Environment and Society connects the core themes of environmental studies to the urgent issues and debates of the twenty-first century. In an era marked by climate change, rapid urbanization, and resource scarcity, environmental studies has emerged as a crucial arena of study. Assembling canonical and contemporary texts, this volume presents a systematic survey of concepts and issues central to the environment in society, such as: social mobilization on behalf of environmental objectives; the relationships between human population, economic growth and stresses on the planet's natural resources; debates about the relative effects of collective and individual action; and unequal distribution of the social costs of environmental degradation. Organized around key themes, with each section featuring questions for debate and suggestions for further reading, the book introduces students to the history of environmental studies, and demonstrates how the field's interdisciplinary approach uniquely engages the essential issues of the present.

Environment and Society connects the core themes of environmental studies to the urgent issues and debates of the twenty-first century. In an era marked by climate change, rapid urbanization, and resource scarcity, environmental studies has emerged as a crucial arena of study. Assembling canonical and contemporary texts, this volume presents a systematic survey of concepts and issues central to the environment in society, such as: social mobilization on behalf of environmental objectives; the relationships between human population, economic growth and stresses on the planet's natural resources; debates about the relative effects of collective and individual action; and unequal distribution of the social costs of environmental degradation. Organized around key themes, with each section featuring questions for debate and suggestions for further reading, the book introduces students to the history of environmental studies, and demonstrates how the field's interdisciplinary approach uniquely engages the essential issues of the present.

In "The Dark End of the Street", Maria Damon brings a new sensitivity to modern poetic criticism. She adds an important dimension to cultural theory, revealing the struggles of American poets as they address important questions about art, social life, and the oppression they encounter. Taking as her premise that the intensity of poetic language is an appropriate venue for representing the "dark end of the street" of social pain, Damon foregrounds the work and lives of a number of modern American poets in order to argue that the American avant-garde is located in the experimental literary works of social "outsiders." Unlike most literary studies on poetry and poetics, "The Dark End of the Street" examines an unusually wide range of poets and poetic activities. Damon explores avant-garde poetry as writing that pushes at the limits of experience as well as at the limits of conventional form. She argues that the marginalized and oppressed, ostensibly the most expendable members of American society, have produced its truly vanguard literature. Damon brings a sense of social context to a field long dominated by purely formalist criticism, ultimately revealing how time, place, and circumstance affect the creation, distribution, and reception of modern poetry. This book is intended for contemporary American poetry, cultural studies, and American studies.

This volume is the first of its kind to collect classic and contemporary work focused on the intersection of poetry and cultural studies, reaching from Wordsworth's "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" and W. E. B. Du Bois's "Of the Sorrow Songs" to present-day essays on rap lyrics, queer poetry, folk poetry, and beyond. The writings also acknowledge the major contributions of both the Frankfurt School and the Birmingham School's contributions toward broadening the field of artifacts permissible for serious study with the primarily literary tools of close reading of textual/textural detail. Rethinking notions of poetic experiences and their roles in popular or mass culture, these essays effectively speak to students, academics, poetry enthusiasts, and those interested in social movements, including slammers, academics, workshop leaders, and poetry theorists.