The Hopefulness of Ecocriticism

Given the direness of the planet's environmental crises, it is perhaps ironic that the disciplines of environmental writing and ecological literary scholarship should be so routinely hopeful. Following Mitchell Thomashow's 2002 distinction between "hopefulness" and "optimism", I suggest that ecocritics, in particular, frequently express a hopeful disposition in their work, even though they tend not to be optimistic about the future of humanity and the biosphere. This hopeful state of mind is an essential catalyst for the discipline's energetic activity during recent decades. In this paper, I survey several of the important statements on hope by environmental writers including Henry David Thoreau, Bill McKibben, and William J. Lines, and then I consider four reasons to be hopeful with regard to the continuing vitality of the field of ecocriticism: 1) the inescapable importance of language in all environmental discussions and ecocriticism's unique role in analyzing environmental discourse; 2) ecocriticism's, essential pluralism (its embracing of multiple approaches and perspectives, and its increasingly international scope); 3) the increasing sense of political urgency that motivates many ecocritics; 4) the multi-generational aspect of the field, including the participation of many young and old writers and scholars.