A Critique of Crisis: Environmentalism and the Politics of Historical Time

The following Parts present a close analysis of canonical works of environmental writing. My analysis centers on how the manifestation of "crisis" within each of these works implies a certain historical consciousness (Part II). Once these modes of environmental historical consciousness are made explicit, I engage in a political critique, focusing on how ways of conceiving of time and history legitimate certain kinds of political action at the expense of others, demonstrating how this manifests itself in environmental writing (Part III). I close with a speculative reworking of environmentalism's temporal consciousness which searches for potential solutions to the issues raised in the previous two sections (Part IV). And so, with explanations and qualifications out of the way, we may commence our analysis of environmental crisis.