Ecocriticism UGC NET MCQs — 50 Questions

Q: Who coined the term 'ecocriticism' and when?

William Rueckert coined the term in his 1978 essay 'Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism'. Cheryll Glotfelty later institutionalised the field through ASLE (1992) and The Ecocriticism Reader (1996). For UGC NET: Rueckert = coined the term; Glotfelty = institutionalised the field.

Q: What is Timothy Morton's concept of dark ecology?

Dark ecology (Ecology Without Nature, 2007; Dark Ecology, 2016) rejects the idealised, pristine concept of 'Nature' as separate from culture. Morton argues that genuine ecological thinking must embrace the strange, uncanny, and ambiguous 'mesh' of all life — including what is ugly, non-ideal, and troubling. His hyperobjects (2013) are entities so vast they cannot be directly experienced as wholes.

Q: What is the Blue Humanities and who are its key figures?

The Blue Humanities (or ocean humanities) extends ecocritical attention from land to water — oceans, seas, rivers, and aquatic environments. Key figures: Steve Mentz (At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean, 2009 — maritime ecocriticism); Stacy Alaimo (transcorporeality — the ocean as a medium of material exchange between bodies and environments). It is one of the fastest-growing areas tested in UGC NET Unit IX.

Q: What is Rob Nixon's 'slow violence' and why is it important for ecocriticism?

Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2011) argues that forms of environmental harm like pollution, climate change, and toxic contamination occur gradually and dispersedly — making them difficult to represent in media cultures that privilege dramatic, spectacular events. This slow violence disproportionately affects the global poor. Nixon's concept is central to second-wave and postcolonial ecocriticism.

Q: How is ecocriticism tested in UGC NET assertion-reason format?

Common assertion-reason patterns: (1) Morton's dark ecology vs idealised Nature (Assertion that Morton retains 'Nature' is wrong); (2) Plumwood's ecofeminism vs mainstream feminism (Assertion they are identical is wrong); (3) slow violence = easy to represent (wrong — Nixon's point is it is NOT easy to represent); (4) hyperobjects can be directly seen (wrong — they cannot); (5) first-wave and second-wave ecocriticism are identical (wrong — they differ fundamentally in scope).

Q: What is Stacy Alaimo's transcorporeality?

Transcorporeality (Bodily Natures, 2010) argues that the human body is not a sealed, bounded entity. Chemicals, toxins, food, air, and water flow through us — the 'environment' is always already inside us. This concept is central to the Blue Humanities (the ocean as medium of transcorporeal flows) and to toxic discourse (chemical contamination as a literal boundary-crossing of the body).

Question 1

William Cronon's influential essay 'The Trouble with Wilderness' (1995) argues that:

Accepted Answer

The concept of 'wilderness' is a culturally and historically constructed idea, often erasing the histories of indigenous peoples displaced to create supposedly untouched land

Answer

Wilderness is a timeless, universal category found in all human cultures

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Wilderness areas should be expanded regardless of the cost to local communities

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Wilderness writing is the only legitimate form of nature writing

Question 2

Arne Næss's 1972 lecture that founded the Deep Ecology movement distinguished it from 'shallow ecology' primarily by:

Accepted Answer

Valuing all living beings for their own sake (intrinsic value), not merely for their usefulness to humans

Answer

Focusing exclusively on pollution control technology

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Valuing nature only for its usefulness to humans

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Rejecting all forms of environmental activism as too political

Question 3

The Deep Ecology Platform, co-authored by Arne Næss and George Sessions in 1984, consists of:

Accepted Answer

Eight basic principles

Answer

Three core principles

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Five core principles

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Twelve basic principles

Question 4

In Greg Garrard's Ecocriticism (2004), which of the following is NOT one of the major tropes the book is organised around?

