Reynolds uses metaphors from postmodern geography, such as the frontier, to inform our understanding of space as transparent. She believes that technology encourages time-space compression and masks the politics of space. According to Reynolds, there is a need to address the imbalance of power that is apparent in the spaces where writing takes place. In other words, the illusions of overcoming spatial barriers and having more time camouflage the material conditions of writing and writing instructors. She emphasizes that the location, the environment, and the surroundings affect the product (the writing).
Nedra Reynolds
Reynolds’ touches upon ideas that we, as writing teachers, experience everyday without giving it much thought. For example, when I finish teaching on Monday and Wednesday and after a very long day that ends at 9 pm, I go home to rest and I make the “fatal” mistake of checking my email before going to bed. I notice emails from students. Some had to miss the class and need to know what they missed; others need more instructions on writing their essays, and a third group needs a quick reply to their questions. As any other teacher, I feel the need to respond. With each e-mail I read, there is a sense of urgency, a feeling that I need to respond as soon as possible. You won’t believe this, but I get emails from students 20 minutes before class asking me questions about their homework that is due in 20 minutes! My students don’t know about my material conditions and with the help of technology, teachers are reachable and accessible 24 hours a day. The capitalist idea, as Reynolds describes it, that “workers can be productive from “anywhere” at “any time” (31), puts us at the students’ disposal.
However, viewing space as transparent allowed me to travel in my place piece to three places: my father’s garden in Jordan, My grandfather’s hometown in Palestine, and my balcony in Athens, Ohio. With the aid of the visuals and technology, my audience is capable of experiencing these places with me.
I couldn’t compose on the blog immediately. I had to do it on a word document and then copy and paste it to the blog. I like to see a page in front of me with its borders and margins. It gives me great satisfaction to fill the boundaries of space with words rather than blogging directly, filling in a space without borders, without a sense of an end. This “spatial disorientation,” as Bolter calls it, is one of the challenges of electronic writing, but I relate it specifically to writing on the blog (Reynolds 15).
Reading Reynolds’ piece raised some questions for me about the importance of embracing spatial metaphors in our discipline. Are they restrictive or productive? Do we really need them? Is it a way to complicate special theories in composition studies? If so, does that indicate that our discipline is not complicated enough?
Twenty years ago, my parents had to decide whether to buy an elegant modern house in a crowded area in the capital of Jordan, Amman, or a moderate house away from the pollution and the noise of the city on top of a hill with front and back gardens. Because both my parents are nature lovers and grew up in houses that had gardens and clean air, they chose the latter. For many Jordanians, having a garden in a desert-like country is a privilege that many long for.
Wadi Rum: Experience The Desert Life in Jordan
Although rich with tourist attractions, Jordan lacks water resources and green areas. When spring comes, Jordanians invade parks looking for a green spot and the shadow of a tree to have their picnics. My parents wanted to stay in the comfort of their home, enjoying their parcel of nature.
From day one, Dad took care of the front garden. I grew up watching him bond with it. I touched its petunias and pansies, and smelled the roses, and enjoyed Dad’s company in that tiny space. It gives him great satisfaction to dig in its soil, and plant the seeds, waiting endlessly for them to blossom. He taught me how to prepare the soil to receive the flowers, how gently to overturn the soil, and how deep to dig the bed for the new seeds. Every flower in Dad’s garden has a story that we all know since he doesn’t spare us the details. He tells us how his pansies are special because they reseed themselves and come back the next year stronger than before. They prosper under partial sun and sometimes show their faces during the winter.
Because I have been in the US for a couple of years now, I can no longer see the garden; however, I can feel my dad’s excitement and enthusiasm whenever it’s time to redecorate it. When we talk on Skype, my dad fills me in on his garden's progress. He takes the laptop to his garden, narrates the story of each flower, and explains to me the importance of careful planning and commitment:
“It takes time for things to mature in nature. It takes patience.”
“You see, dear, the long flowers are against the back wall and the little ones are at the front. Here, they will get the most sun because they will not be over shadowed."
The harmony of his voice with the music of his garden travels across continents, wireless, effortless, to my living room in Athens, Ohio. Our virtual places merge.
Dad’s garden is so dear to my heart because it reminds me of the wonderful memories we had. It’s the ultimate manifestation of home, happiness, and family. My sister and I planted seeds every winter. Season after season, we smelled the daffodils and danced with the butterflies in the garden. These tiny dwellers of the natural world with their rainbow wings captured our imagination forever. We sketched the shapes of the garden’s almost heart-shaped pansies and the overlapping petals in nature-like colors, then compared our drawings to the original flowers.
