Weekly Reading Response #6

[Jay Jay]

Murphy, Patrick D.  Literature, Nature, and Other: Ecofeminist Critiques.  Albany: State U of New York P, 1995.  Print.

Chapters Read:

• “Prolegomenon for an Ecofeminist Dialogics”
• “Ground, Pivot, Motion: Ecofeminist Theory, Dialogics, and Literary Practice”
• “Voicing Another Nature”
• “ Reconceiving the Relations of Woman and Nature, Nature and Culture: Contemporary Environmental Literature by Women”
• “Sex-Typing the Planet: Gaia Imagery and the Problem of Subverting Patriarchy”

First, let’s get a basic definition out of the way.

dialogic (adjective): of, pertaining to, or of the nature of dialogue; sharing in dialogue. (OED)

Also, I need to preface this reading response by saying I have little working knowledge of Mikhail Bakhtin—my only encounters with Bakhtin occurred in my theory survey course three years ago.

The first chapter, “Prolegomenon for an Ecofeminist Dialogics,” addressed the need Murphy sees for scholars (and ecological, ecofeminist activists) to use Bakhtin’s dialogical method to transform the fields of ecology and feminisms.  The method, previously used only for “literature, language, and thought” can become a “livable critical theory” if used as a foundation for the intersection of ecology and feminisms (4).  It is necessary to recognize the differences and use of things-in-themselves, things-for-us, and us-as-things-for-others as descriptors for the relationships of interdependence between humans, nonhumans, and the environment.  Murphy states scholars must develop a criterion of ecological values based on three variables: interrelationship, maintenance, and sustainment (6).  These variables would allow us to evaluate the health of the ecosystem as a foundational judgment, allowing actual nature and the environment to become a subject rather than object.

While Murphy urges us to embrace Bakhtin’s method of dialogics, he recognizes the limitations of the methodology and points towards corrections that must be made.  For example, Bakhtin’s method makes it impossible for the nonhuman to become the speaking subject, which contradicts the goals of ecofeminist and ecocritical theory (12).  Bakhtin also often erases the physical environment as an integral part of the self-formation.  Scholars also need to recognize there will always be two voices: that of the nonhuman speaking subject, and that of the rendering human author.  Theoretical traps that we should be wary of include becoming too attached to the centers that appear on the margins (ecofeminism is situated on the margins), and nostalgia (it is static idealization).  

Madam Knight’s Journey: Bad Rivers, Spangled Skies & Terrifying Darkness (Short Paper)

[Jay Jay]

Madam Knight’s Journey: Bad Rivers, Spangled Skies & Terrifying Darkness

I have tentatively chosen Sarah Kemble Knight’s The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York for the focus of my conference paper in the hopes that I will discover ecofeminist characteristics within the text not yet discussed by early American scholars.  The journal was written from 1704—1705 and existed in manuscript form until 1825 when Theodore Dwight published it.  Knight records her journey from Boston, Massachusetts to New Haven, Connecticut with a side trip to New York along what is described by Sargent Bush, Jr. as a “rustic” but “increasingly well traveled” road (69).  The road from Boston to New Haven is traveled in five days, but Knight does not return to Boston right away, wintering in Connecticut for almost five months.  Knight’s experience with rural America provides modern readers with a fascinating glimpse into an America caught between the Massachusetts Bay Colony foundation and the American Revolution (70).

Modern readers are not the only audience that has benefited from her writing: Knight’s record of her absence from Boston “was written not for publication but for the amusement of a private circle of relatives and friends” (74).  In 1825 Dwight published the manuscript and shortly after, the manuscript his transcription is based upon was destroyed, leaving scholars with no original source for comparison.  Bush, Jr. reminds us that the reclaiming of Knight by Dwight is important because Dwight and his contemporaries were attempting to establish an American literary tradition and heritage (78-9).  The 1820s coincide with the creation of the myth of the American wilderness, spearheaded by James Fenimore Cooper, and Knight’s journal showcases the contrast between urban and rural America of 1704—1705.  The last lines of Dwight’s introduction are evidence of the transformation from rural frontier to urban landscape in one hundred and twenty years:

Over that tract of country where she travelled about a fortnight, on horseback, under the direction of a hired guide, with frequent risks of life and limb, and sometimes without food or shelter for many miles, we proceed at our ease, without exposure and almost without fatigue, in a day and a half, through a well peopled land, supplied with good stage-coaches and public houses, or the still greater luxuries of the elegant steam boats which daily traverse our waters. (86)

The landscape is spoken of in terms of transformation, from an empty and dangerous wilderness to a peopled and heavily traveled land that has been conquered, subdued and tamed.  Replication of Knight’s hazardous journey is no longer available to those living in Boston or New Haven of the 1820s.

