MANIFESTATIONS OF ‘NEW AGE’ RELIGIONS IN GATED COMMUNITIES OF J. G. BALLARD’S COCAINE NIGHTS AND KINGDOM COME – AN ECOCRITICAL APPROACH
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to identify different manifestations of ‘new age’ religions within the gated communities of James G. Ballard’s urban violence novels Cocaine Nights (1996) and Kingdom Come (2006), using an ecocritical approach elaborated within the works of Stacy Alaimo, and to show that the entwining of the human body and the ‘more-than-human’ world also pertains to that of the human mind and soul and the environment. In other words, one’s mental, religious and spiritual tendencies are also shaped and transformed within the environment; man’s ability to go beyond the limitations of anthropocentrism make the binary oppositions of the body and mind/soul, like that of body and nature, fluid and as such suitable to be considered in a different light.
Keywords: ecocriticism; human and more-than-human; body/soul and nature; urban environment; new age religions.
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References
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Ballard, J. G. (1996). Cocaine Nights. London: Flamingo.
Ballard, J. G. (2006). Kingdom Come. London: Fourth Estate.
Baumann, W. A., Bohannon II, R. R. & K. J. O’Brien (2011). Grounding Religion: A Field Guide to the Study of Religion and Ecology. London: Routledge.
Bogomilova, N. (2019). Postmodern Transformations of Religion: Activity vs. Adaptivity. In: N. Bogomilova (Ed.), Religion and Social Ecology, 156-174.
Bradfield, S. (2012, March 23). Mall Rats. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/j-g-ballards-final-novel-kingdom-come.html
Buell, L. (2005). The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Burbery, T. J. (2012). “Ecocriticism and Christian Literary Scholarship.” Christianity and Literature, 61(2), 189-213.
Gasiorek, A. (2005). J. G. Ballard. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Glotfelty, C. (1996). “Introduction: Literary Studies in an Age of Environmental Crisis.” In: C. Glotfelty & H. Fromm (Eds.), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. University of Georgia Press, USA: University of Georgia Press, xv–xxxvii.
Mazel, D. (2000). American Literary Environmentalism. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
McFarland, S. (2021). Ecocollapse Fiction and Cultures of Human Extinction. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Rigby, K. (2017). “Religion and Ecology: Towards a Communion of Creatures”. In: S. Oppermann & S. Iovino (Eds.), Environmental Humanities. Voices from Anthropocene. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield International, 273-294.
Slovic, S. (2000). “Ecocriticism: Containing Multitudes, Practising Doctrine” In: L. Coupe (Ed.), The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism. London: Routledge.
Slovic, S. (2012): Scott Slovic. “EDITOR’S NOTE.” ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 19 (3), (Summer 2012), 443-444.
Slovic, S. (2017). Literature. In: W. Jenkins, M. Tucker & J. Grim (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology. London and New York: Routledge, 355-363.
Tan, C. (2019). An Ecocritical Study of J. G. Ballard’s Climate Fiction Novels (doctoral thesis). The Institute of Social Sciences: Pamukkale University.
Tucker, M. E. & Grim, J. (2017). The Movement of Religion and Ecology. In: W. Jenkins, M. Tucker & J. Grim (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Religion and Ecology. London and New York: Routledge, 4-7.
Wilson, D. H. (2017). J. G. Ballard. Modern Masters of Science Fiction. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
White, L. Jr. (1996). “The Historical Roots of our Ecologic Crisis”. In: C. Glotfelty & H. Fromm (Eds.), The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. University of Georgia Press, USA: University of Georgia Press, 3-14.
Published
2022-12-26
How to Cite
Z. Škobo, M., & M. Ɖukić, J. (2022). MANIFESTATIONS OF ‘NEW AGE’ RELIGIONS IN GATED COMMUNITIES OF J. G. BALLARD’S COCAINE NIGHTS AND KINGDOM COME – AN ECOCRITICAL APPROACH. PALIMPSEST / ПАЛИМПСЕСТ, 7(14), 87-100. https://doi.org/10.46763/PALIM22714100sh
Section
КНИЖЕВНОСТ/ LITERATURE
