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Christine Cusick, Ph.D., assistant professor of composition and English at ������Ƶ University, has edited and published, “Out of the Earth: Ecocritical Readings of Irish Texts,” which is a collection of essays offering ecocritical readings of Irish literary and cultural texts of various genres, including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, drama and the visual image.

The essays, which relate to multiple disciplines, examine what the cultural representations of nonhuman nature reveal about how humans care for and dwell in place.

“Any project in the field of ecocriticism is an effort to use intellectual inquiry and reflection to discern how we might better live and care for the earth we inhabit,” said Cusick. “This project gave me the incredible opportunity to work with and learn from international scholars who care deeply about this very question.”

According to Cork University Press, the book’s publisher, “Within the current climate of both literary and environmental studies ‘Out of the Earth: Ecocritical Readings of Irish Texts’ is an unprecedented integration of Irish studies and ecocriticism that is both timely and necessary.”

The book, which includes an introduction by John Elder, reviews work by Eóin Flannery, Jefferson Holdridge, Joy Kennedy-O’Neill, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Miriam O’Kane Mara, Karen O’Brien, Maureen O’Connor, Donna Potts, Joanna Tapp Pierce, Eamonn Wall and Greg Winston.

Cusick traveled to Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland, to launch “Out of the Earth: Ecocritical Readings of Irish Texts” at Ireland’s first conference on ecocriticism from June 18-19, 2010. The book is also available in the United States through Cork University Press.