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• 1 media/bfc8e299fe56942bb4803261cb0cace5.jpg 2018-09-17T07:53:20-07:00 CURATED READINGS & REFERENCE LIST 23 Annotations on William Cronon and Bill Brown, as well as a bibliography... plain 2018-10-16T08:57:09-07:00

  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.
  
   
• 1 media/soil-profile.jpg 2018-09-17T07:59:52-07:00 CRITICAL REFLECTION 21 Reflecting on our ecocritical project... plain 2018-10-18T00:53:12-07:00 In our anthropocentric, contemporary society, human beings are positioned at the centre of the world, while other forms of nature are trivialised and marginalised; relegated as resources and commodified in terms of global capitalism. Our decision to engage with the concept of "marginal worlds" - posited by American marine biologist Rachel Carson - allowed us to destabilise the notion of humankind as a dictatorial planetary force vis-a-vis submissive animals, plants, elements and atmospheres, by instead highlighting the complex and overlooked connections and dichotomies that exist between these various entities. Our research covered a wide scope of theoretical frameworks, from Stacy Alaimo and Karen Barad's focus on "intra-activity" - denoting the links between the human and the non-human - to Bill Brown's "thing theory", a concept which emphasises the autonomy of "thingness" in the articulation of social significance. By applying these rich theories to key features of our modern zeitgeist - urban planning and garbage disposal; furniture and Google Earth - we were able to engender an 'eco-skeleton' in the face of anthropocentric thought. The 'eco-skeleton' refers to the intra-active exchanges between forms of nature which effectively structure, constitute and restrain the mobility of all environmental entities, including human beings. Moreover, the eco-skeleton explicates the vulnerabilities of human beings - conventionally perceived as the colonisers of the planet - by exposing humanity's limitations and vulnerability in its interaction with other aspects of nature. 
  
  Furthermore, this theoretical framework is enhanced by American environmental historian William Cronon’s introductory passage in his 1996 text Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place of Nature, which provides invaluable insight into situations where environmental thinking simply does not work,“since we have no clear indication of what would be ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural.’” (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 (pictured) 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.
  
  Stemming from Cronon’s analysis, it is important to acknowledge two different modalities of ecocriticism: macroecocriticism – referring to large-scale examinations of nature, such as Cronon’s wild, blazing, disastrous fire – and microecocriticism, referring to aspects of the trivial and mundane, such as a discarded Coke can or a page of paper, which simultaneously provide a comprehensive and wholesale analysis of the natural world. By acknowledging the diverse levels at which the natural world can impact human experience, we can learn to appreciate and observe what could be considered 'eco-microagressions': subtle ways in which nature 'revolts' against anthropocentric ideologies on a daily basis. This notion is postulated in our short film and photo essay, which highlight the differences between the big and small, the macro and the micro, the unforgettable and the forgettable, the local and the global, the personal and the public... thus achieving a complex understanding of humanity’s multi-faceted relationship to its surrounding environment.
  
  
  Images of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and its marginal portrayal