Congist'26: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Crisis

Reading Nature in Times of Crisis: An Ecosophical Approach to The Overstory by Richard Powers

Not scheduled

20m

Istanbul University Faculty of Letters

Oral Presentation

Speaker

Assia Marfouq (Hassan First University of Settat. Morocco)

Description

At a time when ecological crises are intensifying and reshaping the relationship between humans and their environment, contemporary literature is undergoing a notable shift with the rise of narratives centered on nature, ecosystems, and the resistance of the living world. What is now called "eco-fiction" or "environmental literature" has emerged as a critical space for engaging with climate change, biodiversity collapse, and the questioning of anthropocentric narratives.
In this context, Richard Powers’ The Overstory (2018) stands out for its narrative ambition, polyphonic structure, and poetics of interconnection. Far from merely celebrating nature or advancing ecological advocacy, The Overstory renews the forms and stakes of ecological storytelling by presenting trees as narrative agents, bearers of memory, and ethical presences. Unlike many environmental novels that focus on human experience in nature, Powers enacts a radical decentering that elevates the non-human and reorganizes the hierarchy of narrative voices and temporalities.
This article proposes to analyze The Overstory through the lens of ecosophy, a theoretical framework developed by Félix Guattari and Arne Næss, which interweaves environmental, social, and mental ecologies. Rather than a straightforward ecological message, the novel offers a profound transformation of perception and subjectivity in a time of global crisis. This raises the central question: How does The Overstory function as an ecosophical literary form capable of reconfiguring our relationship to the living world? The analysis unfolds in three parts: The first section defines the theoretical framework of ecosophy and its relevance in the current ecological crisis. The second examines representations of nature in the novel as spaces of resistance, healing, and transformation. The final section analyzes Powers’s narrative strategies and their capacity to reshape ecological imagination.