Wastelands, Shrubs and Parks

Ecocriticism and the Challenge of the Urban

Abstract

Despite its development in recent years, ecocriticism has yet to meet the challenge of urban nature. This article presents an interdisciplinary ecocriticism that draws on urban studies to enable the study of urban nature in Jon McGregor’s Even the Dogs (2010) and Edgelands (2011) by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts. Significantly, it foregrounds the negative aesthetics of nature that, although an important part of contemporary nature experiences, have remained unexplored in both ecocriticism and urban studies. As such, the approach not only allows for a fuller exploration of twenty-first-century human-nature relations, but also exposes the privileged perspective of much ecocriticism.