Demeyer, Hans;
(2026)
Complaints about the Weather: Eco-Neurosis in Jonathan Safran Foer and Jenny Offill.
Theory & Event
(In press).
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Abstract
This essay identifies eco-neurosis as a contemporary affective response to the environmental crisis. From the awareness that their social reproduction contributes to this crisis, the eco-neurotic polices their everyday consumption and lifestyle patterns, yet they simultaneously remain attached to the promise of the good life under capitalism: a double bind that causes compulsive and often punitive actions, thoughts, and feelings. If such eco-neurosis causes an affective displacement, this essay continues by proposing the complaint as a genre that expresses such neurosis and offers the promise of a renewed belonging. A reading of eco-neurosis in Jonathan Safran Foer’s We Are the Weather (2019) and Jenny Offill’s Weather (2020) shows how the complaint however preserves the double-bind.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Complaints about the Weather: Eco-Neurosis in Jonathan Safran Foer and Jenny Offill |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/191 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > SELCS |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215371 |
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