literature able to narrate such complex matters, or is the environmental crisis also an illustration of the limits of literature—or indeed, the death of literature?
The content of this issue will become Open Access in June 2025.
Main Articles
Vlinder Verouden & Anasuya Virmani | Foreword
Abstract
Sarah E. McFarland | “Nothing Before the Sea Was Real”: The Dying World of John Lanchester’s The Wall
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Sari Kivistö | Imagining Lost Literature—Some Preliminary Considerations on Literary Extinction
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Masterclass
Kelly van der Meulen | “Stadichoan Wurde Wy Ôfknypt“: The Erosion of Frisian Culture in Contemporary Flood Fiction
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Anne van Buuren | Lost for Words: Constructing Human-Nature Relations through Color in Nausiciaä of the Valley of the Wind
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Miscellaneous
Vlinder Verouden & Anasuya Virmani | Interview: Feeling Land Sick with Nikolaj Schultz
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