No Longer at Home: Tropes of Solastalgia in Contemporary South Asian Literary Narratives

为了回应谢丽尔·格洛菲蒂（Cheryl Glotfelty，1996，p.xxii）对精神思维采取“跨学科方法”的观点，我提出的论文试图探讨当代南亚文学中Solastalgia的叙事。Solastalgia的概念，这意味着由于环境变化造成的痛苦和“与一个人的家园和领土的现状相联系的孤立感”（Albrecht 2005，5）可以位于情感生态批评的跨学科领域，试图辨别人类与自然世界的多种情感参与。与强直性骨痛相反，强直性骨痛会引起与一个地方相关的积极和消极情绪，Solastalgia被概念化为一种不受欢迎的情绪，源于一个人在家里的乡愁（Albrecht 2005，48）。鉴于对Solastalgia的新兴奖学金，（高威等人2019;菲利普斯和墨菲2021，Kumar等人2021）我的论文旨在了解这种情绪在2000年后南亚文学叙事中的表现。这一时期标志着写作的稳步增长，越来越多地反映了南亚地区正在发生的大规模环境转变。通过评价所选的主要文本中的情感-环境融合，我打算探索这些文学作品提供的路线，以充分导航环境崩溃的情感地形。同时，本研究也评估南亚文学如何作为一个实验室，来表达和处理由生态变化引起的孤独症的负面情绪。（Tuan 1977，4）和亲生物假说，即人类有一种与生俱来的倾向，寻求与自然的联系（威尔逊1984），并随后通过缓慢暴力（尼克松2011）和保护自然（Cunsolo和Landman 2017）的概念探索生态批评的情感转向（Bladow和Ladino 2018）。通过研究对生态变化进行深刻思考的文学作品，如小说，诗歌，图形叙事，游记和回忆录，该研究将提出一个强有力的论据，以评估环境灾难的无形但深远的后果。我会研究的一些主要文本是Amitav Ghosh的The Great Derangement，Sonali Deraniyagala的Wave，Neha Sinha的Wild and Willful，以及Temsula Ao的精选诗歌。虽然这些作品吸引了新兴的学术机构，随着气候变化和生态危机成为人们的共识，一代人呼吁采取更强有力的行动来应对环境问题，因此，加强情感生态批评的研究是十分必要的。我相信一个研究纳入一个不断发展的跨学科领域的背景下南亚文学是相关的研究情感生态批评研究迄今主要是欧美为中心。在生态批判和影响研究正在扩大到包括一系列经过审查但重要的作品的阶段，我认为我的研究成果将有助于对Solastalgia的新理解。

In response to Cheryl Glotfelty's view of adopting "interdisciplinary approaches" (1996, p.xxii) towardsenvironmental thinking, my proposed thesis seeks to explore the narrativization of Solastalgia incontemporary South Asian Literature. The concept of Solastalgia, which denotes distress caused due toenvironmental changes and a "sense of isolation connected to the present state of one's home andterritory" (Albrecht 2005, 5) can be situated in the interdisciplinary field of Affective Ecocriticism thattries to discern the manifold emotional engagements humans have with the natural world. As opposed tonostalgia, which evocates both positive and negative emotions associated with a place, Solastalgia hasbeen conceptualized as an undesirable emotion resulting from a homesickness one feels at home(Albrecht 2005, 48). Keeping in view of the emerging scholarships on Solastalgia, (Galway et al 2019;Phillips and Murphy 2021, Kumar et al 2021) my thesis aims to understand the representation of thisemotion in post-2000 South Asian literary narratives. The period signifies the steady growth of writingsthat increasingly reflect the massive environmental transitions that are occurring in the South Asianregion. By appraising the affect-environment confluence in the chosen primary texts, I intend to explorethe routes these literary works offer to adequately navigate the affective terrain of environmentalbreakdown. Insofar, the study also tasks itself with evaluating how South Asian literature serves as alaboratory for articulating and dealing with negative emotion of Solastalgia arising out of ecologicalalterations.I propose to build my thesis on the ideas of place as "centre of felt value" (Tuan 1977, 4) and thebiophilia hypothesis that humans have an innate tendency to seek connections with nature (Wilson1984), and subsequently explore the affective turn in ecocriticism (Bladow and Ladino 2018) through theconcepts of Slow Violence (Nixon 2011) and Mourning Nature (Cunsolo and Landman 2017). Byresearching an eclectic mix of literary works that offer profound meditation on ecological changes, suchas novels, poems, graphic narratives, travelogues, and memoirs, the research would put forth a strongargument for Solastalgia to be taken into account in order to evaluate the intangible, yet far-reachingconsequences of environmental catastrophes. Some of the key primary texts I would research are TheGreat Derangement by Amitav Ghosh, Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala, Wild and Wilful by Neha Sinha, andselected poems of Temsula Ao.Though these writings have attracted emerging bodies of scholarship,they are yet to be studied comprehensively from an affective ecocritical perspective.With climate change and ecological crises entering common parlance and a generation calling forstronger actions against environmental degradation, there is a pressing need to enhance studies onaffective ecocriticism. I believe a study incorporating an evolving interdisciplinary field in the backdrop ofSouth Asian Literature is relevant as research on affective ecocritical studies has so far been primarilyEuro-American-centric. At a stage when ecocritical and affect studies are expanding to include a range ofoverlooked yet important works, I argue that the outcomes of my research will facilitate a newunderstanding of Solastalgia.