Seeing Another Instead of Other: Weekly Reading Response # 6

This week Jay Jay and I are reading Literature, Nature and Other: Ecofeminist Critiques, by Patrick D. Murphy.

Here are some of my notes on the first chapter, “Prolegomenon for an Ecofeminist Dialogics”:

Sitting outside and trying to see my computer screen as I write this post reminds me of one of the dilemmas of our society: We need to find the point where nature and technology meet and exist without harming the planet. How many of our modern conveniences do we need to surrender before we can ensure the safety of our planet? How do we even get people to realize that the way we treat nature is a problem? I like ecofeminist theory because I think teaching people to ask questions such as these is the first step to a better way of life for humans and nonhumans. Though sometimes, I fall into that patriarchal hole; How far can I escape from the ideology that makes me “I”? 

This brings me to the reading from this week.  Now, I see that I am interdependent on the rest of the human and nonhuman world and that the indepent "I" is a destructive myth that must be abondoned to truly see the world as it is.  

Patrick D. Murphy proposes an Ecofeminist Dialogics in order to develop a praxis that encourages and reinforces new thinking (instead of the dominant patriarchal ideology) in a way that other theory has failed to do. What can be revealed through this combination of Bakhtin dialogics, ecology and feminisms is that “while human forces are always at work centralizing, quantifying, and coding phenomena, other human forces are always challenging and breaking up such reductions and constructions in order to sustain themselves” (4).

The basis of this theory also recognizes the fact that individual beings (human and nonhuman) are interdependent on each other in a heterarchical relationship.

Because hierarchy is an illusion and absolutes are an illusion the limited social categories of male/female are myths. Also, because nature balances itself we should value things for their ecological value instead of their capital exchange value. Therefore, biological and cultural diversity should be seen as necessary for survival. Ecology cannot reach this perspective without integrating feminisms because one of the reasons nature is devalued is because women are also devalued and linked to nature (7).

One of my favorite passages in the first chapter gives me a clear picture of what role ecofeminists serve as they attempt to dismantle patriarchy: “Given the cultural and ideological hegemony of capitalism in the United States, ecofeminists must necessarily comprise part of the margin, serving as centrifugal force which attempts to break up and fragment the totalizing discourse that perpetuates business as usual” (15).

Looking at this passage, I realize that my assumption, that examining early American texts is not productive, is incorrect. Change has to start from many different points and engage many different levels of society before it can be realized. Every step to destabilize the center of the dominant ideology is a productive step—even an ecofeminist exploration of an Early American text.

“Ground, Pivot, Motion: Ecofeminist Theory, Dialogics, and Literary Practice”

In this chapter, Murphy illuminates how, once the world is viewed from a dialogical paradigm, ecofeminist theory reveals that the “other,” as our society conceives it, is flawed because it cannot describe the diversity and interdependence that is necessary for human and nonhuman survival: “A dialogical orientation reinforces the ecofeminist recognition of interdependence and the natural need of diversity” (22).

Murphy then introduces the concept of “anotherness, being another for others,” and proposes that if anotherness is ignored “then the ecological process of interanimation—the ways in which humans and other entities develop, change, and learn through mutually influencing each other day to day, age by age—will go unacknowledged” (23). He continues by explaining that “a theory of volitional interdependence among human and nonhuman” will work towards a productive realization of our true state of interanimation, and that theories of autonomy and independence are actually detrimental because they deny our true interconnectedness (23).

In terms of centers of power and margins, Murphy demonstrates how the dialogic “can expose the false dichotomy of center and margin that is utilized by oppositional groups notwithstanding that such use codifies the existing power structure’s claim to centrality, legitimacy, and authority . . . . There can be no real margins except as ideological constructs. Nor can there be any centers; rather, there exist cultural and physical pivots that may or may not resist the inevitability of a next step” (23).

 After reading this chapter, I understood clearly how the idea of worrying that I was working on the margins is nothing to be concerned about. I know see that the mere concept of a “marginal” position is only an ideological construct, which I do not have to acknowledge and give power to. When the world is see through the perspective that we are in an interdependent web, I can see how small ripples made in one corner of the sea of life can make large waves.

To be continued...

 ~Writing from one node in the web of life

Still Trying to Define Ecofeminism: Weekly Reading Response # 5

This week I posted my favorite highlights from our reading, Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy, and how I think some of these chapters will help me make a case for Bartram as an ecofriendly naturalist who was misrepresented in The American Tradition in Literature Anthology by the Alligator excerpt.

