Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinemas From Nation-building to Ecocosmopolitanism

Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinemas uses a range of analytical approaches to interrogate how the traditional socio-political rhetoric of national cinema can be rethought through ecosystemic concerns, by exploring a range of Nordic films as national and transnational, regional and local texts--all with significant global implications. By synergizing transnational theories with ecological approaches, the study considers the planetary implications of nation-based cultural production.

Pietari Kääpä is Lecturer in Media and Communications at University of Stirling, UK. His research work synergizes transnational film and media studies with ecocriticism. Kääpä has published widely on transnational Nordic cinema and issues relating to ecocinema, including collections and articles exploring ecocritical concerns in Chinese cinema, in relation to audiences, documentary politics and minority film production.

Introduction: Environmental history and Nordic film culture

Chapter 1. Nation-building in the Nordic context: Natural history?

Chapter 2. The role of nature in the deer western and the road movie

Chapter 3. The horror film in an ecological context

Chapter 4. Ecocritical approaches to children's film

Chapter 5. Human ecology and the Nordic welfare state

Chapter 6. Green economics and the brownfields of the welfare state: crime thrillers and human ecology

Chapter 7. Intercultural approaches to Nordic cinema

Chapter 8. Ecocritical approaches to multicultural and minority cinemas

Chapter 9. Responsibility and the Nordic model: Global Nordicness and ecocosmopolitan exceptionalism

Chapter 10. Ecodocumentaries and the sense of global responsibility

Chapter 11. Representing the end times: Ecological melancholia and the end of the world

Openings and conclusions: Transvergent perspectives on Nordic ecocinema

Bibliography

Index