Reading environment(s): digital humanities meets ecocriticism

Abstract

To outline a general framework for a dialogue between the digital humanities and ecocriticism, we begin by exploring the meanings of “reading the environment” and “reading environments” within ecocriticism and the digital humanities, respectively. We then describe a digital ecology where the digital humanities and ecocriticism come together in playful, creative, collaborative interactions. In the second part of the article, we illustrate more specifically the (inter)play of such a digital ecology, by analysing Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island, using Voyant (a set of text analysis tools) and Neatline (an online suite of tools for plotting time and space in texts). Finally, we explore the broader context of the digital environmental humanities, a new and burgeoning area that still remains largely undefined, but that asserts the importance of the humanities in responding to the ecological crisis while leveraging new tools and technologies.