Reading Nature and Cultures: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Witi Ihimaera's »The Whale Rider« and Its Contexts - Paperback

by Julia Sander (Editor), Anke Vogel (Editor), Wolfgang Jäger (Editor)

The globally acclaimed novel The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera connects with today's pressing issues: decolonization, environmental protection, cultural resilience. The contributors to this volume offer readers intercultural and interdisciplinary perspectives on this work through accessible scholarly and personal analyses. They show how literature can bridge nature and cultures, myth and reality, Indigenous stories and international audiences. Readers gain new insights into Māori literature and its global contexts - making this a compelling read for scholars and curious minds alike.

Author Biography

Julia Sander (Dr.) is Professor of contemporary German literature specializing in reading and literature education at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany. Her fields of research are children's and young adult media and their didactics, critical literacy, and reading promotion in all-day schools.

Anke Vogel (Dr.) is a research and teaching associate in the Book Studies Department at the Gutenberg Institute for World Literature and Written Media at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany. Her research and teaching interests include book market research, especially digital transformation, communication, and sustainability, as well as reading and readers research and children's and young adult book studies.

Wolfgang Jäger is a teacher at a secondary school in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His fields of research are children and young adult media and their didactics, democracy education, and digitization in education.