We were not the only ones to enjoy the garden. My mother put her favorite fountain in the middle of that tiny garden. Click on the icon below to listen to the water fountain
T h e
m o v i n g
w a t e r
falling from
t h e
t o p
t o
t h e
b o t t o m
of the three tiers makes a musical sound that attracts bees, birds, and butterflies. The fountain is strategically placed at the back of the garden where it doesn’t interfere with the sun’s rays shining on the flowers. Because the garden is small you can hear the melodious tinkling of the water no matter where you stand. The fountain is so appealing that it invites visitors, including cats, that perch and drink from it. The birds are drawn to it as well and use it as a multi-function station to bathe, to observe, and to drink from.
Weeds also appear in the garden. Ironically, the person who cares deeply about his mint, trees, and daffodils, also loves the weeds. When we have visitors, my dad takes them to the garden and shows them around. They all ask about the weeds that Dad has allowed to grow.
“Why don’t you take those ugly weeds out?” my uncle says.
“Oh, I will. Tomorrow,” Dad says with uneasiness.
Tomorrow comes and my father doesn’t take them out. He doesn’t believe in killing these manifestations of persistence and tenacity. As he understands nature, every soul deserves a fair chance in this garden. These wind-blown plants have earned their places in his space.
In the garden in the backyard, there are trees of apples, peaches, pears, andlemons. When the fruits begin to ripen, my parents will call us all to share. My parents don’t wash the fruits they collect from the trees. It is their belief that when we wash the fruits before we take a bite, we are contaminating it with water. They take the sweet citrus directly from the tree and put it to their mouths. They taste the sweat, the dust. They trust the trees.
Summer time comes and the fruits are all ripe and delicious. Passersby can’t resist the fruits of my father’s work. Some climb the fence to get that last apple at the top of the tree, others will enter our garden and snap up a peach. Once I noticed a man climbing the apple tree and I hurried to stop him. I was mad! My dad had worked so hard on this and when the time had come for him to enjoy the taste of his hard work, I caught someone stealing it. Dad quieted me with:
“It’s a gift from me to him. Share with the people who have no gardens. There will always be more."
In my grandparents' garden from my mother’s side grew Iraqi jasmine and Palestinian basil that now also have a special place in my father's garden. In the Middle East, the Japanese honeysuckle is called Iraqi Jasmine because historically it was planted in Baghdad, Iraq, and people from all neighboring courtiers travelled to Baghdad to get it and plant in their gardens. My grandfather brought these plants with him from their homeland in Ramallah in Palestine, where he “owns” a mountain. This mountain, as the residents there describe it, is covered with olive trees and basil fields.
Palestinians leaving their homes (1948)
In 1948, my grandfather had to abandon his land and seek refuge in Jordan, he took a basil plant and a jasmine with him. He crossed the borders with them, and planted them in his backyard. They suffered on the way to Jordan, but survived the hard conditions. In my grandparents’ house in Zarqa, Jordan, stories were told about the olive trees, the smell of fresh air, the unexplored caves of Ramallah, the sun set view from the hilltops of Jerusalem, and the dream that every Palestinian has–the dream of return. My grandparents would sit up late outside in their backyard, not talking but listening to the land, to the trees, to the basil talking to them. When my mom brought the Jasmine and the basil from my grandparents’ back yard, my father embraced the tradition and gave them a place of honor in his special garden.
The Palestinian basil The Iraqi jasmine
Mother waits for jasmine to blossom every season because, according to the myth, two lovers who lived apart could only see each other when the jasmine bloomed, which made it a symbol of love and fidelity. My mother and her jasmine are true manifestations of this love affair. Mom showed my sister and I how to remove a flower from the vine and pull the stem and suck the honey on the inside tubes. We tasted the sweet, honey-like juice of the Iraqi Jasmine flower. The infusion of the Palestinian soil, the Iraqi tradition, with our familial love made the juice sweeter than honey.
Also seeking to reconnect with his hometown, Scott Russell Sanders in “After The Flood” revisits his place, noticing a dam that was built in his native town and the river that was the source of life in that area is dead. Upon his arrival and the realization of the distortion that took place, Sanders reflects on his mild loss and reminisces the suffering of others, such as refugees around the world who are “set in motion by hunger or tyranny or war” (13). My mother may not have experienced this suffering firsthand, but the irretrievability of her father’s land and the injustice and the suffering of her people contributed to her bond with nature and shaped her understanding of the native land and its importance. It has been over forty years since she last visited Ramallah; however, her love has increased each and every day.
The symbol of Palestinian resistance: the woman holds on to the tree to resist the coming of the Israeli soldier
Most Palestinian refugees in Jordan visit their homeland in Palestine at least once a year except for my mother. She refuses to go:
“It is too much to handle. I can’t witness the killing of my people and the destruction of their homes,” Mom explained.
