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Paper short abstract

This study explores how reading can change representations of nature and the role of humans within it. Using a fragment from Alexandru N. Stermin’s Fallen from the Jungle (2022), we analyze students’ responses through ecolinguistic, philosophical, and sociological lenses.

Paper long abstract

This paper analyzes from an empirical ecocritical perspective how reading can influence an individual's (ethical) relationship with nature. Our interdisciplinary team combines insights from ecolinguistics, philosophy, and sociology, building a framework in which discourse analysis, eco-existential reflection, and sociological investigation intersect.

The idea we start from is that narratives with ecological themes are not just texts that describe certain environmental problems, but can generate transformations in the way readers understand their relationship with nature.

The study focuses on a fragment taken from Căzuți din junglă [Fallen from the Jungle, 2022], a Romanian best-seller, written by Alexandru N. Stermin. The fragment depicts a cultivated piece of land above which no birds fly, indirectly highlighting the negative effects of monocultures and genetically modified organisms on ecosystems.

Our research examines the impact of reading this fragment on two groups of students – from the humanities and from biology. The methodology includes conducting structured interviews in two phases (before and after reading the text excerpt), to investigate how reading can change representations of nature and the role of humans within it. In the analysis, we will focus on the respondents' discourse and try to highlight the rhetorical and narrative strategies with the greatest impact on ecological awareness, while the philosophical approach will correlate these transformations with the issues of identity, well-being, freedom, love, death, and ethical responsibility.

Through its interdisciplinary nature, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of how reading a text influences the attitudes that readers develop in relation to nature.