ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts present in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the convergence between sustainability issues, consumption practice and ideas of the good life in both global north and south, by drawing on the expertise from an interdisciplinary pool of contributors from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Catalonia/Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. There are two ecocritical contributions in this chapter: Lawrence Buell, in, argues that the fruits of a thriving literary and ethical imagination spanning the past two centuries are crucial to diagnosing and solving the challenges of sustainability and the good life. In the chapter, stepping beyond the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy to also encompass the humanities and social sciences, so as to explore ways in which less, qualitatively different, consumption can be a path to both sustainability and the good life.