Israeli soldiers demolishing Palestinian houses
When her friends come back from Palestine, my mother asks about her family and the land. Most of the time, it is bad news. Another member of her family has been killed and more of her land has been occupied. She leaves the room, goes to the garden, and waters her father’s transplanted jasmine and basil, and listens closely. Unlike most mothers who sing, my mother instead recites poetry in Arabic about the land, especially Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry, while making her early morning Turkish coffee:
Put it on record./ I am an Arab/ And the number of my card is fifty thousand/ I have eight children/ And the ninth is due after summer./ What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record./ I am an Arab./ I am a name without a title,/ Patient in a country where everything/ Lives in a whirlpool of anger./ My roots/ Took hold before the birth of time/ Before the burgeoning of the ages,/ Before cypress and olive trees,/ Before the proliferation of weeds./ My father is from the family of the plough/ Not from highborn nobles./ And my grandfather was a peasant/ Without line or genealogy./ My house is a watchman's hut/ Made of sticks and reeds./ Does my status satisfy you?/ I am a name without a surname.
Put it on record./ I am an Arab./ You stole my forefathers' vineyards/ And land I used to till,/ I and all my children,/ And you left us and all my grandchildren/ Nothing but these rocks./ Will your government be taking them too/ As is being said?
So!/ Put it on record at the top of page one:/ I don't hate people,/ I trespass on no one's property./ And yet, if I were to become hungry/ I shall eat the flesh of my usurper./ Beware, beware of my hunger/ And of my anger! (translated version)
When she finishes reciting Darwish’s “Identity Card,” she joins Suheir Hammad with a powerful voice:
I hear the words of Suheir Hammad and Darwish interwoven with my mother’s voice in our living room. My mother, like poets, resists the occupation in her thoughts, in her mind, with words and with her plants. But they need more than her words.
My dad, like many Jordanians, think of the rain as a true blessing since it rarely rains in Jordan. He loves the rain when it’s gentle and nourishing to his garden, but there is a kind of rain that my dad dreads. When the wind drives the rain with such force, it can cause his flowers to suffer. He frets. He stands in front of the window watching protectively, silently praying for the damage to stop and for his flowers to stay strong. Although my Dad knows that his tiny pansies and petunias are generally hardy plants that survive freezing and rough conditions, he worries about them. When their petals fight back, he smiles. When the stem bends, and rises again victoriously, that reassures him. When the rain reaches the roots of the Palestinian basil and Iraqi Jasmine it respects the old hearty nature of these two plants. My father’s face glows with admiration when his garden conquers the rain. When the ordeal is over, he takes me outside to look over his flowers, to delicately remove any debris, and to return order to his place. Tending to the flowers, he encourages me to close my eyes and smell the aroma left behind by the rain. At that point, I’m afraid to answer that I can’t smell anything but the wet soil, but I agree with him anyway. There is a secret language between my Dad and his garden. He recognizes the scent of the hills of Ramallah and the voices of the ancestors narrating the untold stories. I shouldn’t disrupt this harmony.
When my parents visited me last summer in Athens, they fell in love with two sites: the bike path and the farmers' market. Every morning they woke up at six am and walked on the bike path, breathing in the fresh air, and enjoying the ducks bathing in the river. For most Jordanians, scenes of watery sites, like falls, rivers, creeks, and green areas are a true pleasure since Jordan consists mostly of desert plateau, especially in the east, and the weather is exclusively dry and sunny from mid April to October. My parents described the bike path and Athens’ surreal landscape as “heaven on earth.”
My parents resting from their bike path adventure
In the farmers’ market, my parents talked to the farmers, asked them about their plants and flowers. They wanted to buy me everything, urging me to start my own garden on my balcony.
The Farmers' market in Athens
“Restore your bond with the Earth. You don’t know what you are missing,” Mom said.
I resisted. I knew how much time and effort taking care of a garden requires and I didn’t have that time nor the energy to do it. Regardless of my objection, they bought me some cucumber and tomato seeds, soil, and planting pots. I left them for months on my balcony unattended.
Spring in Athens
As the Spring rains come to Athens, I find myself gazing out the window of my balcony. In my mind, I flashback to our garden and wonder if the same rain will touch the flowers. Will it be tender on the flowers or will it be hard on them? What are my parents doing now? Is Dad staring from his window and Mom making her Turkish coffee? How does the soil smell?
Sanders resorts to his memory to construct the old images of the town and return to his childhood. Like Sanders, I envision my familiar sanctuary. I close my eyes and listen to my father’s breath mixed with the sound of his garden that he nurtures closely. My soul escapes to his garden. I long to watch over his flowers with him, to view the rain and anticipate the damage it could cause. I long for the smell of the scented mountain of Ramallah, the music of my mother’s fountain and poetry, the old stories, the smell of Turkish coffee in the morning, and the slice of tomato I share with my family.
