METHODOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE - GENERAL OPENING OF BOUNDARIES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE STUDIES
METHODOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE - GENERAL OPENING OF BOUNDARIES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE STUDIES

Summary/Abstract: Problems in preserving the natural resources and the wildlife on Earth have prompted the twenty-first century man to start thinking seriously about environmental protection. Man has proved to be the only living creature endangering all other species. The destructive part of man's nature has turned into self-destructiveness as a result of his destruction of the resources that sustain him. Realizing the urgency of the situation because of the possible self-extinction, man decided to make an effort to do something about his and the planet's survival. Action has become imperative so that even the fields of literature and language have become the battlefields for environmental protection. Some of the concepts of ecology can be found in the discussions about literature and language. A new kind of literary criticism, eco-criticism, has emerged. Its field is obviously interdisciplinary. Inter- and multi-disciplinary orientation prevail in modern man's thinking but here the problem of the methodology applied to the overlapping area opens up. This consideration gave rise to the exploration of what was happening in the twentieth century compared to the beginning of the twenty-first century. In the new situation the scholars dealing with the overlapping disciplines have to work at the intellectual margins of their disciplines. Their step in this direction, however, can often be practically motivated. In the case of eco-criticism there is an attempt to involve both literature and literary criticism in the general movement for the survival of the planet.

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