Some Chapters Highlights:

“A Root of Ecofeminism: Ecoféminisme,” by Barbara T. Gates

Gates discusses the origins of ecofeminism and explains that while there is no way to combine the different ecofeminisms into one all-encompassing definition, there are beliefs shared by almost all ecofeminists: “They include the necessity of social transformation by moving beyond power politics and an equivalent necessity for less “management” of the land . . . an appreciation of the intrinisic value of everything in nature—a biocentric rather than an anthropocentric viewpoint; an end to dualisms like male/female, thought/action, and spiritual/natural” (21).

“‘The Women Are Speaking’: Contemporary Literature as Theoretical Critique,” by Patrick D. Murphy

The most important passage to me was the one that explained that ecofeminists are currently tasked with finding a way to collapse patriarchy in a way that supports diversity instead of  reinforcing “cultural hierarchies” (36).

A passage that was relevant to my project is the one that discussed nature writing: “The tradition of American nature writing as it has been codified to date remains too much a monocultural monologue about the right ways tii relate to nature from an already alienated position.  Such alienation is reinforced particularly in its emphasis on going out to the wilderness areas to experience “nature” through recreational activities or on observing seasonal cycles rather than, say, working on a local farm or feeding oneself through organic gardening . . . this tradition has failed to enter into dialogue with natural diversity as manifested in the plurality of human cultures and represented in the art and literature of native writers and artists” (41-42).

“‘Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight”: A Call for Boundary-Crossing in Ecofeminist Literary Criticism,” by Karla Armbruster

In my quest to better understand ecofeminism and its cause, I found another passage resembling a definition and wanted to share it: “Central to the ecofeminist agenda is the goal of individual, social, and ideological change—specifically, change that will improve the cultural standing of women and nature” (101).  

 “Deep Response: An Ecofeminist, Dialogical Approach to Introductory Literature Classrooms” by John Paul Tassoni

Tassoni says that he wants his literature students to want to become ecofeminists of their own accord because they realize that it is better for humans and nonhumans (204).

Some strategies he discusses to use ecofeminist theory to encourage critical and counter-hegemonic discussion in the class are:

He uses a “dialogic pedagogy” to encourage students to break from black/white, right/wrong thinking.  He does not push students to find the one “right” answer in discussions. He openly discusses grading criteria and allows students to suggest how their work should be assessed (209). Students are allowed to choose one novel to read and develop the ideas they determine to be important culturally through dialogue. 

Tassini outlined ecofeminism for his class: Western civilization, which is opposed to nature, “interacts dialectically with and reinforces the subjugation of women” because they are thought of as linked with nature.  Nature is a web; therefore, hierarchies are unnatural and endorse domination of nature.  Diversity is needed for survival and reducing everyone culturally will only harm us, like it harms nature.  To survive we need to rethink our relationship with nature based on ecofeminist theory. (214-215).     

“Hiking without a Map: Reflections on Teaching Ecofeminist Literary Criticism” by Greta Gaard

Gaard discusses and reflects upon different issues of ecofeminist theory that her special topics class worked through.  One problem is that when relating to nature and trying to destroy the self/other boundary sometimes the unique identity of the “other” can be lost (236).  Also, when looking at the gendering of nature, the class decided that the “contexts of both culture and gender influence” determined if feminizing nature would be oppressive (236).  This was interesting because I had mistakenly assumed that a female gendering of nature is always oppressive.  Because Gaard refers to Women and Nature by Griffin often, I have decided that I must also read this text.  

Closing thought:

The closer I get to understanding the complexities of ecofeminist theory the more I feel our society really needs to hear the messages and address the questions posed by it.  I also wonder if I am moving in a productive direction with my Bartram project.  It seems the best way to make a change is to examine current texts :(

~Blake

Weekly Reading Response #5

[Jay Jay]

Gaard, Greta, and Patrick D. Murphy, eds. Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1998. Print.