“The pain comes not from returning home but from longing to return”
--Scott Russell Sanders
The crack of the thunder in Athens brings me back and the smell fades away. I open my eyes and look for the familiar. A packet of tomato seeds covered with dust catches my eyes. I pause. They cry out to me through my parents’ voice. I surrender to the voices. Now, I think, I’m ready for a garden of my own.
Influenced by today’s readings, I define ecocomposition as a model concerned with the dynamic relationship between writing and the world (natural, imagined, constructed, etc.). It recognizes the importance of the non-human world, emphasizes the domino effect relationship that writers have with ecology, and advances awareness and interaction with natural systems.
Cooper emphasizes the importance of contextualizing the writing process not only in its immediate context, but also in “socially constituted systems” with which the writer is constantly engaged (Ecology 367). The ecological model, as Cooper describes it, encompasses various systems that constitute a web. She compares the product model and the process model that utilize ecology as its main component. The product model emphasizes the finished work while the process model depicts writers engaged in the writing process, affecting their situations and environments and being affected by their environments and the systems they belong to. According to Cooper, the ecological model provides writers with a “real audience” rather than a general, imagined audience. Although she presents a valid argument, I find the concept of “real audience” problematic, since no matter what audience the teacher asks her students to imagine they are writing to, students will write to the teacher. Even while peer-reviewing each other’s essays, students are aware of the fact that the teacher will collect and grade their peer-review sheets. Although the collaboration that takes place in the classroom may seem to address the real audience of peers, the groups or the pairs are producing work to be evaluated by the teacher. Hence, they are writing to the “imagined audience.”
Stretching the boundaries of our discipline to include almost “everything” works both ways. Although this holistic vision makes our discipline more inclusive and more involved in different conversations, that vision jeopardizes the discipline’s existence and questions its validity since including everything in one field may blur the boundaries between disciplines. However, Owens sees this ambiguity as an advantage because such a setting “offers a logical working space for the promotion of sustainable pedagogies” (29).
I find it interesting how the composition class can go beyond the boundaries of its physical place to reach the local community. This localization demands that the writer shapes/ reshapes the writing based on the needs of the community. Students become more involved in their communities when they write about and explore issues related to their communities rather than viewing the university as an institution isolated from the surrounding community. Annie Merrill Ingran believes that the collaboration between the university and the community brings about benefits to both parties: the students witness the importance of writing as a means of affecting the community and the community benefits from the students’ effort to improve the community (Weisser &Dobrin 7). Also, by practicing the ecological model, we expose our students to larger themes than writing per se, such as social justice, and build an appreciation of diversity (Weisser& Dobrin 6).
When you have a diverse class (students from different cultures and backgrounds) their understanding of the environment varies depending on the culture each student belongs to. All cultures do not look at and treat the environment the same way. For example, from my experience here, I’ve noticed that my students get more irritated and annoyed when we watch a YouTube video about animal abuse than if we watch a video about children starving in Africa. Since I come from a culture that values humans more than animals, their reaction to the two videos is perplexing to me. The real challenge in implementing an ecological model is to encourage students to surface different cultural priorities rather than hide such cultural trends/beliefs that don’t conform to the priorities of the mainstream (the dominant culture). Here, Drew’s perception of the student writer as a traveler might be a good way to understand diversity and difference in a multicultural setting. Drew believes that “understanding students as traveling between and dwelling in multiple locations whose discursive pedagogies help to construct them as writers is an important component of what ecocomposition might engender” (62). Drew touches upon the metaphor of the classroom as a “contact zone,” a place where ideologies “clash and grapple with each other.”
“Life in the contact zone is by definition dynamic, heterogeneous, and volatile. Bewilderment and suffering as well as revelation and exhilaration are experienced by everyone, teacher and students, at different moments. No one is excluded, no one is safe.”
--Mary Louise Pratt
I think that in order to better understand the politics of the classroom space, the notion of the “contact zone” should be part of this discussion. Viewing the classroom as a “contact zone” or as a “frontier” highlights the competing ideologies of the students and the teacher that underpin historical, political, and cultural struggles.
Schneider’s definition of “fair” food is problematic since I believe that in order to eat fair food, you should guarantee that all people have access to clean, good food. The fact that not everyone has that access reinforces the idea that the slow food movement is an elitist movement. It seems that as long as there is social injustice, there is no such thing as “fair” food. I agree that we all should eat good, clean, and fair food, but can a farmer or a waiter at a restaurant afford to eat the food they produce or serve? Is having access to clean, good food a privilege or a right? According to Schneider, “fair” means that it’s produced in a way that is socially just. In other words, the food system disproportionately marginalizes poor people because acceptable alternatives aren't available to them.
