UMass Amherst Professor Malcolm Sen Explores Climate Crisis Through Irish Literature in New Book

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Associate Professor of English Malcolm Sen’s forthcoming book with the Syracuse University Press examines how contemporary Irish literature engages with the global climate crisis. Titled Irish Anthropocene: Literature, Climate Change, Sovereignty, the book explores how writers evoke  multiple scales of the environmental challenges of the present and why literary scholarship is a fundamental means to address environmental breakdown. Sen also argues that Ireland’s experience of postcolonial nationhood and sovereignty offers a distinctive lens for understanding the planetary and political conditions of the Anthropocene. The book demonstrates how Irish writers challenge the country’s popular “green” image to reveal ecological, economic, and political entanglements. 

Drawing on literary analysis, postcolonial theories, and environmental humanities scholarship, the book traces how contemporary authors move beyond traditional pastoral depictions of Ireland to confront shocking realities of the climate crisis. By connecting questions of ecology to themes of politics, statehood, and justice, Sen highlights how literature can illuminate the cultural and historical forces shaping environmental crises. One of the pioneers of the field of Environmental Humanities, Rob Nixon, describes Sen’s book as “"A sorely needed, brilliantly conceived book on the entanglements of Irish literature and history with earth history and the Anthropocene. Sen’s unique expertise in Irish Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and the Environmental Humanities makes him the perfect guide. Every page brims with conceptual insights and keen-eyed readings of Ireland’s rich lineage of environmentally-minded writers. A tour de force."

Here at UMass HFA, Sen teaches an interdisciplinary General Education course on “Environment, Climate Change, and the Humanities,” undergraduate courses on Irish and global Anglophone literatures, and climate fiction, as well as graduate courses in Environmental Humanities and postcolonial studies. His research examines questions of justice, statecraft, and postcolonial politics as they emerge in the contemporary climate crisis.

To purchase his book, visit: https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/9362/irish-anthropocene/