The desert in modern literature and philosophy: Wasteland aesthetics

Shows how philosophers from Nietzsche to Deleuze have used the figure of the desert to theorise space and place Uses the figure of the desert to provide an aesthetic theory of modernity Rethinks and challenges key assumptions of ecocriticism Offers readings of the most significant literary deserts using an innovative and rigorous theoretical framework Provides an original account of the Anthropocene from a cultural perspective Aidan Tynan provocatively rethinks some of the core assumptions of ecocriticism and the environmental humanities. Showing the significance of deserts and wastelands in literature since the Romantics, he argues that the desert has served to articulate anxieties over the cultural significance of space in the Anthropocene