CURATED READINGS & REFERENCE LIST
CURATED READING 1: William Cronon, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place of Nature.
American environmental historian William Cronon’s introductory passage in his 1996 text Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place of Nature, provides invaluable insight into the “holocaust” (Cronon, p. 23) – the blazing fires of Orange Country in Southern California. Cronon’s fear of the destructive forces of nature whilst viewing the burning city from his position in an airplane flying safely above the scene of destruction, perfectly articulates the author’s attempts to articulate both the natural world and the corresponding human perceptions of it. As relevant to the course, Cronon distinguishes between ‘environmental thinking’ and ‘ecological thinking.’ An example of this is the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, United States, which was one of the worst toxic waste dumps; a place most people actively avoided for decades due to its toxicity. However, since then, its diverse wildlife population has thrived in comparison to many of its surrounding areas, with wildlife such as buffalo, deer, among other animals, plants and minerals aiding in the process of natural alignment and preservation (Cronon, p. 27-28).
A central dilemma for environmentalists is whether to clean the waste dump, via methods that involve man-made sustainability, handling and intervention, while endangering the creatures that live in that environment… or leave it be and let the toxic remain.
Cronon argues that environmentalist thinking simply does not work in situations like the one outlined, “since we have no clear indication of what would be ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural.’” (Cronon, p. 28) Essentially, thinking about nature is rendered redundant by archaic assumptions of the natural world as a passive entity in the background of the lives of humans, who occupy the foreground and cater to the survival and destruction of the anthropocentric perception of the ‘natural.’
The case of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal is a key case of the ‘Naturecultures’ concept, exemplified by the manner in which the approach to finding a solution to the toxic environment was manifested in the combination of human rationality and intellect via western sciences and ideologies.
The metaphor in the opening of the article, in which Cronon surveys the fiery destruction of a city from a position of safety in man-made transportation, highlights what he argues is a “product of the European Enlightenment,” in which nature has become a “secular deity on this post-romantic age” (36) – an Eden of beauty, or in this case an Eden of the sublime. When the author is viewing the fires from above he sees nature at its wildest, breaking the mechanics of human structures in one swoop… but it is the fact that we assume that he sees it as brilliant and unstoppable (not that nature isn’t) merely a part of western cultural perceptions of nature as a non-subject, unconscious environment – not as its own complex being (Plumwood)?
Images of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and its marginal portrayal attached
Environmentalist vs Eco thought
Cronon, William. Uncommon ground: rethinking the human place in nature. New York, United States: W.W. Norton & Co, 1996.
Naturecultures, western perception and feminism
Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Master of Nature. New York, United States: Routledge, 1993.
Photo links:
https://frontporchne.com/article/changes-coming-wildlife-refuge/
https://www.denverpost.com/2013/01/14/rocky-mountain-arsenal-national-wildlife-refuge-offers-free-wildlife-drive/
CURATED READING 2: Bill Brown, Thing Theory.
In his influential 2001 essay Thing Theory, University of Chicago professor Bill Brown subverts the modern, capitalist conception of inanimate objects as products to be commodified and subsequently sold on the global marketplace in accordance to the value attributed to them by human beings. Instead, Brown highlights the capacity of objects to assert their autonomy via subtle acts of revolt, which often go unnoticed in our daily lives (Brown, p. 3-4). For example, scenarios involving the mundane and the everyday – such as a trivial papercut or being bopped on the head by a gumnut during your morning walk – effectively transcend into modes of interpolation, in which materials entities effectively ‘speak back’ to humanity, revoking the signifiers relegated to them by human intellectual discourse. Furthermore, Brown notes the manner in which objects crafted from elements of the natural world effectively influence the vantage points through which human beings “look through” (p. 4) perceive and appreciate their surrounding environment. An example of this is a window, which despite being actively created and positioned by human beings, can often expose us to events, phenomena and visions we never expected to see, as well as restricting the scope of our vision. Canadian literary scholar John Plotz employs Brown’s theory to delineate the potential of photographs to be partially human in the sense that they are material objects whilst simultaneously existing as signifiers of human existence irretrievable to the spectator (Plotz, p. 113).
Additionally, Brown claims that the point at which material objects lose their usefulness from a human standpoint entails an act of resistance; a distinct expression of inanimate independence. For example, trivial episode such as “when the drill breaks, when the car stalls, when the window gets filthy, when their flow within the circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition has been arrested” (Brown, p. 4) actively illustrates the power that objects hold over humanity via the inconvenience these mundane moments inflict on us. As a result, human beings are objectified through the way in which our impetus to ‘use’ our way through the everyday is dictated and managed by material entities of the surrounding world. Therefore, Thing Theory effectively subsumes anthropocentric outlooks of human life on this planet by encouraging us to appreciate and acknowledge the complexity of the natural world and the material entities derived from it, in the scheme of our daily lives.
The material 'speaks' back
Brown, Bill. 2001. "Thing Theory". Critical Inquiry 28 (1): 1-22. doi:10.1086/449030.
A comprehensive examination of the implications of Brown's theory on the relationship between humans and the material/natural world
Plotz, John. 2005. "Can The Sofa Speak? A Look At Thing Theory". Criticism 47 (1): 109-118. doi:10.1353/crt.2006.0006.
REFERENCE LIST
2018. Brontaylor.Com. http://www.brontaylor.com/courses/pdf/Carson--TheMarginalWorld.pdf.
Alaimo, Stacy. 2012. "States Of Suspension: Trans-Corporeality At Sea". Interdisciplinary Studies In Literature And Environment 19 (3): 476-493. doi:10.1093/isle/iss068.
"A Tech-Destroying Solar Flare Could Hit Earth Within 100 Years". 2018. New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2150350-a-tech-destroying-solar-flare-could-hit-earth-within-100-years/.
Brown, Bill. 2001. "Thing Theory". Critical Inquiry 28 (1): 1-22. doi:10.1086/449030.
Chun, Maureen. 2012. “Between Sensation and Sign: The Secret Language of the Waves.” Journal of Modern Literature 36 (1): 53-70. Doi: 10.2979/jmodelite.36.1.53.
Cronon, William. Uncommon ground: rethinking the human place in nature. New York, United States: W.W. Norton & Co, 1996.
Derrida, Jacques. "Chapter 11: Plato's Pharmacy." 1972. http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/derrida_platos_pharmacy.pdf.
Plotz, John. 2005. "Can The Sofa Speak? A Look At Thing Theory". Criticism 47 (1): 109-118. doi:10.1353/crt.2006.0006.
Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Master of Nature. New York, United States: Routledge, 1993.
Price, Kaye. Knowledge of Life: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
"To The Lighthouse Archives - Christopher Watkin". 2018. Christopher Watkin. https://christopherwatkin.com/tag/to-the-lighthouse/.
Woolf, Virginia. To The Lighthouse. New York, United States: Oxford University Press, 1927.