Another point that I find troublesome is while Schneider identifies the problem, he does not offer adequate suggestions to the current dilemma of the industrialized food system. In Food, Inc, we see a Hispanic-American family that can’t afford vegetables and fruits, and therefore choose to eat McDonald’s for dinner over and over again. My question to Stephen Schneider is: how do you fix the problems associated with the industrialized food system? If buying raw food from the supermarket and cooking it at home is the answer, how can a poor family afford to buy fresh ingredients to fix themselves a decent meal?
I question what we call the slow food movement because other cultures have been practicing it for a long time, and it has been part of their system and cultural heritage. The idea of enjoying the food you eat is common in many cultures. For example, in the Japanese culture, tea should be served in a tea ceremony within a specific ritual by a geisha. It is obvious from the video how much tranquility and patience the geisha shows in preparing tea and serving it to her guests.
The following caption appears directly below the video: “The tea ceremony is a way of life based on the act of serving tea with a pure heart. It has its roots in Zen philosophy and is driven by the four ideas of Wa, Kei, Sei, Jaku (Harmony, Respect, Purity, Tranquility). It strives to create a state of mind that brings peace to its participants”
Also, I know that many cultures, such as the Syrian culture, follow similar practices of the slow food movement by encouraging the use of fresh ingredients, maintaining their clean, good food, and combating the harmful effects of globalization by discouraging westernized restaurants like McDonald’s from opening in their country. You rarely come across a western food chain because the Syrian government is aware of the health issues that might result from eating such food. The West blames Syria for not accepting westernized food chains since countries that are not open/ westernized are blamed for oppressing their people and keeping them blind to “progress.”
It is interesting to see how such food related practices can carry with them political and cultural issues. Syrians value taste, pleasure, and design in their food. Not only that, but they know how to make a healthy meal at minimum cost. For example, Syrians are the ones who invented “fattoush.” The true story behind it is that because the pita bread Syrians and Arabs in general use for most of their meals might get hard after a couple of days, Syrians decided to add it to the Arabic salad and call the new dish “fattoush.” By doing so, they don’t have to throw away the pita bread, but instead repurpose it.
These are just a few examples of how other cultures have been employing the practices of the slow food movement before it was identified by Carlo Petrini in the 1970s.
In “A Fable for Tomorrow,” Rachel Carson shows great skill in tackling an environmental theme using a literary genre. Her piece highlights the tension that underlies most of the readings for this week: the story of human progress and growth juxtaposed with the deadly results which this progress might cause to the environment and the human race. Through an apocalyptic narrative, she takes on the chemical industry and raises important questions about the future of the human race and the biodiversity of the planet. However, her gloomy narrative does not lack hope. Not only does she portray the situation as one that can be fixed, but she proposes ways to overcome the problem of insect infestation without using chemicals. She writes, “the problem could have been solved easily by a slight change in agricultural practice—a shift to a variety of corn with deep-set ears not accessible to the birds—but the farmers had been persuaded of the merits of killing by poison, and so they sent in the planes on their mission of death” (375). In her ecological vision, we are presented with possible alternatives and solutions to the problem.
Killingsworth and Palmer describe "A Fable for Tomorrow" as a "brief experiment in science fiction,” one that “invokes the specter of ‘evil science’ (embodied in popular culture as the mad scientists of comic books and the egghead aliens of science fiction movies).” In a sense, Killingsworth and Palmer suggest that Carson presents to the reader a narrative in which scientific progress and human mastery of the physical environment are unable to coexist without compromise and consciousness. Carson criticizes the anthropocentric approach that scientists adopt in their desire to control and improve nature, which leads to its “abuse.” This agenda backfires and brings about the destruction of “nature” per se and its elements. Obviously, Carson is against the scientific approach that locates the scientist-researcher above “nature” and assumes the superiority of science over any other discipline (as illustrated by the rhetorical model for environmental discourse in Herndl and Brown’s introduction on p.11). However, as Killingsworth and Palmer suggest, she “criticizes science while holding out hope for scientific solution” (30). I’m wondering how hard it was for her to become a nature writer after encompassing the science community for most of her career.
Carson urges the reader to think about the severity of the situation and to take action. By starting with “A Fable of Tomorrow,” Carson does not prepare her readers for what they are about to read. She shocks her readers! The use of an apocalyptic narrative that functions as a “shock tactic,” alarms her readers and make them feel uncomfortable to attract their attention. Although Carson’s warning prose is evident, she adopts a millennialist approach that does not view the end of the world as absolute. After all, there is an implication that human progress and the preservation of nature can go hand in hand.