Chapters Read:

• “‘Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight”: A Call for Boundary-Crossing in Ecofeminist Literary Criticism” by Karla Armbruster
• “‘Skin Dreaming’: The Bodily Transgressions of Fielding Burke, Octavia Butler, and Linda Hogan” by Stacy Alaimo
• “Ecocritical Chicana Literature: Ana Castillo’s ‘Virtual Realism’” by Kamala Platt
• “Rethinking Dichotomies in Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge” by Cassandra Kircher
• “In Search of Common Ground: An Ecofeminist Inquiry into Christa Wolf’s Work” by Deborah Janson
• “Grass-Roots Ecofeminism: Activating Utopia” by Cathleen McGuire and Colleen McGuire
• “Deep Response: An Ecofeminist, Dialogical Approach to Introductory Literature Classrooms” by John Paul Tassoni
• “Hiking without a Map: Reflections on Teaching Ecofeminist Literary Criticism” by Greta Caard

Despite never having read Ursula Le Guin’s “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight,” Karla Armbruster’s essay provided me with an excellent framework that could help with my own project.  Before Armbruster explores Le Guin’s story, she reminds readers of the importance of transformation within ecofeminism: “it is politically essential to explore and emphasize these connections of the dominations of women and nature are to be substantively challenged” (97).  The political call to action and to induce transformation help form the backbone of ecofeminism.  Armbruster reinforces the warning from Val Plumwood that “there is a tendency within ecofeminist theory to emphasize the connections or continuity between women and nature at the expense of recognizing important differences between the group” (98).  This might seem obvious, but as a budding ecofeminist scholar, I am worried that I might fall into the same trap.  Luckily, I am not one of those who believes that women have a deeper and more heartfelt connection with nature simply by being a woman, so I’m hoping that misinformed bias will not appear in my own academic writing.

Another section of Armbruster’s essay that I think will help in my own project is her admonishment that sometimes women are guilty of environmental degradation—not just men.  She finds fault in some scholars who “fail to explore the extent to which many women benefit from and participate in the ideological, political, and economic forces that sanction the domination and abuse of nonhuman nature” (102).  I think it will be fruitful for me to keep an eye out for instances where women are complicit in this dominating and abusing relationship rather than only seek out examples of women writers challenging domination and abuse.  To do so will retain the complexity and subtlety demanded of academic analysis, as well as avoiding the trap of dualistic or binary thinking.

I would like to quote wholly Armbruster’s list of questions from her essay because I think they are valuable for all types of ecofeminist or ecocritical analysis.

—Does the text convey a sense of the human subject as socially and discursively constructed, multiply organized, and constantly shifting?
—Does the text also account for the influence of nonhuman nature on the subject (and of the subject on nonhuman nature) without resorting to essentialism?
—Does the text avoid reinscribing dualisms and hierarchical notions of difference? (106)

These are the questions I will be keeping in mind while reading through my not-yet-selected primary text.  What could be really interesting is texts that partially or wholly deny items on this list because it would allow for commentary on the cultural state or expectations of a human-nonhuman relationship.  Of course, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I find an early American text that gives me a “yes” for all three of the above questions.

Stacy Alaimo’s essay focuses on the body as a site of transformation and of the body’s relationship with ideologies of nature and racism.  The two ideologies of nature that Alaimo describes are Social Darwinism and the Romantic conception of nature (124).  The abusive relationship between white women and women of color and nature are described as such: “white women have fled from corporeal connections with a debased nature by displacing nature onto the bodies of African Americans and others” (124).  What I appreciate about Alaimo’s essay is that she succinctly describes the contrasts between social Darwinism and the romantic view of nature—social Darwinism involves a hierarchical scale that privileges the bodies of some over others, whereas romantics view nature as a “disembodied space” that allows for “mental or spiritual connection with nature” (125).

Weekly Reading Response #4

[Jay Jay]

Gaard, Greta, and Patrick D. Murphy, eds. Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1998. Print.

Chapters Read:

• “Introduction” by Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy
• “A Root of Ecofeminism: Ecoféminisme” by Barbara T. Gates
• “‘The Women Are Speaking’: Contemporary Literature as Theoretical Critique” by Patrick D. Murphy
• “Toward an Ecofeminist Standpoint Theory: Bodies as Grounds” by Deborah Slicer
• “Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Reading the Orange” by Josephine Donovan

I think Blake and I are in agreement: we wish we had read this anthology of essays the first week of our independent study instead of Buell.  This collection is comprehensive, wide-ranging, and best of all, provides definition(s) of ecofeminism by the second page of the introduction.  What I did not realize is that ecofeminist literary criticism, or ecofeminist literary analysis, is a very recent branch off the ecofeminist tree, so to speak.

