How would you define his approach to the field, and what aspects of his approach do you like or dislike?
For example, I really like the way he pairs readings of 'canonical' texts like Wordsworth and Thoreau with unconventional texts, like events. I also like the way he frames ecocriticism's fraught relationship with science, and his gloss of the issues we raised about language on the day we read Gary Snyder.
Also, I like his definition of ecocriticism as a way of reading the world, and I like the organization of the book in "tropes" rather than chronology, or case studies, or other ways of organizing books.
What did you make of his unique organization?
Is this a good introduction to the field, or are you left wondering what he's missing?
Ecocriticism is so far my favorite book of this class. I am excited about the ways in which connections are made to a lot of literature and authors that I have personally read and studied in my time at UAS. Having such a heavy ability to relate really encourages my trust, understanding, and belief in the author and what it is he has to say. I feel strongly about many of the topics of conflict addressed in this book and agree furthermore with Garrards opinions of them. His genealogy of the introduction of philosophical reasoning verses ‘mechanistic’ reasoning gives is a nice clear image of how the Romanticism era affected the way that we look at nature during a time of pro-agricultural development – Romanticism brought us back to the Sublime. Recognizing the Sublime as a trope – and having a trope be defined as something that consists of seemingly ignorant paranoia ie. not all nature is of God….we see the crystal clear stream VS the toxic sludge bog and the critic of the toxic sludge puffs away on a cigarette, leads me to my question of the Sublime and how it contributes to the danger of labeling Nature as the Other. If the Sublime offers us a sense of overwhelming beauty capped with horror – something that we are separate from and therefore must be overtaken by in the presence of, how exactly does that make nature seem more accessible to the man of the industrial world? Also, something else that we should not ignore is the danger of calling nature the ‘Other’, which is another form of which we as humans separate ourselves from nature. Therefore just as Gerrard says, is it better to re-evaluate it the ‘human’? As it is the human that has initiated the apocalyptic decline of nature, it is the human that has labeled nature as ‘other’, it is the human that has caused the Sublime to seem masculine and that of a phenomenon that is miraculous in its occurrence suggesting that it is rare and thus further distancing us from nature.
ReplyDeleteSammy
ReplyDeleteSo we have constructed wilderness to be something that no longer contains humans, and there is a real problem with that. Then we have begun to treat the world as if it were coming to a tragic end, which should truly hit hard due to the fact that it is the year 2012 and according to the Mayans, we have roughly 3 months left. We are so dramatic.
Garrard criticizes the Sierra Club and states, “When the Sierra Club argues for more ‘wilderness’, they are in practice representing the interests of wealthy suburbanites rather than rural working people, and leisure industries rather than extractive or agricultural ones” (85), and then states that all we can hope for from the wilderness ethics is that we learn to enjoy our humanity, treat the natural world with equality and then tell a story about it (92). But how does that fix anything. Not that the apocalypse method is any better, but still as an ecocritic, what are we to do other than look at all of the ways in which nature and culture have been misrepresented next to each other. At the end of the Apocalypse chapter Garrard says, “Only if we imagine that the planet has a future, after all, l we are likely to take responsibility for it” (116). I am most definitely playing Devil’s advocate here, but at the same time I am just not sure what I am supposed to be doing right now besides learning about all of these other things that people who are more educated than me are doing. When I treat the world as an equal, does that mean that I cannot elevate myself, and think of myself as major contributor to the demise, could that lead to complacency? I am fairly convinced of Garrards claim to go out and then come back with a story tell, but I still don’t know how exactly I define what it is that I am going out into, and maybe that’s not important, maybe just the action of going out is important?
What does responsibility mean, how do I take responsibility for something that is so much bigger than me, is reading Garrard it? Is recycling it? Is taking people who make 6 figures a year on hiking trips it? I have no idea. Is responsibility the trope that needs to exist in literature that will help people understand? If wilderness, and apocalypse are not doing their job in evoking compassion and responsibility for this planet, what will?
The premise of this book is to analyze a different trope in each chapter, words and terms that carry deeper subtexts than we may realize. Greg Garrard starts with the origins of the word "pollution" and goes on to explain why a word for "sinful act" would be used to describe human filth and waste. Garrard asks the reader to think about why this association would be effective and with who. In this same chapter, I become aware of my own ideas and perceptions of pollution and how much they contrast with the definition provided by the book. Many other people who consider themselves environmentalists read scientific results on pollution bend them out of proportion due to the negative connotations they associate with the word.
ReplyDeletePollution is only one of the words pulled from the library of rhetoric that Garrard begins to reveal. The definition, use and existence of wilderness is brought up in many of my courses and is significant to any relationship with nature. The main point I took from this chapter was that we've separated ourselves from our idea of a pristine natural environment. If a wilderness is a place devoid of humans, then don't we ruin it by going there? Since this is not the stance of many reserves, who is allowed and able to go and what are the accepted ways of interacting with the environment? How do we balance conservation with human inhabitance? I thought it was interesting that the author chose to end the chapter with Gary Snyder and how he accomplishes a more accurate portrayal through poetry than any of the other writers.
I really like this book so far especially Apocalypse chapter. As this book mentions, Rachel Carson's way of writing apocalyptic story in Silent spring really persuasive and awakened many readers and it changed the whole world. Whether readers are religious person or not, Apocalypse story give them great fear and desire to take action to prevent that will happen in the future, therefore many writers, news reporters, and even hollywood movie makers use Apocalypse to attract audiences and also to send a strong message to the world. However today, as Garrard mentions, using apocalyptic stories becomes very popular in many field and I feel like we are getting used to it. Almost all documentary film and books about global warming and climate change use apocaliptic narration but is it strong and persuasive as Rachel Carsons? Or is there other way of persuasive people to care about nature??
ReplyDeleteI love the way Greg Garrard completely deconstructs our social constructs towards how we deal with our relationship to nature. I'm always excited to read something that challenges my preconceptions and exposes my unconscious prejudices, and this book is great for that. It hits all of the key tropes in Western nature consciousness and, by devoting a whole chapter to each one, unmercifully dismantles each of them and exposes them as actually harmful rather than helpful.
ReplyDeleteThere is the problem, which we talked about on Tuesday, of "what are we left with?" By deconstructing nature tropes I don't think that Garrard is veering towards nihilism but is opening our mind to the real complexity of our relationship with nature. These tropes portray our man/nature relationship in deceptively simple terms. Garrard does us a favor by replacing the kaleidoscope vision with a wide-angle lens.
Viewed with the right frame of mind, this removal of the wilderness and apocalyptic tropes does not create a tendency of apathy towards our environment but encourages a more intimate and realistic knowledge of the way the world works. It also removes the blame from sitting squarely on the shoulders of the individual and places it with the social and cultural phenomenon that shape our views and actions. I think this deconstruction is freeing as well as a way to place ourselves within nature rather than without.