Scott Slovic

Teaching and research

Slovic teaches courses and does research in such fields as American literature, comparative literature, nonfiction writing, ecocriticism and environmental literature, interdisciplinary environmental humanities, and sustainability studies. He is particularly known for his exploration of the motif of "awareness" in environmental writing, for his development of the concept of "narrative scholarship," for advocating social engagement (or "ecocritical responsibility") through and beyond scholarly practice, for interdisciplinary work in environmental values and the processing of numerical information through narrative discourse, and for his efforts to expand the variety of international perspectives in ecocriticism. He has also coedited some of the most widely used textbooks in environmental writing, including "Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture," coedited with Lorraine Anderson and John P. O’Grady, 1999 and 2013, and "The ISLE Reader: Ecocriticism, 1993-2003," coedited with Michael P. Branch, 2003. His articles on various aspects of Chinese environmental literature and ecocriticism have appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, a publication of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (see “Landmarks in Chinese Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature: The Emergence of a New Ecological Civilization,” 2012) [2].

Definition of ecocriticism

Frequently asked to provide a definition of ecocriticism, he prefers to offer a broad description of the field: “Ecocriticism is the study of explicitly environmental texts from any scholarly approach or, conversely, the scrutiny of ecological implications and human-nature relationships in any text, even texts that seem, at first glance, oblivious of the nonhuman world.”

Education and affiliations

Slovic is a professor of literature and environment at the University of Idaho [3], where he also serves as chair of the English Department. He earned his B.A. in English at Stanford University (1983) and his M.A. (1986) and Ph.D. (1990) at Brown University. He was the founding president of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Association for the Study of Literature and Environment [4] from 1992 to 1995, and since 1995 he has edited ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment [5]

Previous affiliations and awards

Before moving to Idaho in 2012, he taught for seventeen years at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he directed the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities (1995-2002) and co-founded and intermittently directed the Graduate Program in Literature and Environment. While in Nevada, he received the Nevada Humanities Award (2004) and the Regents’ Award for Graduate Academic Advising (2006). In 2014, he shared the University of Idaho’s Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Collaboration for his role in developing and implementing Semester in the Wild [6]. He has been a Fulbright Scholar [7] at the University of Bonn, Germany (1986–87), the University of Tokyo, Japan (1993–94), and the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P.R. China (2006).

Recent work

Slovic’s latest works include, among others, a textbook of energy literature, a volume of ecocriticism from the developing world, and a book on the psychology and communication of quantitative information in the context of social and environmental crises.

Books

Slovic, Scott, and Paul Slovic, eds. Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data. Corvallis: Oregon State UP, 2015.

Slovic, Scott, James E. Bishop, and Kyhl Lyndgaard, eds. Currents of the Universal Being: Explorations in the Literature of Energy. Lubbock: Texas Tech UP, 2015.

Slovic, Scott, Vidya Sarveswaran, and Swarnalatha Rangarajan, eds. Ecocriticism of the Global South. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), 2015.

Slovic, Scott. Scott Slovic Speaks: Thinking Like Yucca Mountain. Trans. Michiko Nakasima. Hiroshima, Japan: SES-Japan, 2014. (In Japanese.)

Slovic, Scott, Vidya Sarveswaran, and Swarnalatha Rangarajan, eds. Ecoambiguity, Community, and Development: Toward a Politicized Ecocriticism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), 2014.

Slovic, Scott, ed. Nature and the Environment. Critical Insights Series. Ipswich, MA: EBSCO/Salem Press, 2012.

Oppermann, Serpil, Ufuk Ozdag, Nevin Ozkan, and Scott Slovic, eds. The Future of Ecocriticism: New Horizons. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011.

Slovic, Scott. Going Away to Think: Engagement, Retreat, and Ecocritical Responsibility. Reno: U of Nevada P, 2008. (Chinese translation by Wei Qingqi published by Peking UP in 2010.)

Itoh, Shoko, Mitsu Yoshida, and Scott Slovic, eds. Literature of Ecotopia and Environmental Justice: Studies in American Culture. Kyoto, Japan: Koyou Shobou, 2007. (In Japanese.)

Moore, Roberta, and Scott Slovic, eds. Wild Nevada: Testimonies on Behalf of the Desert. Reno: U of Nevada P, 2005.

Satterfield, Terre, and Scott Slovic, eds. What’s Nature Worth? Narrative Expressions of Environmental Values. Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 2004.

Hart, George, and Scott Slovic, eds. Literature and the Environment. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004.

Yamazato, Katsunori, Ken-ichi Noda, Tsutomu Takahashi, and Scott Slovic, eds. Nature: Urban, Rural, Wild. Tokyo, Japan: Sairyusha, 2004. (In Japanese.)

Branch, Michael P., and Scott Slovic, eds. The ISLE Reader: Ecocriticism, 1993-2003. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2003.

Slovic, Scott, ed. Getting Over the Color Green: Contemporary Environmental Literature of the Southwest. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2001.

Anderson, Lorraine, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, eds. Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. Second edition: Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2013.

Branch, Michael P., Rochelle Johnson, Daniel Patterson, and Scott Slovic, eds. Reading the Earth: New Directions in the Study of Literature and Environment. Moscow: U of Idaho P, 1998.

Itoh, Shoko, Masami Yuki, and Scott Slovic, eds. Other Nations: Animals in American Nature Writing. Tokyo, Japan: Tsurumi Shoten, 1997.

Noda, Ken-ichi, and Scott Slovic, eds. Environmental Approaches to American Literature: Toward the World of Nature. Kyoto, Japan: Minerva Press, 1996. (In Japanese.) Slovic, Scott, ed. Worldly Words: An Anthology of American Nature Writing. Tokyo, Japan: Fumikura, 1995.

Slovic, Scott, and Terrell F. Dixon, eds. Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers. New York: Macmillan, 1993.

Slovic, Scott. Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez. Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1992.