The introduction provides a clear definition of ecofeminism: “a practical movement for social change arising out of the struggles of women to sustain themselves, their families, and their communities” (2).  As the definition suggests, ecofeminism is based on “resistance and vision, critiques and heuristics” (2).  However, as I learned in my readings from this anthology, ecofeminism is not a static, all-encompassing theory.  Rather, there are different branches and approaches based on the individual applying ecofeminism.  Despite the fluid nature of ecofeminism, Gaard and Murphy have found what they believe to be a common thread in all ecofeminist theories: transformation (3).  Specifically they state:

ecofeminism is based not only on the recognition of connections between the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women across patriarchal societies.  It is also based on the recognition that these two forms of domination are bound up with class exploitation, racism, colonialism, and neocolonialism. (3) 

From my understanding, ecofeminism seeks to make visible these connections and then take action to fight against the domination of nature and oppression of women—to enable transformation on cultural, social, economic, and political levels.  What does this mean for my literary project?  It means I should look for literary instances of the domination and nature and the oppression of women and see if they are artificially linked; if so, what are the consequences of this link?  Is there any resistance to this artificial link in the literature?  Are there attempts to transform this link to the advantage of certain persons?  What types of women are being linked to the domination of nature and do any groups of women escape this forced relationship?  Is it lower class working white women?  African American slaves?  Indentured white servants?  Non-Christians?  Native Americans?  I’m incredibly fascinated to read through early American literature with this new filter of ecofeminism.

I’m going to provide you with what I thought were the highlights of chapters one through five, but I would strongly encourage anyone interested in ecofeminism and ecocritical theories to purchase and read all of the selections.  The combination of “ecofeminist literary theory, criticism, and pedagogy” provides for a wide range of material that showcases the fluidity of ecofeminism and its practitioners (2).

Florida through Bartram's Eyes

While drafting my plan for my first paper my mind began to wander and I found myself wondering, "What exactly did Florida look like when Bartram was here exploring?"

I discovered this picture on the Manatee Springs State park website:

The website claims that Manatee Springs looks much like it did when Bartram traveled through the area:

"When naturalist William Bartram visited Manatee Springs in the late 1700s, he said the place was astonishing [ . . .] Two centuries later, much of that beauty remains. 'Two hundred years is not very long for nature' said Bill Maphis, who was the park manager. 'The same basic features are here, with the exception of the concrete to provide the visitor access to the water.'"

Here is the link to the website if anyone wants to visit: http://floridatraveler.com/manatee-springs-state-park/

What is Ecofeminist Literary Criticism? (Weekly Reading Response #4)

This week we read the first half of Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy’s book Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy. 

Before this reading, I did not completely understand that Ecofeminist literary criticism is a newer aspect of the Ecofeminist philosophical and activist movement.  Each essay serves as an example of or works to further explain Ecofeminist literary criticism, which is difficult to define by virtue of its diversity and lack of central unified theory.  Some critics think this a weak point of the theory; however, I think it is a sign that the theory truly avoids being reductionist.

In the introduction by Gaard and Murphy, they explain what ecofeminist literary criticism seeks to do instead of simply identifying texts as ecofeminist or not:

“it seemed ecofeminist literary criticism would involve reading literary texts through the lens of ecofeminist theory and practice and asking questions: What previously unnoticed elements of a literary text are made visible, or even foregrounded, when one reads from an ecofeminist perspective? Can this perspective tell literary critics anything new about a text in terms of the traditional elements of style and structure, metaphor and narrative, form and content? How might an ecofeminist perspective enhance explorations of connections and differences among “characters” in a text—between humans and animals, between culture and nature, and across human differences of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation?” (7).         

These questions give me an excellent starting point for my Bartram project; I also think they would help anyone new to ecofeminist literary criticism.

 I want to better understand Bartram’s relationship with nature, specifically the animals that he encounters.  What does an eco-feminist lens reveal about a male, Quaker, naturalist explore, in early America, who is bothered by killing animals and even vows never to kill another rattlesnake or crane (which he is served during his travels)?  It seems his compassion and respect for nature is illuminated.  If Bartram, who would have been writing from a minority religious standpoint, saw nature with greater respect than the dominant man the time, then does this show us that despite the prominent land-as-lady (something to be conquered and tilled) metaphor Bartram was resistant to the dominant masculine ideology in his respect for animal life and nature?  Also, in this context…the Bartram killing alligator passage in the Perkins Early American Literary anthology completely misconstrues Bartram’s real character because it is taken out of context.  In fact, selecting this short passage out of an over 300 page nature-appreciating text is actually reflective of the masculine ideology of the editors of the anthology and our culture’s persistent praise for nature dominating behavior.

Weekly Reading Response #3

[Jay Jay]

Kolodny, Annette.  The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters.  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1975.  Print.

Chapters Read:

• “Unearthing Herstory”
• “Surveying the Virgin Land”
• “Laying Waste Her Fields of Plenty”
• “Singing Her Past and Signing Her Praises”

Annette Kolodny is amazing.  Amazing, and brilliant.  Her writing captured and held my attention the entire time I spent reading through her book.

