"Birding, Fiction, and Margaret Atwood's Cultivation of Ecological Awareness" Christian Environmentalism and Human Responsibility in the 21st Century, Routledge, USA, 2023
This book chapter discusses an early short story (“The Resplendent Quetzal,” Dancing Girls,1977) and a recent graphic novel series (Angel Catbird, 2016-17) to demonstrate how Atwood’s focus on birding cultivates an ecological awareness that moves beyond literary representations to punctuate her activism and to advocate for a biocentric, sacramental understanding of creation—rather than an anthropocentric one. In terms of conservation, of particular note is Atwood’s emphasis on intergenerational collective action and youth as sources of possibility, change, and hope for the future.
