Alys Daroy

Kathrin Bartha-Mitchell’s Cosmological Readings of Contemporary Australian Literature: Unsettling the Anthropocene (2023) offers a timely exploration of cosmology’s potential for addressing Anthropocenic challenges due to its “vast array of individual, cultural and more-than-human phenomena” (1). Drawing on six texts from Australian and Oceanic contexts, Bartha-Mitchell examines themes including colonization/exploitation, bioethics/technology and environmental justice/custodianship through the lens of cosmology. Her work enriches ecocriticism through interweaving essential First Nations’ and transcultural insights and effectively demonstrates literary cosmology’s capacity to offer “multi-scalar knowledge and perspectives, as well as an eco-systemic order that co-shapes cultural meaning” (81).