In chapter one, “Unearthing Herstory,” Kolodny introduces her theory that not only did the New World landscape function as an object of domination and exploitation, but that it also represented land-as-woman.  Kolodny describes the consequence of such a metaphor as “the total female principle of gratification—enclosing the individual in an environment of receptivity, repose, and painless and integral satisfaction” (4).  This metaphor of land-as-woman contributes to “America’s oldest and most cherished fantasy: a daily reality of harmony between man and nature based on an experience of the land as essentially feminine” (4).  This fantasy is recorded in American history, via both our living memories and our literary products.  Kolodny goes on to describe what she thinks is unique about American pastoral—Americans look the pastoral metaphors as literal, not just literary truths.  In drawing together and then connecting literary and literal pastoral metaphors and experiences, Americans created an “uniquely American pastoral vocabulary” that captures and conveys the “American pastoral impulse” (8).  These two major concepts, that of the land-as-woman, and of the American pastoral connecting literary and literal reality, form the backbone of Kolodny’s book as she draws upon American men’s writings, both fiction and non-fiction of the eighteenth and nineteenth century.  (The fifth chapter, which Blake and I decided to skip for now, addresses the twentieth century.).

Chapter two, “Surveying the Virgin Land,” covers the years 1500—1740 and explores the language used by writers to describe the New World.  The language is highly sexualized but also split into a binary: filial homage/erotic desire.  Kolodny describes the distinction and creation of pastoral imagery in both the South and the North, touching briefly on the manner in which Southern writers managed to delete highly sexualized allusions from literature about the New World’s landscape.  New England attempted to “limit the scope of pastoral possibilities” in order to distinguish themselves from the dangerous “sensuously abundant ambience” of the South (19).  The writers believed that if their colony was painted as a perfect paradise in which no labor was necessary to flourish, they would only attract lazy, slothful immigrants.  In promotional publications from New England, a fine line is seen between recruiting immigrants with the promise of paradise and the reminder for the need for human labor.

Seeing the Lady in the Land, or Actually, Seeing Land as Lady (Weekly Reading Response #3)

I am fascinated with Annette Kolodny’s The Lay of the Land.  The premise of her book is that since the beginning of America’s colonization its settlers have viewed the land as a feminine figure.  Kolodny explores the implications and psychological impact that this view has had on Americans and on the environment that we call home.  The general problem that she finds with explores and settlers feminizing the landscape is that once they view it as a woman then it becomes something to conquer, dominate, and control—in the same way that a woman would have been courted, married, and then been under the dominion of her husband.  Basically with the land viewed as a woman it becomes a second class citizen like a woman.

Kolodny breaks up her chapters according to the evolution of the image of the feminized American landscape as presented in numerous travel journals, letters, documents, and pamphlets written to encourage the settlement of the “new” land.  The American environment has been thought of and written about as mother, lover, courtier, and damsel in distress; all of these are problematic images according to Kolodny because they have moved from being European metaphors to American reality. 

Fertile Virgin Land

From 1500-1740, Kolodny finds extensive written evidence that explorers and settlers viewed America as a fertile virgin land waiting to be seeded and cultivated (10-11).  Claims like Thomas Morton’s remark in 1632 that America is “a faire virgin, longing to be sped, And meete her lover in a Nuptiall bed” encouraged settlers to claim their plot of “untouched” land (qtd. in Kolodny 12).  As quickly as the sacred purity of America entered the American psyche, the idea that “she” needs to be protected did too.  Americans began to write that their fellow colonizers were not caring for the vulnerable feminine land properly revealing what Kolodny calls the “conflict locked in the heart of the American Pastoral: that which is contained within the matrix of the feminine, however attractive . . . or nurturing as a mother robin, must inevitably fall victim to masculine activity” (24).  Kolodny’s explanation helped me grasp the essential contradiction behind our “love of land” and inclination to violate it; I also see how we need ecofeminism to address this idea of a feminine land.  From the beginning, we expected and imagined a pastoral paradise.  Much like Buell proposed in his book, The Environmental Imagination, Kolodny also proposes that we did not see what was already there but instead imagined what we wanted to see—Kolodny’s textual evidence makes it clear that the colonizers wanted to see a lady in the land.   

Seeding the Soil

In the eighteenth century, America the pastoral desire to live in a pure natural environment manifested itself in agrarianism: “agriculture came to be seen as the primary and indispensable foundation both of national prosperity and of political democracy” (Kolodny 27).  Also, the need to defend the feminine American land against the British motivated revolutionaries to fight for independence.     