Carson knew when to speak up about these issues that place her work among the most celebrated environmental discourses. Around the time of the book’s publication, the public was growing uneasy over science and the military in the Cold War era (K&P 22). This provided a good opportunity for starting a counterhegemony, a term Cooper uses to describe “a new common sense and with it a new culture and a new philosophy which will be rooted in the popular consciousness with the same solidity and imperative quality as traditional beliefs,” that helped set the stage for the environmental movement and questioned humanity's faith in technological and industrial progress (241). Although she identifies the “villains” as the people themselves (the users of DDT), science, technology, progress, and growth are not referred to as the enemies in her narrative. On the contrary, she writes, “It is not science per se that is to blame for the wrong doings of the pesticide industry, but a particular approach to science, a paradigm” (29). She argues for a “paradigm shift”—a holistic work-with-nature model. This holistic vision makes her “appeal to the readers simultaneously threatened and encouraged by scientific advances” (31).
Her ability to recognize the dangers of this technological progress and her appeal for a more responsible utilization of science provided a catalyst that affected not only her environment, but also the world of future generations. It was her expose that led to the ban of the use of DDT and opened the eyes of the public to the complexity of the balance between human needs and natural resources. I’m wondering what role gender played in Carson’s ultimate success. How did she recognize the urgency facing the nation and the world as it began to understand the limitations of natural resources? How do we read the apocalyptic narrative of Carson’s Silent Spring as relevant to a modern reader’s perspective?
Ursula Heise emphasizes the importance of being familiar with one’s local environment and reconnecting to local places in an attempt to defy the sense of alienation from nature generated by the modern way of living. The sense of estrangement from one's surrounding feeds this alienation and the ability to connect not only to the local environment, but to the ecological systems in which humans’ actions and decisions are both affected by the environment and affect the surroundings. Heise values the vision of global ecology that manifests itself in the “willingness to emerge physically and psychologically with the environment so as to communicate with it,” a notion that parallels Osden’s experience in “Vaster than Empires.” Osden became part of the environment he intended to study and finally understood the “underlying planetary connectedness” of the ecosystem (18).
This merging of the individual with the surroundings is echoed in bell hooks’ “Touching the Earth,” in which she suggests that the struggle of African Americans stems from their distance from the land. For hooks, restoring this relationship with the land facilities the African American self-recovery from the white man’s racism. Since there is a correlation between environmental matters and different forms of oppression, hooks believes that the farther African Americans are from nature, the more racism and oppression they face. The bond that African Americans and Native Americans have with the land goes beyond the boundaries of the physical to establish a kind of camaraderie with natural elements. hooks quotes Chief Seattle’s reflection on this bond:
“We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man— all belong to the same family” (105).
Unlike the Native Americans and African Americans, the white man (the representative of industrial capitalism) doesn’t understand the connection and the “infusion” that the natives have with the land. The surrounding natural elements are far from being the white man’s brothers and sisters, and his pragmatic perception of the land blinds him from appreciating the underlying planetary connectedness. In a sense, the white man’s sense of superiority makes him feel entitled to disrupt the ecological harmony.
hooks suggests that the African American internalization of white racist assumptions are caused by the estrangement from the land and their migration from the south, where the connection to the land is deep, to the industrialized north, where the white man controls the land and the mind/body split takes place. And because of this mind/body split that the African American experienced, their bodies were abused. She writes, “Living close to nature, black folks were able to cultivate a spirit of wonder and reverence for life. Growing food to sustain life and flowers to please the soul, they were able to make a connection with the earth that was ongoing and life-affirming” (105). This realization led her to start her own garden so as to feel connected to her ancestors who were self-sufficient, “work[ing] with the body to feed the body” (107). Renewing her connection to nature allows hooks to experience and preserve her racial identity and appreciate the historic relationship that her ancestors had with the land.
In Storyteller, Leslie Silko suggests that the white man and the natives perceive the land differently. The narrator describes the unsuccessful attempts of white men (the Gussucks) to penetrate the ice with their heavy machinery and their helplessness in confronting the spirit of Native Americans represented by the land and the people. Silko crafts a harmonious relationship between the land and the people, a relationship the white man doesn’t understand. Unlike the white man, the native is one with the land. Silko emphasizes the “boundaryless” relationship between all natural elements including the physical bodies of natives:
“The tundra rose up behind the rover but all boundaries between the river and hills and sky were lost in the destiny of the pale ice” (18).
And
“The wolf pelts were creamy colored and silver, almost white in some places, and when the old lady had walked across the tundra in the winter, she was invisible in the snow” (21).
