Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment, series edited by Ursula Heise Imagery of landscape an... more Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment, series edited by Ursula Heise Imagery of landscape and nature in art and literature have dramatically shaped the ways that Brazil is perceived by outsiders, as well as the ways that national identity and the territorial and environmental imaginary among Brazilians have formed and evolved over the past centuries. This book examines nature and landscape in work by contemporary artists and poets in Brazil. Bridging Brazilian cultural studies and environmental humanities, McNee's approach reveals a fascinating range of artistic responses to environmental change and vulnerability, from efforts to connect art with activism to more conceptually oriented efforts to interrogate our ideas and perceptions of nature and the environment.
Introduction to Special Issue of the Journal of Lusophone Studies, co-edited and introduced with ... more Introduction to Special Issue of the Journal of Lusophone Studies, co-edited and introduced with Ana Paula Ferreira
Literature Beyond the Human: Post Anthropocentric Brazil, 2023
By way of the title for his critical guide to Anglo-American nature poetry, John Felstiner poses ... more By way of the title for his critical guide to Anglo-American nature poetry, John Felstiner poses the question, "Can poetry save the Earth?," making a case for the urgency of poetic expression in response to the everescalating ecological precarity and loss of our times. He makes an inspired case for the afective, attentively reverential force of nature poetry as a vital resource to be drawn upon in building and sustaining conservation eforts-the logic being, in a sense, that we can only save what we love. Still, revealing his own skepticism as to the true efectiveness of that afective force, Felstiner admits in his introduction that "poetry and policy make an awkward half-rhyme at best," rearticulating his question in terms much less favorable to an afrmative assessment of the role of environmentally engaged poetry: Realistically, what can poetry say, much less do, about global warming, seas rising, species endangered, water and air polluted, wilderness road-ridden, rainforests razed, along with strip mining and mountaintop removal, clearcutting, overfshing, overeating, overconsumption, overdevelopment, overpopulation, and so on and on? Well, next to nothing. (7) The ambivalence in Felstiner's response to the question is understandable given the limited, or limiting, framework within which it is posed. Though published just a decade ago, his refections largely predate the intensifed discussions and substantial institutional consolidation around Environmental Humanities as a transdisciplinarity increasingly distinct from and even in productive tension with the traditionally confgured, science and policy-oriented interdisciplinarity of Environmental Studies and environmentalism. If, for the latter, poetry, among other arts, might be recognized as having an important if marginal presence-afective, inspirational, decorative-for the Environmental Humanities, it might be
“Poesia, cosmopolítica e a tradução das artes verbais indígenas no Brasil.” As Línguas da Traduçã... more “Poesia, cosmopolítica e a tradução das artes verbais indígenas no Brasil.” As Línguas da Tradução, Dirce Waltrick do Amarante, Andreia Guerini, and Marília Librandi-Rocha, eds. (Florianópolis: Cultura e Barbárie, 2022): 79-101.
Review of Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature... more Review of Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature by AARTI SMITH MADAN.
The works of Sérgio Medeiros are populated by a multitude of beings of diverse and often shifting... more The works of Sérgio Medeiros are populated by a multitude of beings of diverse and often shifting orders and species. Drawing upon intersecting conceptual orientations of animal and multispecies studies, posthumanism, and ecocriticism, I survey a range of interspecies encounters and worldings in Medeiros's writing, especially his collection of poems, O choro da aranha, etc. (2013). As Medeiros pointedly draws inspiration from diverse aesthetic and philosophical traditions—from Amerindian cosmogonies and verbal arts to Japanese Zen poetry and various strains of modernist avant-gardism—I trace here as a unifying feature his engagement with animist imaginings and a post-or anti-anthropocentric unsettling of human/non-human binaries and boundaries. Keywords: Brazilian poetry; indigeneity; literature and the environment; multispecies studies; Eduardo Viveiros de Castro The non-human other has of course been a feature of and inspiration for human metaphysical speculation, ethical/ontological inquiry, and aesthetic practice since time immemorial, and there are certainly clear continuities and modulations to be traced between the present, in this regard, and periods and practices of any variety of remoteness. There is now, however, a distinctly intensifying and palpable sense of urgency to the interrogation and exploration of real and conceptual/ontological relations between human and other-than
A poesia na era da internacionalização dos saberes: a produção, a crítica, a tradução e o ensino da poesia no contexto contemporâneo, Charles Perrone, Maria Lúcia Outeiro Fernandes, and Paulo César Andrade da Silva, eds, 2016
This essay proposes a reading of the poetry of Manoel de Barros oriented by deconstructive turns ... more This essay proposes a reading of the poetry of Manoel de Barros oriented by deconstructive turns in contemporary ecocritical theory and debates on the meanings of eco-poetry as a critical designation. I consider the tension between place-based referentiality and abstract spaciousness in Barros' work as well as the resonance between its microcosmic scenes of abjection, decay and transfiguration and ecocritic Timothy Morton's notion of the intersubjective mesh as the fundamental basis of ecological thinking. While an aura of conservation politics and place-making referentiality can certainly be intuited in Barros' poetic figurations of Pantanal landscapes, flora, and fauna, I argue that the force of meaning of his ambient poetics is most substantially to be found in their sustained imagining of intersubjectivity and its unsettling ontological and ethical effects.