Accepted Answer

Sonnet

Answer

Wilderness

Answer

Pollution

Answer

Apocalypse

Question 5

The distinction between 'first-wave' and 'second-wave' ecocriticism refers to:

Accepted Answer

First-wave focusing on nature writing, wilderness, and biocentric preservation; second-wave expanding to environmental justice, urban and toxic environments, and social ecology

Answer

First-wave being purely theoretical and second-wave being purely activist

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First-wave covering only American texts and second-wave covering only British texts

Answer

First-wave and second-wave being interchangeable terms with no real difference

Question 6

Ursula K. Heise's Sense of Place and Sense of Planet (2008) critiques the ecocritical emphasis on bioregionalism by proposing instead:

Accepted Answer

'Eco-cosmopolitanism' — a planetary sense of environmental connection that goes beyond attachment to a single local place

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A complete rejection of any attention to place

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A return to purely nationalist environmental policy

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The abandonment of ecocriticism as a discipline

Question 7

In Deep Ecology, Arne Næss's concept of 'Self-realization' (with a capital S) refers to:

Accepted Answer

The widening of individual identity to include identification with the whole ecosphere, so that harming nature is experienced as harming oneself

Answer

Individual career achievement and personal success

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A purely psychoanalytic concept unrelated to ecology

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The realization that humans are separate from and superior to nature

Question 8

Garrard's trope of 'Apocalypse' in ecocritical writing refers to:

Accepted Answer

Narratives that use the rhetoric of impending ecological catastrophe to warn and mobilise readers

Answer

Stories set exclusively in wilderness areas

Answer

A specific poetic verse form used in nature writing

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The celebration of untouched, pristine landscapes

Question 9

Which term does Garrard use for ecocritical writing concerned with human habitation and belonging in a specific place, as distinct from 'wilderness'?

Accepted Answer

Dwelling

Answer

Exile

Answer

Pastoral

Answer

Apocalypse

Question 10

Cronon's critique specifically challenges the framing, associated with the U.S. Wilderness Act (1964), that wilderness is land:

Accepted Answer

'Untrammeled by man,' a framing Cronon argues erases indigenous histories of habitation and land management

Answer

That has always been owned by the federal government

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That is entirely unsuitable for any recreational use

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That must be actively farmed to remain healthy

Question 11

Carolyn Merchant's The Death of Nature (1980) argues that the Scientific Revolution:

Accepted Answer

Replaced an organic, living conception of nature with a mechanistic one, providing an intellectual justification for exploiting the natural world

Answer

Had no effect on Western attitudes toward the natural world

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Restored an ancient mechanistic view that had existed since antiquity

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Was primarily concerned with improving agricultural yields

Question 12

Joseph Meeker's The Comedy of Survival (1974) proposes that, ecologically:

Accepted Answer

The comic mode — adaptability and accommodation — is a more ecologically viable model of behaviour than the tragic mode's often self-destructive heroism

Answer

The tragic mode is the superior model for ecological survival

Answer

Comedy and tragedy are ecologically identical in their implications

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Literary genre has no bearing on ecological thought

Question 13

Susan Griffin's Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her (1978), a foundational early ecofeminist text, is notable for:

Accepted Answer

Its poetic, fragmented style juxtaposing patriarchal scientific/philosophical descriptions of nature and women against a lyrical, reclaiming voice

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Its purely statistical, data-driven argument

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Arguing that women have no special relationship to environmental concerns

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Its exclusive focus on legal policy reform

Question 14

Material ecocriticism, associated with Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann, proposes that:

Accepted Answer

Matter itself possesses agency and can be read as having its own 'stories' or narrativity, independent of human narration

Answer

Only human language can carry narrative meaning; matter is inert and story-less

Answer

Ecocriticism should abandon attention to physical objects entirely

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Material ecocriticism is identical to Deep Ecology

Question 15

Bruno Latour's We Have Never Been Modern argues that modernity:

Accepted Answer

Has always produced hybrid entities combining natural and cultural/technological elements, even while officially insisting on their separation

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Has successfully kept 'nature' and 'culture' in entirely separate domains

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Never actually occurred as a historical period

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Is concerned solely with literary genre theory

Question 16

The term 'Anthropocene', proposed by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen around 2000, refers to:

Accepted Answer

A proposed geological epoch defined by the significant impact of human activity on Earth's geology and ecosystems

Answer

A literary genre depicting human-animal relationships

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A specific 19th-century school of nature poetry

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The scientific study of ancient human fossils

Ecocriticism — UGC NET MCQs

Ecocriticism — UGC NET MCQs

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