Paper Details

Contemporary ecological crises have exposed a profound crisis of perception through which the Earth has become increasingly invisible within the epistemological framework of modernity. While ecocritical scholarship has broadly analyzed literary representations of climate change and environmental ethics, comparatively little attention has been given to the phenomenological conditions that determine how the planet is disclosed or concealed in humanity’s experience. Addressing this gap, this research paper introduces Terraphany as an authentic eco-phenomenological concept denoting the time in which the Earth manifests itself as a living and irreducible presence that exceeds its reduction of commodity or technological object. The study contends that Richard Powers’ The Overstory functions as a phenomenological intervention that transforms the reader’s mode of ecological perception Through its polyphonic narrative structure and decentring of human exceptionalism, the novel facilitates a process of Terraphany, enabling us to encounter the Earth as a dynamic community of interdependent life rather than only a background to history of humanity. This research paper argues that this phenomenological disclosure holds the ethical foundation for reimagining ecological responsibility in the Anthropocene epoch. By introducing Terraphany as a distinct conceptual framework, the study contributes an original perceptive to eco-phenomenology while offering a new interpretive paradigm for understanding Richard Powers’ climate fiction.

Terraphany, Eco-phenomenology, Anthropocene, Ecocriticism, Phenomenological Disclosure