Este ensaio procura pensar a relação entre o discurso luso-tropicalista e o discurso da lusofonia... more Este ensaio procura pensar a relação entre o discurso luso-tropicalista e o discurso da lusofonia. Depois de traçar algumas das posições e polêmicas associadas com a articulação contemporânea da lusofonia, desenvolve-se uma leitura ampla da obra do escritor angolano, José Eduardo Agualusa, um dos principais protagonistas de uma confi guração literária da lusofonia. A relação entre sua obra e elementos do discurso luso-tropical, proponho, pode ser entendida como uma de ambivalência pós-colonial, isto é, de apropriação, re-escrita, ou escrita do "texto" luso-tropical que indelevelmente a precede.
review of "Gilberto Freyre: Social Theory in the Tropics" published in "A Contracorriente" (Winte... more review of "Gilberto Freyre: Social Theory in the Tropics" published in "A Contracorriente" (Winter 2009)
Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment, series edited by Ursula Heise Imagery of landscape an... more Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment, series edited by Ursula Heise Imagery of landscape and nature in art and literature have dramatically shaped the ways that Brazil is perceived by outsiders, as well as the ways that national identity and the territorial and environmental imaginary among Brazilians have formed and evolved over the past centuries. This book examines nature and landscape in work by contemporary artists and poets in Brazil. Bridging Brazilian cultural studies and environmental humanities, McNee's approach reveals a fascinating range of artistic responses to environmental change and vulnerability, from efforts to connect art with activism to more conceptually oriented efforts to interrogate our ideas and perceptions of nature and the environment.
Introduction to Special Issue of the Journal of Lusophone Studies, co-edited and introduced with ... more Introduction to Special Issue of the Journal of Lusophone Studies, co-edited and introduced with Ana Paula Ferreira
Literature Beyond the Human: Post Anthropocentric Brazil, 2023
By way of the title for his critical guide to Anglo-American nature poetry, John Felstiner poses ... more By way of the title for his critical guide to Anglo-American nature poetry, John Felstiner poses the question, "Can poetry save the Earth?," making a case for the urgency of poetic expression in response to the everescalating ecological precarity and loss of our times. He makes an inspired case for the afective, attentively reverential force of nature poetry as a vital resource to be drawn upon in building and sustaining conservation eforts-the logic being, in a sense, that we can only save what we love. Still, revealing his own skepticism as to the true efectiveness of that afective force, Felstiner admits in his introduction that "poetry and policy make an awkward half-rhyme at best," rearticulating his question in terms much less favorable to an afrmative assessment of the role of environmentally engaged poetry: Realistically, what can poetry say, much less do, about global warming, seas rising, species endangered, water and air polluted, wilderness road-ridden, rainforests razed, along with strip mining and mountaintop removal, clearcutting, overfshing, overeating, overconsumption, overdevelopment, overpopulation, and so on and on? Well, next to nothing. (7) The ambivalence in Felstiner's response to the question is understandable given the limited, or limiting, framework within which it is posed. Though published just a decade ago, his refections largely predate the intensifed discussions and substantial institutional consolidation around Environmental Humanities as a transdisciplinarity increasingly distinct from and even in productive tension with the traditionally confgured, science and policy-oriented interdisciplinarity of Environmental Studies and environmentalism. If, for the latter, poetry, among other arts, might be recognized as having an important if marginal presence-afective, inspirational, decorative-for the Environmental Humanities, it might be
“Poesia, cosmopolítica e a tradução das artes verbais indígenas no Brasil.” As Línguas da Traduçã... more “Poesia, cosmopolítica e a tradução das artes verbais indígenas no Brasil.” As Línguas da Tradução, Dirce Waltrick do Amarante, Andreia Guerini, and Marília Librandi-Rocha, eds. (Florianópolis: Cultura e Barbárie, 2022): 79-101.
