In their contribution on “Empirical Ecocriticism” in the LIVE Handbook Environmental Humanities, edited by Evi Zemanek and Timo Müller, Alexa Weik von Mossner, W.P. Malecki, and Thomas Heintz provide insights into the research field of empirical ecocriticism, drawing on research findings from the VISIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY project.

Over the past decade, the empirical branch of ecocriticism has established itself as an inter- and transdisciplinary subfield that explores the impact of environmental narratives across various genres and media on diverse audiences. This research employs both social science methods and approaches from the humanities to analyze the thematic, formal, aesthetic, and contextual characteristics of these narratives. The contribution presents data on Damon Gameau’s climate film 2040: Join the Regeneration, collected in December 2024 at the Harmonie Cinema in Freiburg as part of the VISIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY project.

More information:

Weik von Mossner, Alexa, W.P. Malecki and Thomas Heintz. 2026. “Empirical Ecocriticism.” In LIVE Handbook Environmental Humanities, edited by Evi Zemanek and Timo Müller. Berlin: Metzler/Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-70886-6_18-1