America After Nature: Democracy, Culture, Environment 3825366057, 9783825366056

Table of contents :
Dedication
Table of Contents
Introduction
Democracy after Nature: National Legacies, Global Futures • CATRIN GERSDORF & JULIANE BRAUN
Keynotes
Natural Wonders: Ecological Enchantment in a Secular Age • FRANK ZELKO
Denialism versus the Resonance Dilemma in the US • JOHN M. MEYER
Environmental Justice and Environmental Humanities in the Anthropocene • JULIE SZE
Risk Narratives: Climate Change, the American Novel, and the World Risk Society • SYLVIA MAYER
The Politics of Nature
Walt Whitman’s Politics of Nature and the Poetic Performance of the Future in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” • SASCHA PÖHLMANN
Pesticides and the Transformation of the National Audubon Society • MICHELLE MART
Bisoncide and Neo-Savagism: The Myth of the Unecological Indian • GESA MACKENTHUN
Transcultural Learning and Ecodidactics: New Trends in Teaching English as a Foreign Language • LAURENZ VOLKMANN
Ecology and Urban Environments
Beneath and Beyond the Sustainable City • BORIS VORMANN
Artistic Negotiations of the Right to the City: Graffiti Artists and the ‘Ghosts’ of Manhattan in Brian Wood’s DMZ • EMMANUEL TRISTAN KUGLAND
Visualizing and Sounding the “Walden State of Mind:” The Urban Matrix in Henry David Thoreau’s Environmental Imagination • FRANK MEHRING
Hip-Hop Life Writing and African American Urban Ecology • NASSIM WINNIE BALESTRINI
Visualizing Nature
Nature, Media Culture, and the Transcendentalist Quest for the Real • HEIKE SCHÄFER
Green Futures; or, How to Enjoy Eco-Apocalypse • J. JESSE RAMÍREZ
A Photo Album of History: Ekphrasis in Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (Book): • ANTONIA PURK
“We see the surface, but there is something beyond the surface”: Recovering Masumi Hayashi’s EPA Superfund Site Photo Collages • INGRID GESSNER
Risk, Posthumanism, and Digital Cultures
Star Trek IV and Environmental Risk: Balancing on Irony’s Edge • MICHAELA CASTELLANOS
From Speculative Darwinism to Interspecies Narratives: The Consequences of Pragmatism for the Posthumanities • WOJCIECH MAŁECKI
Critical Posthumanism in the Posthuman Economy: The Case of “Mister Squishy” • JAMES DORSON
Earth According to Pixar: Picturing Obsolescence in the Age of Digital (Re)Animation • BABETTE B. TISCHLEDER
Flarf: E-Detritus Composition and the Analytical Affordances of a Late Avant-Garde • MARYANN SNYDER-KÖRBER
Contributors

Citation preview

isbn 978-3-8253-6605-6

Democracy, Culture, Environment

America After Nature

American Studies ★ A Monograph Series

America After Nature

s the greatest lessons of Nature through the universe are perhaps the lessons of variety and freedom, the same present the greatest lessons also in New World politics and progress.” In the opening sentence of Democratic Vistas, a text that responds to the United States’s devastating experiences of the Civil War, Walt Whitman reminds his readers that the nation should continue to find its political ideals and cultural purposes in “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Whitman’s concept of nature was anchored in the ideas of eighteenth-century natural rights philosophy, but also in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s definition of nature “in the common sense” as a totality of essences unaltered by human labor and industry. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, nature undergoes what Ursula K. Heise described as a “massive restructuring,” a process that manifests itself in many ways: as urbanization, climate change, and in a reduction of ecological variety. Whitman’s contention that nature provides the concepts and ideas at the core of America’s political, cultural, and social structure, and Heise’s suggestion that nature’s massive restructuring will not remain without consequences for the political, social, and economic constitution of modern culture(s), offer the conceptual and historical frame for the essays collected in this volume. They all investigate the social, political, ethical and aesthetic questions and controversies that are raised in the study of America in a “postnatural world” (McKibben).

gersdorf · braun (Eds.)

gersdorf · braun (Eds.) America After Nature

catrin gersdorf juliane braun (Eds.)

Volume 270

american studies – a monograph series Volume 270 Edited on behalf of the German Association for American Studies by

alfred hornung anke ortlepp heike paul

catrin gersdorf juliane braun (Eds.)

America After Nature Democracy, Culture, Environment

Universitätsverlag

w i nter

Heidelberg

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

umschlagbild © Catrin Gersdorf

isb n 978-3-8253-6605-6 Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. © 2o16 Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH Heidelberg Imprimé en Allemagne · Printed in Germany Umschlaggestaltung: Klaus Brecht GmbH, Heidelberg Druck: Memminger MedienCentrum, 87700 Memmingen Gedruckt auf umweltfreundlichem, chlorfrei gebleichtem und alterungsbeständigem Papier Den Verlag erreichen Sie im Internet unter: www.winter-verlag.de

To Eva Hedrich and all the other invisible brains and hands behind projects like this.

