Murphy, Patrick D. Literature, Nature, and Other: Ecofeminist Critiques. Albany: State U of New York P, 1995. Print.
Chapters Read:
- “Let the Survivors of Contact Speak: In the Canon and in the Classroom”
- “The Present Is to Nature as the Past Is to Culture as the Future Is to Agency”
- “Simply Uncontrollable, Or Steaming Open the Envelope of Ideology”
I sincerely enjoyed reading the chapter “Let the Survivors of Contact Speak: In the Canon and in the Classroom” because of its call to action: include rather than exclude Native American voices in both the nature writing canon and the American literature canon, especially women Native American writers. This call to action fits in perfectly with the transformation aspect of ecofeminism, as inclusion of Native American women’s voices could transform the canon in beneficial ways. In an earlier chapter, Murphy examined the failure of the anthology The Norton Book of Nature Writing (1990) to capture a diversity of writers. This chapter extends that criticism to two other anthologies: On Nature (1987) and This Incomperable Lande (1991), and also includes The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology (1991). I want to include a quote from Murphy that I found exhilarating:
The effect of The Idea of Wilderness and This Incomperable Lande is to create the impression that Indians have nothing to say on their own, except in ‘mythic narratives,’ and that they are saying and writing nothing today, literary or otherwise, and this I would label literary genocide. (127)
Exciting, right? I thought so, because it’s true. To systematically silence, degrade, and exclude an entire culture simply because the academy and its editors don’t agree with the culture’s approach to writing, style, genres, etc. is inexcusable. It’s wrong, and frankly, it’s nausea inducing. I expect better from the academy, and so should you all.
Murphy mentions The Native American Authors Distribution Project, which is available online here: nativeauthors.com. On the front page of their site is an important idea: “Don’t just learn about Native Americans, learn from them!” I have to admit I’ve been exposed to very little Native American poetry, fiction, non-fiction, etc. in the classroom as an undergraduate, but my graduate experience has been more positive. Still, there is room for improvement.
What strikes me about this chapter is the rigidity within the genre of nature writing, as described by Murphy in 1995. I still have little experience with this genre, but I have to wonder, how much does the refusal to let go of canon versus non-canon works, fiction versus non-fiction, and writings about nature or “nature flowing through it” works still inform the nature writing genre today? Our obsession with categories, with binaries, with hierarchies needs to be radically challenged, and this cannot be accomplished without students and faculty working together to transform our field. Faculty need to encourage students to look beyond these confining viewpoints, and in return, students have a responsibility to also take action and actively challenge outdated and outmoded categories that stifle rather than free voices. My research in Queer Theory from last semester has exposed me to the fight within this field against the same issues: the refusal to let go of and move beyond gender and sexual categories, binaries, and hierarchies. Side note: Queer Ecofeminism would be amazing to study, think of the possibilities!
I think this call to action fits in perfectly with ecofeminism, and it is a way to incorporate our past with our present and our future: the canon cannot be allowed to remain a static ideal that only represents and affirms white, patriarchal, Western beliefs and voices. This leads to me another question: how does one become an editor of a Norton, Heath, or other well-respected anthology? How do those who seek change rise to positions of power with the ability to initiate change? Who makes these decisions, and how much negotiation, discussion and debate is involved? Where is the canon revolution and who is involved? In case you can’t tell, I am determined to be a person of action rather than re-action or just complaining.
Chapter twelve, “The Present Is to Nature as the Past Is to Culture as the Future Is to Agency,” examines the reigning influence of the Enlightenment, with its focus on alienation from nature, upon current American culture. Murphy examines the constructs of nature and culture and its effects:
Modern culture as a continuation of the Enlightenment, then, is represented as the crazy glue that cements past, present and future humans together in a static continuity of contradiction and alienation from the rest of the world from which they arise, in which they participate with other entities, and to which they eventually return. (145)
Murphy states that rather than question our Enlightenment mindset, Americans blindly continue to label nature as objects, and the world as a thing-for-us. But there is hope; there are groups and individuals who do “interrogate” this Enlightenment ideology such as Fred Dallmayr, Gary Snyder, Donna Haraway, Horkheimer, Adorno, and Merchant, just to name a few.
The concept of ecological culturopoeia is mentioned in this chapter, something I had never heard of before. Murphy defines the purpose and function of ecological culturopoeia:
Ecologically based culturopoeic praxis could provide nascent structures, practices, behaviors, and attitudes upon which our children could build their own future with a more natured culture. By natured culture I mean a human culture that functions on the basis of harmonizing human and nonhuman interaction, rather than on the basis of maximizing human action on the nonhuman. (149-50)
This praxis described by Murphy relies upon volitional interdependence, which recognizes “the appreciation of opportunities within increasing awareness of necessities” (151). In other words, humans cannot completely separate ourselves from nature or other nonhuman entities. Our actions, decisions, and/or non-action have consequences for both ourselves and our environment. For women, refusal to recognize volitional interdependence has more severe consequences, especially since women are artificially linked to nature. Murphy states, “The degree to which patriarchy, throughout its historical manifestations, has placed both women and nature in the category of the absolute Other attests to a continuing refusal to recognize reciprocity as a ubiquitous natural process, reflected and enacted throughout any healthy human culture” (152). An alternative to continuing to other humans and nonhuman entities is “anotherness,” in which Murphy states replaces the patriarchy hierarchy with “a heterarchical sense of difference” (152). In addition to volitional interdependence, Murphy points toward bioregionalism as a positive rather than negative method of resistance because it depends on particulars and specificity rather than a universal attitude and belief set.
The thirteenth chapter, “Simply Uncontrollable, Or Steaming Open the Envelope of Ideology,” is very short, only five pages and yet it is vital to the project of ecofeminism. While women are speaking out, protesting, contributing to the literary field and literary theories, engaging in environmental and women’s rights movements, Murphy wonders if men are even listening. Ecofeminism should not be the burden of women alone:
Men have to address the refusal of other men to learn from women’s speaking, from their acts of self-empowerment and their participation in acts of mutual empowerment for ecological rehabilitation. We need to see the ways by which the men who have been speaking well must learn to speak better, by attempting an understanding of that wild home Le Guin posits, and to see the ways by which the men who have been deaf to women’s voices can be confronted to hear that other men are listening, and will, increasingly, become a force against male resistance to women’s speaking, to women’s experience, to women’s understandings—in their diversities and differences. (159)
Ecofeminism is not the sole providence of women; we cannot fight to reimagine a new relationship between human and nonhuman without the cooperation of both genders, and of those from all generations. The transformation inherent in ecofeminism can manifest itself in a variety of ways, and I like to believe that my small project of investigating Sarah Kemble Knight’s journal through the ecofeminist lens is a part of this re-visioning of the human-nonhuman relationship. Wish me luck.
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