Conference Paper Proposal

[Jay Jay]

Conference Paper Proposal:

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

This paper will function as an exploration of Sarah Kemble Knight’s The Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York through an ecofeminist lens by examining the representation of human and nonhuman in the text.  Specifically, I will investigate the relationships forged by Knight between human and nonhuman entities through her use of language and metaphor, which has the power to render the entity as subject or object.  Vivid descriptions of urban and rural landscapes are provided by Knight, as well as numerous interactions with people she encounters during her five day journey between Boston and New Haven.  I am interested in whether or not the binary of human and nonhuman remains static, or changes with each encounter during the journey.  A sense of fluidity could indicate Knight’s willingness to view her relationship with the landscape as subject-to-subject, rather than subject-to-object.  

Ecofeminism explores the connection between the degradation of nature and the domination of women, and the consequences of patriarchy artificially linking the two entities.  By examining the manner in which Knight represents human (particularly other women, Native Americans, and African American slaves) and the nonhuman environment, I hope to locate moments of resistance to patriarchal ideology by Knight.  However, I suspect I will find Knight more often than not upholding, and even participating in, the degradation of both nature and the domination of people of color based on their economic, class, and racial status.  If certain humans are described as objects rather than subjects, can a connection be found to landscape as subject too?

While this paper utilizes ecofeminist literary criticism, which is a branch of ecofeminism, it still adheres to the call to action inherent in ecofeminism.  By applying ecofeminism to an early American text that has secured its place in the canon, I am arguing that it can withstand multiple interpretational lenses.  If Knight’s journal can provide critics and readers with another scholarly perspective not previously explored, then perhaps other texts from the same time period can do the same.  Additionally, Knight’s journal is available in a scholarly anthology, making it easily available (and affordable) for the college classroom.

My intervention in the current scholarly discourse about Knight’s journal does not disagree or contradict previous scholarship; on the contrary, borrowing a phrase from Annette Kolodny, it is a turning of the lens that can only add, not detract, to the conversation.  Scholarship regarding Knight’s journal does not yet include the landscape or the environment as an entity in its own right, nor does it explore the connections between women and nature.  Ecological literary criticism and ecofeminist criticism are growing fields, and this paper is an experiment to see how well an early American text withstands an ecofeminist reading without falling into the trap of ascribing feminist or ecological motivations to Knight.