The twilight of the Anthropocene: sustaining literature

Over the last decade the claims made for the importance of literary understanding, environmental humanities and imaginative reflection have received a (perhaps tragic) reinforcement from the inverse relation between the threats facing humans and other species, and the capacity for action. It is almost as if the prospect of calamity and unprecedented change is so intense that the practical, rational and imaginative resources we have for thinking about the future are simply and woefully inadequate. If reason, calculation, practice and day-to-day thinking have led to a tragic inability to think beyond the expediency of the present, then perhaps it is