Kolodny finds that during the eighteenth century, two competing visions of the landscape prevail.  First, the uncultivated land is perceived as primitive, yet erotic; second, many Americans call for further “taming” and farming of the land as a patriotic duty.  The desires to live in a motherly wilderness and to plow the fields of the virgin land form what Kolodny calls the “pastoral paradox: man might, indeed, win mastery over the landscape, but only at the cost of emotional and psychological separation from it” (28).

Bartram’s Unfeminine Landscape    

What are the implications for the 1791 Bartram text that I am exploring?  Well, it was written during the transition from the view of American a bountiful virgin land to the agrarian, patriotic view that plowing the soil was equivalent to building a democracy.  Strangely enough, references to a feminine land are almost completely absent in Bartram’s massive text; for the most part nature is not personified. 

Strangely, where I do see a feminized nature I also find a masculine land:

“Dewey evening now comes on, the animating breezes, which cooled and tempered the meridian hours of this sultry season, now gently cease; the glorious sovereign of day calling in his bright beaming emanations, leaves us in his absence to the milder government and protection of the silver queen of night, attended by millions of bright luminaries” (Bartram 121).

Bartram views the land as masculine and when he sees it feminine he sees a powerful woman, a queen.  Could his elevated metaphors of nature, produce the greater respect that is present in his travel journal?  When compared with the texts of his peers, who saw the eighteenth century American frontier as an exotic woman, Bartram is much more respectful and attentive to the environment, the natives, and even in his introduction says that man, animals, and plants are equally valuable because men needs nature to live: “Man and manners undoubtedly hold the first rank—whatever may contribute to our existence is also of equal importance, whether it be found in the animal or vegetable kingdoms” (li).

It seems that in place of the land-as-lady view, Bartram uses land-as-paradise, a “glorious display of the Almighty,” instead.  The constant Elysian Fields references follow the trend of describing America as a bountiful rich nation; however, the corresponding call to claim the fertile, feminine land is missing. 

Instead, Bartram sees this paradise as already occupied and under the rule of “natural” kings and queens.  He even presents a gator presiding over a sink-hole formed by the eruption of a spring as a King: “A very large alligator at present is lord or chief; many have been killed here, but the throne is never long vacant, the vast neighboring ponds so abound with them” (150). 

So, does Bartram viewing nature as divine and as already possessing its own royalty and dominion account for why his text is revolutionary for its time in its respectful view of nature?

 Kolodny closes her book by asserting that we need a “radically new symbolic mode for relating to” nature (148).  She points out that metaphors lead to oversimplification of what we truly mean, and in the case of America, thinking the land is a woman.  If viewing the land as a woman is problematic and leads to the reduction of the environment, then what are the implications for Bartram’s metaphor the land is a kingdom filled with its own natural rulers?  Is this a better metaphor? Is his respectful attitude evidence that this is a healthier metaphor?  And why did the editors of the early American anthology that I read as an undergraduate think the gator beating passage was at all a representational passage of Bartram’s text?  Did he feel satisfaction “defeating” the gator because he sees it as a masculine equal?  Is this a problematic effect of Bartram’s “kingdom” metaphor? 

Phew, I am now breathless and full of more questions. 

Until next time, try and notice when you unconsciously feminize the land and be aware of how this affects your view of America “the beautiful.”

~Blake

Better Late than Never!

It seems I am a little behind my peers here; this post will be more of a statement of goals than anything. I have some catching up to do!

When I first began to consider ecofeminism, I immediately thought of Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea. When I first read this text, I was viewing it mainly through a Lacanian lense, as well as a postcolonial lense. But I think what I learned about the text through these perspectives lends very well toward an ecofeminist reading as well. The Caribbean landscape is described in great detail, both by native Antoinette, who loves it, and her new British husband Rochester, who finds it as as unassimilable and impossible to master as his new wife. The natural landscape adds to the sense of difference between the two, and Rochester’s growing dislike of it rises along with his hatred of Antoinette. Certainly, for Rochester, nature and woman, or at least non-English woman, are “radically the Other” (my emphasis) as Lacan says in “A Love Letter”[i] (150). Rochester’s ultimate failing is in his inability, or in one instance, his refusal, to be lost in nature—to submit his patricarchal power over to nature. The question I will keep in mind while examining this text, whether Rhys gives the landscape and ecocentric treatment, or simply uses it as a tool for furthering his tale, just as the vilified Rochester uses Antoinette as a tool for regaining his sense of mastery and his father’s approval.

Along with this, I am interested in understanding ecofeminism in Latin America today. I will be reading Ecofeminism in Latin America by Mary Judith Ress and looking for contemporary ecofeminist Latin American primary texts.

