Environmental literary studies and their didactics: for a School of Life

Abstract

Crises call for rethinking and metamorphosis; the sense of loss of meaning, ecological challenges and, more specifically in the case of our study, the crisis in teaching careers and the decline in literary studies enrolments call for meta-reflection, an analysis of what is being done here and elsewhere, and of what has been done before, in order to implement transformative, efficient action that makes sense and creates links. We propose to take a conceptual look at a flourishing field of research - environmental literary studies - and another emerging one - its didactics - by placing our reflections in a historical perspective: while the 19th century is known for being the century of knowledge sharing, it also saw the emergence of voices advocating interdisciplinary educational approaches, practices bringing together life sciences and literature, book-based knowledge and the 'outdoor classroom'. These are perspectives and experiences that are particularly relevant today.