Sense of Place and Sense of Planet

Abstract This book analyzes the relationship between the imagination of the global and the ethical commitment to the local in environmentalist thought and writing from the 1960s to the present. Part I critically examines the emphasis on local identities and communities in North American environmentalism by establishing conceptual connections between environmentalism and ecocriticism, on one hand, and theories of globalization, transnationalism, and cosmopolitanism, on the other. It proposes the concept of “eco-cosmopolitanism” as a shorthand for envisioning these connections and the cultural and aesthetic forms into which they translate. Part II focuses on conceptualizations of environmental danger and…