My other interest lies in viewing modernist texts, particularly the work of Virginia Woolf, through an ecofeminist lense. Certainly, Woolf goes to great lengths describing nature, but I hope to be able to more critically analyze whether her technique gives an ecocritical treatment of nature, and furhter whether this has an ecofeminist element as well. I am thinking primarily of Woolf’s essay “The Death of the Moth” (1942)[ii]. In this text,Woolf chronicles her growing understanding that a nondescript day moth, despite not being “properly…a moth” (409) is just as vital and as suseptible to death as she. Human and nature are put on a level field—a field of fleeting life and insignificance.

I will also be perusing the texts Jay Jay and Blake are reading for their course, and hope to be able to add to the conversation on those. In addition to all of this I will am beginning writing my thesis, so please forgive me if my posts are sparse!

Until next time—

Laura

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[i] Lacan, Jacques. "A Love Letter." Feminine Sexuality. Trans. Jacqueline Rose. Ed. Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline

Rose. New York: Norton, 1982:149-161. Print.

[ii] Woolf, Virginia. “The Death of the Moth.” The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford:

Oxford UP, 1992: 409-411. Print.

What is Woman's Fiction in Early America? (Weekly Reading Response # 2)

Before reading Nina Baym’s book Woman’s Fiction I had hear of the concepts of Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity, but had a difficult time understanding them.  The basic premise—that women could shape America from their homes—was confusing from my contemporary perspective.  However, Baym clearly explained how the movement and the literature written by women at the time were actually empowering women with self confidence and self reliance.

Baym defines Woman’s fiction as “the many formulaic novels of contemporary life by and about American women published between 1820 and 1870” (ix).  She describes the basic plot structure of these popular early American novels as a woman losing her financial stability because her guardians can no longer care for her.  Through a series of trials this woman finds that she can live independently.  The authors wrote professionally when there were not many career options for women.  Baym stresses that these women did not see themselves as writing “literature” but that instead they wanted to teach their women readers about their potential value as an individual.  The novels often referenced “literature” in a way that would familiarize the reader with these works through their novels (xvii).

How does becoming an independent woman relate logically to developing the growing nation of America? Baym explains that independent citizens and a strong middle-class were considered essential for a democratic republic to succeed because they could provide for themselves and part with money to fund the government.  Hence the Woman’s fiction writers felt they were serving a patriotic calling by showing women how to be independent and good citizens by exposing their readers to American ideology (xxiii).  Baym says that in early America women conserved family wealth and on the whole they conserved republican values: “in a nation whose authorizing revolutionary past was rapidly receding from public awareness, it had become women’s job, literally, to conserve these once powerful values and to publicize them whenever possible. . . . It was a paradox, but not a particularly deep one, that they had to become individuals to perform these tasks” (xxviii).  I especially like that in these stories women did not need to marry and have children to be fulfilled.  They were also written in reaction to previous fiction that furthered “long-entrenched trivializing and contemptuous views of women” (29).

Women’s fiction and the concept of the Republican Mother was not revolutionary feminism, but they did support a woman gaining agency in the home through her responsibility over instilling republican values.  Baym clarifies that “although the idea of reforming a nation by correcting its manners my well seem naïve or ludicrous or snobbish now, many mid-century women saw this task as a mission allied, though secondary, to their mission of overturning the male money system as the law of American life” (47). I do see how this is empowering; every American is raised at home, and if this is the woman’s domain, then technically women are responsible for raising every citizen and shaping them; also, though women’s fiction the writers could instill independence in a future generation of women (49).          

How does all of this “domestic feminism” connect with ecofeminisim?  To be honest I am not sure yet.  In rejecting a money-centered American ideology, did any of these women promote an ecocentric America?  As I indicated in my post yesterday, Baym also mentions the different portrayals of nature in this genre.

Country: Unlike previous fiction genres, that idealized country life, woman’s fiction discussed the hardship and reality of living on small farms and the often impoverished conditions: “They saw women’s lot on the farm as particularly hard, and country men as particularly intransigent in their opposition to feminine self-development” (43).

City: These writers viewed the city as a place where women had more opportunity but “they mourned the loss of simplicity and the separation from natural rhythms” (44).

Utopia: Some women wrote about a blissful commuter life between the city and the country.  Other women imagined an urban-mannered way of life in the countryside.

Garden cities: I believe the concept that I discussed in my post last night—that some woman’s fiction featured a garden city where “urban” life included the greenery of the country—has the most potential to include early ecoconscience and ecofeminist attitudes.

Until next post,

~Blake