Series Editor's Introduction from Malcolm Sen

Every reader and scholar of Irish literature is familiar with its extensive genealogy of nature writing, and a ‘sense of place’ found across a great variety of texts. While not unique to Ireland such a rich heritage has produced some of the most enduring and exciting literary and cultural criticisms. However, given our contemporary concerns with environmental issues, of which climate change is one, literary and cultural narratives need to be re-read and re-energized to help us find a language that speaks to current existential anxieties.

This series brings together a variety of scholars from the humanities and sciences, public officials and politicians, who help us understand and better narrate environmental issues. Such wide-scale, interdisciplinary engagement will update traditional methods of viewing and critiquing nature in Irish literary narratives, and also demonstrate the central importance of narrative in imagining environmental issues and habitable futures. Narrative, it is argued overall, produces conceptual leaps, empathetic bonds, and has deep historical, cultural and somatic effects, all of which determine how we engage with our environments.