NATURE, TERRITORY, AND IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY QUEBEC LITERATURE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53555/ephijer.v10i1.181Keywords:
Eco-criticism, Nature, Healing, Quebec, Postcolonial, Culture, Identity, MemoryAbstract
Contemporary Quebec literature increasingly foregrounds the environment not merely as a passive backdrop but as a dynamic element shaping identity, memory, culture, and political consciousness. This development coincides with the rise of ecocritical thought and growing awareness of ecological crises in the twenty-first century. Quebec writers, particularly those associated with Indigenous and regional narratives, depict landscapes, forests, rivers, and rural territories as spaces of cultural memory, resistance, and healing. Authors such as Naomi Fontaine, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Virginia Pésémapeo Bordeleau, and Jocelyne Saucier articulate environmental imaginaries that challenge anthropocentric narratives and reframe the relationship between humans and nature. In particular, Naomi Fontaine’s works, including Kuessipan and Manikanetish, present the Innu territory as a central component of cultural identity and collective survival. Through ecocritical analysis, this paper examines how contemporary Quebec literature represents the environment as (1) a cultural landscape, (2) a repository of memory and identity, (3) a site of resistance to colonial and industrial exploitation, and (4) a space for healing and collective renewal. By analyzing selected texts and literary trends, the study demonstrates that environmental representation in Quebec literature functions not only aesthetically but also politically and culturally, reflecting broader transformations in environmental humanities and Indigenous literary expression.
References
1.Banting, P. (2014). Colony collapse disorder: Settler dreams, the climate crisis, and Canadian literary ecologies. Studies in Canadian Literature, 39(1), 1–21.
2.Bate, J. (1991). Romantic ecology: Wordsworth and the environmental tradition. Routledge.
3.Boudreau, D. L., & Sullivan, M. M. (Eds.). (2015). Ecocritical approaches to literature in French. Lexington Books.
4.Buell, L. (1995). The environmental imagination: Thoreau, nature writing, and the formation of American culture. Harvard University Press.
5.Buell, L. (2005). The future of environmental criticism: Environmental crisis and literary imagination. Blackwell Publishing.
6.Call, L. (2015). Waste treatment: Resource recovery in The Gleaners and I and La Clôture. In D. L. Boudreau & M. M. Sullivan (Eds.), Ecocritical approaches to literature in French (pp. 137–154). Lexington Books.
7.DeLoughrey, E., & Handley, G. B. (Eds.). (2011). Postcolonial ecologies: Literatures of the environment. Oxford University Press.
8.Defraeye, J., & Lepage, É. (2019). Approches écopoétiques des littératures française et québécoise de l’extrême contemporain. Études littéraires, 48(3), 7–18.
9.Garrard, G. (2004). Ecocriticism. Routledge.
10.Garrard, G. (Ed.). (2014). The Oxford handbook of ecocriticism. Oxford University Press.
11.Gifford, T. (1999). Pastoral. Routledge.
12.Glotfelty, C., & Fromm, H. (Eds.). (1996). The ecocriticism reader: Landmarks in literary ecology. University of Georgia Press.
13.Kerber, J. (2013). Environmental imagination in Canadian literature. In E. Soper & N. Bradley (Eds.), Greening the maple: Canadian ecocriticism in context (pp. 45–64). University of Calgary Press.
14.Posthumus, S., & Sinclair, S. (2014). Reading environment(s): Digital humanities meets ecocriticism. Green Letters, 18(3), 254–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2014.966737
15.Ryan, J. C. (2019). Ecocriticism. The Year’s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, 27(1), 100–122.
16.Soper, E., & Bradley, N. (Eds.). (2013). Greening the maple: Canadian ecocriticism in context. University of Calgary Press.
17.Williams, R. (1973). The country and the city. Chatto & Windus.
18.Fontaine, N. (2011). Kuessipan: À toi. Mémoire d’encrier.
19.Fontaine, N. (2017). Manikanetish: Petite Marguerite. Mémoire d’encrier.
20.Jean, M. (2017). Kukum. Libre Expression.