Going along with Heise’s global vision that embraces a “complex formal framework able to accommodate social and cultural multiplicity,” (20) the white man and the native can live together in nature harmoniously if the white man abandons his industrial, colonial agenda and becomes, like the Native American, just another element of nature. Momaday reiterates the same theme in “A First American Views His Land.” In his racial memory, Momaday secures the land and celebrates the sacred trust he and his ancestors have with it. The relationship that Native Americans have with the land encompasses both the spiritual and the moral dimensions. For him, language and imagination derive from the land and remain faithful to it.
In “The Place of Place,” Buell comments on the fact that places are constantly changing by emphasizing that “the place where you were born is not the same place anymore” (68). This communicates the type of anxiety which is echoed in Sanders’ piece. Revisiting his hometown, Sanders notices that a dam was built in his native town and the river that was the source of life in that area is dead. His realization that his hometown is not the same anymore parallels what Buell labels as “the shock of awakened perception” (35). Upon his arrival and the realization of the distortion that took place in his hometown, Sanders resorts to his memory to construct the old images of the town while noticing the changes that took place. However, denial doesn’t last for long; reality checks in. He writes, “Memory was defeated by the blank gray water. No effort of mind could restore the river or drain the valley. I surrendered to what my eyes were telling me. Only then was I truly exiled” (11). This eventual failure of what Buell calls “memory-of-place retrieval” (83) and the “horrified realization that there is no protective environmental blanket” to shield his natural surroundings provoke in Sanders the reactions that Buell would predict: “outrage, acquiescence, impotence, denial, desperation” (36).
Sanders sense of loss goes beyond his individual experience; it expands to all dwellers of areas that have been or will be subject to change due to human agency and misjudgments which lead to the deterioration of the natural soundings. According to Buell, the nature of the toxic discourse has been modified by humans to produce a different version of it, a more modern one (45). This “modern nature” doesn’t meet the expectations of Sanders’ imagination and provokes feelings of loss and anger. It is true that Sanders’ return to his hometown was a painful experience; however, “his loss is mild compared to what others have lost” (13). It is here that the personal in Sanders’ piece becomes collective.
It is interesting to see how Buell’s formula of “toxicity” and “place” triggers Sanders’ environmental awareness. In a sense, the awareness of the place toxic discourse cannot be achieved without a strong bond with a place threatened by ecological threats. These threats are not necessarily toxic since according to Buell, “toxicity as such need not be the central issue; it could be any number of ecocultural concerns” (78). Sanders’ place-connectedness and its cultural significance function as a “galvanizing force” of environmental concern.
Buell stresses the idea that the environment is not separate from our physical existence as humans, but “part of our being” (55). This marriage between us, humans, and our surrounding is echoed in Hogan’s piece in which a thread from her skirt and her daughter’s hair are among the components of a bird’s nest that she found near her house. Hogan’s realization of “the remnants of [hers and her daughter’s] lives carried up the hill that way and turned into shelter” makes her feel one with nature (814). Although Hogan blurs the boundaries between human existence and nature, her sanctuary is a place in the wilderness “where a human hand has not been in everything” and “where a dream or life wouldn’t be invaded” (810). Ironically, she did what humans do best: she interfered. She took the nest out of its environment. This behavior might indicate the dominion of humans over the natural world; on the other hand, it might suggest that civilization and human interference are part of wilderness and continue to be felt within that place. What motivated her to save the mice and drown the ants? How do we justify our interference? Is that what Garrard and Buell refer to as “second nature”/ “modified nature/ “modern nature”? Hogan’s detailed description of her natural surroundings, her understanding of nature, and her acknowledgement of the cycle of life and death remind us that humans are part of the earth and therefore humans are not only affected, but also affect the ecosystem, a notion Garrard stresses all throughout his book.
In “Preserving Wilderness,” Berry chooses not to support the nature-culture dichotomy, but urges us to lead a life that cerebrate the harmonious relationship between nature and culture. In a sense, he rejects the dominance of humans over the natural world, calling for a “space” in which “the only thing we have to preserve nature with is culture; the only thing we have to preserve wildness with is domesticity” (522). Garrard’s definition of ecocriticism emphasizes “the complex negotiations of nature and culture,” and just like Berry, stresses the reliance of these two elements on each other for continuity and survival (4). But how is this reconciliation possible? Berry discusses the importance of the inseparability of the spiritual and the practical (524). By emphasizing the importance of changing the economy to preserve the wildernesses, Berry’s appeal corresponds to the consensus that “[a] healthy environment is necessary for a healthy economy” (Buell 34). After all, there is a depth of meaning in finding the interaction of the practical culture and the spiritual nature.