Table of Contents INTRODUCTION CATRIN GERSDORF & JULIANE BRAUN Democracy after Nature: National Legacies, Global Futures

13

KEYNOTES FRANK ZELKO Natural Wonders: Ecological Enchantment in a Secular Age

29

JOHN M. MEYER Denialism versus the Resonance Dilemma in the US

65

JULIE SZE Environmental Justice and Environmental Humanities in the Anthropocene

83

SYLVIA MAYER Risk Narratives: Climate Change, the American Novel, and the World Risk Society

97

THE POLITICS OF NATURE SASCHA PÖHLMANN Walt Whitman’s Politics of Nature and the Poetic Performance of the Future in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”

121

MICHELLE MART Pesticides and the Transformation of the National Audubon Society

143

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GESA MACKENTHUN Bisoncide and Neo-Savagism: The Myth of the Unecological Indian

163

LAURENZ VOLKMANN Transcultural Learning and Ecodidactics: New Trends in Teaching English as a Foreign Language

199

ECOLOGY AND URBAN ENVIRONMENTS BORIS VORMANN Beneath and Beyond the Sustainable City

221

EMMANUEL TRISTAN KUGLAND Artistic Negotiations of the Right to the City: Graffiti Artists and the ‘Ghosts’ of Manhattan in Brian Wood’s DMZ

243

FRANK MEHRING Visualizing and Sounding the “Walden State of Mind:” The Urban Matrix in Henry David Thoreau’s Environmental Imagination

259

NASSIM WINNIE BALESTRINI Hip-Hop Life Writing and African American Urban Ecology

287

VISUALIZING NATURE HEIKE SCHÄFER Nature, Media Culture, and the Transcendentalist Quest for the Real

311

J. JESSE RAMÍREZ Green Futures; or, How to Enjoy Eco-Apocalypse

331

ANTONIA PURK A Photo Album of History: Ekphrasis in Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (Book):

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Table of Contents

INGRID GESSNER “We see the surface, but there is something beyond the surface”: Recovering Masumi Hayashi’s EPA Superfund Site Photo Collages

9

369

RISK, POSTHUMANISM, AND DIGITAL CULTURES MICHAELA CASTELLANOS Star Trek IV and Environmental Risk: Balancing on Irony’s Edge

391

WOJCIECH MAŁECKI From Speculative Darwinism to Interspecies Narratives: The Consequences of Pragmatism for the Posthumanities

405

JAMES DORSON Critical Posthumanism in the Posthuman Economy: The Case of “Mister Squishy”

423

BABETTE B. TISCHLEDER Earth According to Pixar: Picturing Obsolescence in the Age of Digital (Re)Animation

441

MARYANN SNYDER-KÖRBER Flarf: E-Detritus Composition and the Analytical Affordances of a Late Avant-Garde

461

Contributors

483

Introduction

CATRIN GERSDORF & JULIANE BRAUN

Democracy after Nature: National Legacies, Global Futures The year 1989 marked a crucial moment in the history of nature and democracy. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November of that year confirmed the power of democracy to topple dictatorial regimes. In hindsight, it also heralded the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the era of globalization. Earlier that same year, American environmentalist Bill McKibben brought attention to another challenge of the time, one that had, in fact, played no small part in the erosion of the ossified ideology and practice of Realsozialismus (real socialism): the ecological crisis caused by the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. McKibben was convinced that the particles and substances, the fumes and the smog “we” produce “in our pursuit of a better life” (n. pag.) and insert into the atmospheric and geological systems of planet Earth had brought about The End of Natureat least of nature as an independent force. “When I say that we have ended nature,” he writes, I don’t mean, obviously, that natural processes have ceasedthere is still sunshine and still wind, still growth, still decay. Photosynthesis continues, as does respiration. But we have ended the thing that has, at least in modern times, defined nature for usits separation from human society. (McKibben n. pag.)

