I just finished my 69th book of 2020. When I talk to people about reading, they often tell me that they’d love to read more, but that it just doesn’t happen. You might not have a desire to read (more). But you might crave some time for yourself. Some quiet time. Time intentionally set aside for yourself. To recharge. Continue reading “How to create a reading habit (or any other intentional habit)”
Author Archives: Astrid Bracke
New article: Flooded Futures
In this article I set out the genre of “flood fictions”, novels that use floods to depict climate crisis. I explore a few twenty-first-century British novels (Megan Hunter’s The End We Start From, Clare Morrall’s When the Floods Came, and Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army) in which floods are literal and figurative consequences of climate crisis.Continue reading “New article: Flooded Futures”
Public lecture: Climate Fiction
On November 3rd I was delighted to give the opening talk at Cli-Fi 2018, a Dutch festival on climate and literature, aimed specifically at young people. In my talk, I discussed climate fiction as a genre, how humans have always written about climate, and how the genre has recently become popular. I focused in particularContinue reading “Public lecture: Climate Fiction”
New publication: Ecocriticism and Jim Crace’s Early Novels
At the end of October, Jim Crace: Into the Wilderness, edited by Katy Shaw and Kate Aughterson, was published by Palgrave. It’s the first book focusing solely on Jim Crace’s novels, placing them in a broader context of philosophical, political and cultural debates. It includes essays on pastoral, gender and religion, and focuses on Crace’sContinue reading “New publication: Ecocriticism and Jim Crace’s Early Novels”
New publication: Graham Swift’s Waterland, Ecocriticism and Narratology
This month my article on Graham Swift’s Waterland appeared in Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. I’d been working on this article for a while, and benefited from the comments of an excellent peer reviewer, so I’m particularly pleased to see it published. A link to the free version of the article on the OxfordContinue reading “New publication: Graham Swift’s Waterland, Ecocriticism and Narratology”
The End We Start From and the genre of flood fiction
Megan Hunter’s 2017 novel The End We Start From starts with an unnamed narrator giving birth to her child while around her London floods. This novel is one of the flood fictions that I explore as part of my new research project. In June 2018, I gave a paper on The End We Start FromContinue reading “The End We Start From and the genre of flood fiction”
Disrupted narratives: Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army as climate crisis flood novel
In May 2018 I attended an international symposium on the work of Sarah Hall in Leuven. The paper I presented is part of my new project on flood fictions. As I wrote before, by flood fictions I refer to twenty-first-century works in which flood is imagined as one of the key effects of climate crisis.Continue reading “Disrupted narratives: Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army as climate crisis flood novel”
Starting a new project: Future Floods, Flooded Futures
My new project is on what I call “flood fictions”, novels that use floods as a literal consequence of climate crisis, but also as a symbolic image for life in the Anthropocene: unpredictable, overwhelming and quite literally engulfing. Floods become synecdoches for climate crisis as a whole, bringing the large scale developments leading to andContinue reading “Starting a new project: Future Floods, Flooded Futures”
Currently: research (Jan & Feb 2018)
January January was a good month, research-wise: I had a lot of things planned, but I was able to do some of that in December, and had a lot of energy to work on the other projects in January. What I worked on: Submitted an article on Ian McEwan and ecology – IContinue reading “Currently: research (Jan & Feb 2018)”
Looking back: teaching semester 1
This academic year I’m trying take more time to really reflect on my courses. I decided to delve a little deeper into the two Master’s courses I taught in semester 1. I’m using both my own observations as well as student evaluations (though I know full well how problematic these evaluations often are). I hadContinue reading “Looking back: teaching semester 1”