In his piece, Berry describes his places through a historical lens that unfolds the destruction of previous generations and communities and surfaces the suffering of the people. For him and for Buell, “places have histories” and they are constantly changing (Buell 67). Furthermore, in stating that “the worst disease of the world now is probably the ideology of technological heroism,” (528) Berry voices Buell’s anxiety that arises from the “chemical” and the destruction brought by human agency (Buell 31). When such an ideology is adopted by the industrial middle-class it causes destruction in the environment since the priority of this class is to ensure “success of their careers.” This ideology causes many communities to be destroyed through acts of exploitation and negligence.
In Ecocriticism, Greg Garrard proposes a comprehensive vision of the relationship between nature, culture, and literature. Using an ecocritical framework, he argues for the study of the physical environment from a literary perspective which takes into account the interdisciplinary nature of the field of ecocriticism and its diverse applications. The nature-culture dialogical approach that Garrard adopts in his book gives him the proper foundation to argue for the integration and the cause-effect relationship between these elements, and to investigate major tropes related to ecocriticism, such as pollution, wilderness, apocalypse, dwelling, etc. Garrard calls for a serious consideration of the effect that nature has on culture and vise versa as he writes, “ecocriticism is essentially the demarcation between nature and culture, its construction and reconstruction” (179). Rather than dealing with nature and culture as two extremes of the dichotomy and disregarding the effects of their encounter, Garrard urges us to investigate “the shifting, pragmatic sense of the relationship of culture and nature” (179). This is not to limit the exploration of nature and culture, but to suggest that within a globalised frame, nature and culture can be explored in relation to other genres and fields.
Garrard’s ecocritical approach goes beyond the physical “place” used in literary theory, which refers to the social implications of a certain setting (society/ culture/ community), to include the entire ecosystem. He addresses the domino effect that each entity has on the other in this complex system. In other words, humans are not only affected by the ecosystem, but also affect the ecosystem. In a sense, ecocriticism functions as a mediator between humans and non-humans, and negotiates the interaction between materialism and “reality” on the one hand, and aestheticism and literature on the other hand. Applying the ecocritical tropes to our interpretation of a novel or a literary text expands our understanding and enhances our appreciation of the literary text since these tropes are “assumed to take part in wider social struggles between genders, classes, and ethnic groups” (8).
According to Garrard, ecocriticism does not only resist a human-centered philosophy and the logic of domination, but also rejects the fixed entities and categories; everything is socially constructed and liable to development and change (9). For example, being aware of the historical development of the ecocritical metaphor, the pastoral, enhances one’s interpretation of Wordsworth’s poetry. Wordsworth’s enthusiasm for nature goes beyond the appreciation of nature as a physical entity to the “relationship of the non-human nature to the human mind” (43). This encounter between the non-human and human/ nature and culture suggests multiple venues for us as readers to explore. Garrard addresses a variety of topics and concepts, from ecofeminism and its rejection to the “androcentric dualism man/woman” and the “logic of domination” (23) to the differences between American and British readings of pastoral and their ecocritical connections. Garrard believes that the main challenge that faces ecocriticism is its engaging/ reinterpreting texts that are not directly related to nature and the environment.
What I find fascinating in Garrard’s approach is his ability to incorporate scholarship from different disciplines, such as philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, etc. into the study of ecocriticism. In my mind, his interdisciplinary approach works both ways—it expands the field of ecocriticism to reach other disciplines and expands other disciplines to encompass ecocriticism. On the other hand, taking such an interdisciplinary approach might raise the question of the validity of such an evolving “theory”/ "discipline" since it lacks specific subject matter per se. After all, its subject matter is the interconnections between nature and culture (the interconnections of two different fields).
The publication of Garrard’s book indicates the change that is taking place in English studies since the integration of ecocriticism into our field reflects the recognition of ecocriticism as an important “theory” and indicates the status of environmental approaches in English. This integration raises some questions for me: What role does “place” in general and “nature” in particular play in English studies? How can we use Garrard’s tropes to expand rather than limit our interpretation of a literary text? How does “place” affect our performance as English teachers, writers of English texts, and audience of English texts? What limitations and possibilities does “place” entail? If ecocriticism became a new critical theory, how would that affect our interpretation of space in English in general and literature and composition studies in particular? How does “place” affect the writing process? How does composing in cyberspace (blogs, for example) differ from that on paper? How does "place" complicate the perception of public and private?
I’m Lana and I’m not a big fan of introducing myself! Having said that, let me introduce myself☺ I’m doing my PhD in Rhet/Comp at Ohio University. I’m still trying to figure out what rhet/ comp is all about. I have been teaching since 2002. I taught courses in humanities and English. I enjoy teaching and I enjoy being a student.
