Fictions of Ecoterror

Since the emergence of radical environmentalism in the United States and its representation in popular fiction, two major ruptures in the cultural imaginary can be identified: on the one hand shaped by 9/11, and on the other by the intensifying climate crisis. Sarah Marek analyzes this development in US American literature and film from 1975 to 2023. Drawing on a range of texts from The Monkey Wrench Gang to How to Blow Up a Pipeline, she demonstrates how fictional portrayals of eco-activists oscillate between reaffirming dominant understandings of environmentalism as »ecoterrorism« and critically intervening in prevailing terrorism discourses that reassess radical activism.