Review of Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature... more Review of Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature by AARTI SMITH MADAN.
The works of Sérgio Medeiros are populated by a multitude of beings of diverse and often shifting... more The works of Sérgio Medeiros are populated by a multitude of beings of diverse and often shifting orders and species. Drawing upon intersecting conceptual orientations of animal and multispecies studies, posthumanism, and ecocriticism, I survey a range of interspecies encounters and worldings in Medeiros's writing, especially his collection of poems, O choro da aranha, etc. (2013). As Medeiros pointedly draws inspiration from diverse aesthetic and philosophical traditions—from Amerindian cosmogonies and verbal arts to Japanese Zen poetry and various strains of modernist avant-gardism—I trace here as a unifying feature his engagement with animist imaginings and a post-or anti-anthropocentric unsettling of human/non-human binaries and boundaries. Keywords: Brazilian poetry; indigeneity; literature and the environment; multispecies studies; Eduardo Viveiros de Castro The non-human other has of course been a feature of and inspiration for human metaphysical speculation, ethical/ontological inquiry, and aesthetic practice since time immemorial, and there are certainly clear continuities and modulations to be traced between the present, in this regard, and periods and practices of any variety of remoteness. There is now, however, a distinctly intensifying and palpable sense of urgency to the interrogation and exploration of real and conceptual/ontological relations between human and other-than
A poesia na era da internacionalização dos saberes: a produção, a crítica, a tradução e o ensino da poesia no contexto contemporâneo, Charles Perrone, Maria Lúcia Outeiro Fernandes, and Paulo César Andrade da Silva, eds, 2016
This essay proposes a reading of the poetry of Manoel de Barros oriented by deconstructive turns ... more This essay proposes a reading of the poetry of Manoel de Barros oriented by deconstructive turns in contemporary ecocritical theory and debates on the meanings of eco-poetry as a critical designation. I consider the tension between place-based referentiality and abstract spaciousness in Barros' work as well as the resonance between its microcosmic scenes of abjection, decay and transfiguration and ecocritic Timothy Morton's notion of the intersubjective mesh as the fundamental basis of ecological thinking. While an aura of conservation politics and place-making referentiality can certainly be intuited in Barros' poetic figurations of Pantanal landscapes, flora, and fauna, I argue that the force of meaning of his ambient poetics is most substantially to be found in their sustained imagining of intersubjectivity and its unsettling ontological and ethical effects.
Este ensaio procura pensar a relação entre o discurso luso-tropicalista e o discurso da lusofonia... more Este ensaio procura pensar a relação entre o discurso luso-tropicalista e o discurso da lusofonia. Depois de traçar algumas das posições e polêmicas associadas com a articulação contemporânea da lusofonia, desenvolve-se uma leitura ampla da obra do escritor angolano, José Eduardo Agualusa, um dos principais protagonistas de uma confi guração literária da lusofonia. A relação entre sua obra e elementos do discurso luso-tropical, proponho, pode ser entendida como uma de ambivalência pós-colonial, isto é, de apropriação, re-escrita, ou escrita do "texto" luso-tropical que indelevelmente a precede.
review of "Gilberto Freyre: Social Theory in the Tropics" published in "A Contracorriente" (Winte... more review of "Gilberto Freyre: Social Theory in the Tropics" published in "A Contracorriente" (Winter 2009)
In this public address, transcribed and translated from the Portuguese, two leaders of Brazil’s p... more In this public address, transcribed and translated from the Portuguese, two leaders of Brazil’s pan-ethnic Indigenous rights movement, Sônia Guajajara and Célia Xakriabá, describe their respective formation, their involvement in environmental and human rights struggles, and the global stakes involved in the recognition and protection of the traditional territorial claims and land-use practices of Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon and beyond
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Books by Malcolm McNee
Papers by Malcolm McNee
by Moacyr Scliar
Translated by Malcolm K. McNee
Published by: Tagus Press
Series: Brazilian Literature in Translation Series