%0 Journal Article 
%A Krieg, C. Parker
%T Carnival Anthropocene: myth and cultural memory in Monique Roffey's "Archipelago"

%D 2018
%@ 2171-9594
%U http://hdl.handle.net/10017/34787
%X This essay examines the role of myth in and as cultural memory through a reading of the novel, Archipelago (2013), by the Trinidadian-British author Monique Roffey. Against conceptions of the Anthropocene as a break from the past—a break that repeats the myth of modernity—I argue that Roffey’s use of cultural memory offers a carnivalesque relation to the world in response to the narrative’s account of climate change trauma. Drawing on Bakhtin’s classic study of the carnival as an occasion for contestation and renewal, as well as Cheryl Lousely’s call for a “carnivalesque ecocriticism,” this essay expands on the recent ecocritical turn to the field of Memory Studies (Buell; Goodbody; Kennedy) to illustrate the way literature mediates between mythic and historical relations to the natural world. As literary expressions, the carnivalesque and the grotesque evoke myth and play in order to expose and transform the social myths which govern relations and administrate difference. Since literature acts as both a producer and reflector of cultural memory, this essay seeks to highlight the literary potential of myth for connecting past traumas to affirmational modes of political engagement.

%K Climate change
%K Cultural memory
%K Carnival
%K Caribbean
%K Anthropocene
%K Monique Roffey
%K Cambio climático
%K Memoria cultural
%K Carnaval
%K Caribe
%K Antropoceno
%K Literatura
%K Literature
%K Medio ambiente
%K Environmental science
%K info:eu-repo/semantics/article
%~ Biblioteca Universidad de Alcala