Nature in the Contemporary American Novel

1. Nature in the Contemporary American Novel Patrick D. Murphy University of Central Florida

2. 1960s and 1970s

3. Nature Writing as American Starting Point • Nature Writing was being defined by its teachers as a type of nonfictional prose focused on "natural history and experiences in nature" –Thomas J. Lyon • Even as professors and critics were achieving success in teaching these new courses, they were finding themselves unable to limit their selection of texts to "nonfiction" and to portraits of direct "experience." • Nature writing takes the emphasis away from history and geology and places it squarely on the impact of nature on human individuals and human societies, and, in turn, their impact on nature.

4. The Two Johns John Muir John Burroughs

5. James Fenimore Cooper The Deerslayer The Last of the Mohicans

6. Fictional Nature Literature Herman Melville Sara Orne Jewett

7. Mary Austin The Land of Little Rain The Ford

8. “Environmental” literature • presumes a high degree of self-consciousness about ecological relationships and environmental crises. While examples of environmental literature can be found at any point in time when writers have become concerned about the negative impact of their culture or nation on the natural world they inhabit, it is much more of a contemporary phenomenon than nature literature because of the widespread recognition of global environmental crises.

9. American Feminism Abigail Adams Sencea Falls 1848

10. Women Writers • Susan Fenimore Cooper's Rural Hours, for example, was a national bestseller.

11. Other 19th Century Women Writers • Helen Hunt Jackson • Rebecca Harding Davis • Mary Hallock Foote • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

12. Again in the 1960s • In the U.S. the third wave of feminism arose alongside of, and as a part of, the Civil Rights movement and later the anti-war movement, and developed ahead of but largely separate from environmentalism.

13. Ecofeminism ecofeminism is more focused on the future. Unlike what are known as liberal feminists, ecofeminists do not want women to have equality of opportunity to destroy species of animals, to pollute the atmosphere, or to contribute to global warming. Rather, they believe that alleviating women’s oppression is part of a larger project of transforming human relationships with the rest of nature.

14. Focus on the Future The ecofeminist focus on the future is predicated upon the belief in human agency such that we can act in the world and effect cultural, political, and economic changes. Such changes will in turn open up a different set of possibilities for ways of living in the future than are currently available in the configurations of global capitalism, homogenizing industrialization, and metropolitan cultural oppression of colonial and formerly colonial countries and indigenous peoples.

15. Extension of Agency • Usually, when humans ask "what good is it," they really mean "what good is it to me or to my society?" • Ecocriticismand ecofeminism point out that the questions need to be framed as "what good is it within its ecosystem, and what is the relationship of humans to the maintenance or degradation of that good within that system?" • Using the health of the ecosystem as the fundamental criterion for judgment enables the recognition of diversity as a necessary dimension of individual species and ecosystem survival, with cultural diversity as one of the dimensions that enhances the survival of the human species.

16. Ethnic American Novelists Scott Momaday Leslie Marmon Silko Linda Hogan Ana Castillo Alice Walker Louis Owens

17. Various Senses of Nature and Place Attention to the multicultural and multiethnic dimensions of nature writing and environmental literature is one way of expanding our understanding of literary representations of human-nature interaction. That will help readers and critics to understand the ways in which different segments of the American population articulate their sense of place, of inhabitation, and of identification with the world around them.

18. Contemporary Novels 1970 to Present • one) historical and realist novels • two) postmodern and magic realist novels • three) mystery and detective novels • four) science fiction and fantasy novels.

19. Historical Novels • MarlyYoumans'sCatherwood, set in the colonial period, • William Haywood Henderson's post-Civil War novel, The Rest of the Earth, • Brenda Peterson's Depression era River of Light, • Linda Hogan's Mean Spirit about Native Americans during the Oklahoma oil boom of the 1920s, and • frontier novels by such authors as Molly Gloss, The Jump-off Creek • And Susan Lang, Small Rocks Rising

20. Key Issues with Historical Novels One, are they based in nostalgia and romantically recreate the period to serve eutopian ideals Two, do they attempt to rewrite official or popular history to assess more accurately contradictory characteristics of human-environment interactions Three, do they share similar thematic impulses and emphases or employ different environmental and ethical positions.

21. RealistNovels • Wendell Berry's The Memory of Old Jack,A Place on Earth, and Remembering • Frank Bergon'sWild Game • Stephen Goodwin's The Blood of Paradise • Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Animal Dreams

22. Ruth Ozeki'sMy Year of Meats Agribusiness Carcinogens Mutagenic synthetics Foodchain implicates everyone in Environmental health

23. Postmodern and Magic Realist • Karen Tei Yamashita's, Through the Arc of the Rainforest and Tropic of Orange, • Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, • Tom Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, • John Nichols's The MilagroBeanfield War, • Alice Walker's The Temple of My Familiar, • Toni Morrison's Paradise

24. Linda Hogan, Solar Storms Environmental justice Destruction of Canadian First Nation lands HydroQuebec James Bay Project

25. Mysteries • Nevada Barr's name has become synonymous with adventures in national parks • John Straley the setting is Alaska, both urban and wild • John D. MacDonald and Carl Hiaasen it is Florida • Jane Langton New England towns • Judith Van Gieson, the Southwest • Writers associated with cities who treat environmental topics include Sara Paretsky with Chicago and Barbara Neely with Boston.

26. Florida Favorites • John D. MacDonald

27. Carl Hiaasen

28. Science Fiction Anti-technological Cautionary Tale Arthur Herzog • Jean Hegland

29. De-homocentric Orientation Molly Gloss, The Dazzle of Day Quakers and Whitman

30. Biology and Other Sentient Beings • Joan Slonczewski • Biology Professor • Kenyon College • The Children Star

31. Thank You!