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Speaking a Word for Nature: Representations of Nature and Culture in Four Genres of American Environmental Writing

ZUELKE, KARL WILLIAM
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054746030

Abstract Details

2003, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature.
Speaking a Word for Nature is an ecocritical analysis of four works of contemporary American literature, representative of four different genres: Peter Matthiessen’s At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge, David Quammen’s The Song of the Dodo, and Richard Powers’s The Gold Bug Variations. The texts foreground nature and explore humankind’s relationship with nature. Each seeks to reconcile or deconstruct the perceived opposition of nature and culture in order to re-imagine humankind in relation to nature. These texts also have a political component in common. They reconceive nature in an effort to modify human behavior toward it, so that the welfare of the natural world, and the welfare of disempowered human groups – women and Native Americans in particular, who have historically been aligned with nature – may be taken more into account in everyday human affairs. In service to a combined ecocritical and formalist inquiry, the dissertation also draws upon ecofeminist theory and the philosophy of science. The analysis of At Play in the Fields of the Lord demonstrates how the main character, Lewis Moon, acts upon essentialist conceptions of Native Americans, which eventually brings about the destruction of the indigenous tribe who adopts him. Refuge refers to essentialist conceptions of women and nature, but uses them in a rhetorical strategy that simultaneously reintegrates natural and human realms and challenges patriarchal notions that commodify nature. The Song of the Dodo examines the role of text in the translation of science to a popular audience. The Gold Bug Variations demonstrates how natural and cultural systems, at their fundamental levels, are variations on a universal, unifying pattern. While these works are products of different genres, the common ground from which they arise tends to blur their differences. The discursive, non-fiction texts establish themselves as self-defining works of art, and the fictional texts develop formal correspondences with the natural world. Taken together, they form a coherent commentary on the corrosive effect of human society’s treatment of the natural world, and they suggest new ways of conceiving nature that may enhance the value that human societies place on it.
Dr.Tom LeClair (Advisor)
205 p.
Literature, General
nature and literature; Peter Matthiessen; Terry Tempest Williams; David Quammen; Richard Powers

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • ZUELKE, K. W. (2003). Speaking a Word for Nature: Representations of Nature and Culture in Four Genres of American Environmental Writing [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054746030

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • ZUELKE, KARL. Speaking a Word for Nature: Representations of Nature and Culture in Four Genres of American Environmental Writing. 2003. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054746030.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • ZUELKE, KARL. "Speaking a Word for Nature: Representations of Nature and Culture in Four Genres of American Environmental Writing." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054746030

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1054746030
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© 2003, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12