Such research—which explores the na

Such research—which explores the narrative engagement of actual readers and viewers—has been of central importance to my arguments throughout this book. My own contribution has been solely theoretical, as is the case for many cognitive narratologists and film scholars. I believe, however, that the cognitive ecocritical investigation of environmental narratives would greatly profit from empirical studies that are conducted in addition to—and ideally in conjunction with—such theoretical work. Partners for such investigations might be found in the neighboring field of environmental communication or among psychologists and social science scholars with an interest in environmental and ecological issues. They would require considerable funding to pursue, and such funding is not always easy to secure for interdisciplinary projects. And, of course, they would have to wrestle with the inevitable methodological problems involved in all suchendeavors.8 But in my opinion they are not only worth pursuing but in fact urgently needed in a research field that is so centrally concerned with the question of how environmental narratives interact with their human producers and consumers and with the larger world in which they exist. Empirical research might help answer such questions and also give us a better understanding of the mediating role of individual and cultural differences. In recent years, the pressing concerns around global ecological issues such as climate change have led researchers outside the environmental humanities to increasingly turn their attention to environmental narratives. There is a growing understanding that narratives are of central importance not only to science communication (Olson 2015) but to our relationships with all other humans and nonhumans as well as the larger environment. I hope that this will open up new possibilities for interdisciplinary cooperation and transdisciplinary convergence, and that we will explore further, in both the theoretical and the empirical realm, what environmental narratives of all kinds and in all kinds of media might contribute to our understanding of the world around us and our place in it.