This definition of nature as the material reality shaped by biochemical, physical, and atmospheric processes on the one hand, and as an entity separate from human society on the other hand reveals McKibben’s intellectual debt to a tradition that can be traced back in American thought to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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In 1836, Emerson had defined nature in similar terms, even using a similar language. Philosophically, nature was “all that is separate from us,” all that is distinguished in theory “as the NOT ME” (3-4). In contrast, “Nature in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf” (4; emphasis in the original). Writing in the early nineteenth century, under the influence of Romanticism and at the dawn of the industrial age, Emerson recognizes the transformative power of artboth in the sense of artisanship and of imaginative creativitywhen he writes about the “mixture” of human will with material nature embodied in “a house, a canal, a statue, a picture” (4). Yet on the grand canvas of the natural world, these “operations” remained “insignificant” (4), an almost invisible scratch in an otherwise unblemished picture. In the closing sentence of “Nature,” Emerson seems to strike a rather different tone when he conjures up “the kingdom of man over nature, which cometh not with observation” (39). Is this a call for the large-scale transformation of nature into culture? A call to Americans to embrace the Herculean task of appropriating nature’s vast domains in this, the New World by mixing their will with the material nature? Whatever the answer, and whatever the critical position that answer reveals, it is obvious that Emerson privileged nature over history as the source that would build and nourish a genuinely American character, both on the individual and the communal, or national level. We find echoes of that preceptthe significance of a force that is more powerful than history, tradition, and conventionin Henry David Thoreau’s celebration of (natural) wildness as an antidote against the individual’s domestication in the shops and offices of modern America. “I prefer not to,” Bartleby’s monotone rejection of the demands of a monotone office job, is the remnant of the nonconformist wild in the domesticated grid of the modern city. It breathes the spirit of freedom in an environment ruled by law, social convention, and economic necessity. Similarly, Walt Whitman perceived “the lessons of variety and freedom” as “the greatest lessons of Nature through the universe” (953). In the opening thoughts of Democratic Vistas, the text that is Whitman’s response to the devastating experience of the Civil War and its aftermath, the poet draws on the authority of the laws of natureand on an intellectual tradition that found expression in the text of the Declaration of Independence but reaches back to the era of classical antiquity, more

Introduction

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specifically, to ideas first formulated by the Greek philosopher Epicurus and later versified by Roman poet Lucretius. Based on the Epicurean valorization of pleasure and joy, rather than pain and fear, as the most natural of all human pursuits, Lucretius promoted an ethics of independence and of freedom from despotism and superstition. An advocate of atomism, he saw nature first and foremost as matter in motion, not as an expression of divine providence or retribution. In De rerum natura (The Nature of Things) he wrote: “Nature is her own mistress and is exempt from the oppression of arrogant despots, accomplishing everything by herself spontaneously and independently and free from the jurisdiction of gods” (qtd. in Johnson and Wilson, 131). The emancipatory potential of Epicurean thought as expressed in metaphors and images like the ones just quoted is obvious: The idea that gods play no part in the doings of nature1 provided a model for philosophical and political ideas of independence. Epicurean thought provided a blueprint for articulating doubts about the raison d’être of established social hierarchies and political orders while at the same time, it established the inherent equality of all things material, including human bodies. As Duke law professor Jedediah Purdy summarized the position: “all people were made of the same matter and had the same life spans and appetites” (59). What Purdy calls “the equality of appetite” (60) refers to a crucial component of Epicureanism that reemerges in seventeenth and eighteenth-century natural rights philosophy and, ultimately, in the United States Declaration of Independence: the physiological relationship of all humans, their equality as ‘natural’ beings which legitimizes their legal and political equality.2 With the Declaration of Independence, and the 1

2

A. E. Stallings’s more recent translation suggested this paraphrase of the passage quoted above: “If you possess a firm grasp of these tenets [of physics expounded in Book II: “The Dance of the Atoms”], you will see / That Nature, rid of harsh taskmasters, all at once is free, / And everything she does, does on her own, so that gods play / No part” (Lucretius 2007, 68). In his Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes defined the law of nature (lex naturalis) as “a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same” (86). In contrast, the right of nature (jus naturale) “is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself,

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political pamphlets, essays, and declarations that prepared it, Epicurean nature, filtered through the poetry of Lucretius and the philosophical work of European thinkers such as Michel de Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, becomes the foundation for the conceptual architecture of the twin pillars of modern democracy and America.3 We find emulations and modifications of this architecture everywhere in the literature of the early Republic and in the lectures, essays, autobiographies, poems, and novels of the nineteenth century. And we have learned to read the work of American transcendentalists, all of whom were fascinated by the idea as well as the experience of nature, as invaluable contributions to the development of the nation’s cultural and political independence.4 Late twentieth-century Americanist revisions of the era Matthiessen had dubbed the American Renaissance de-emphasized the significance of nature, instead focusing on the political and ideological substructure of that era’s canon and on its participation in, or resistance against, the construction of race and gender hierarchies. Nature was no longer seen as a liberatory instrument but, rather, as a concept complicit in legitimizing regimes based on the ideologies of racism and sexism. As Jonathan Dollimore pointed out in a different context, any political philosophy or movement that draws on nature needs to be aware “that much reaction-

3

4

for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life” (86). Because the law of nature applies to all men equally, all have the same right to stave off threats against their lives. This is not a call for violence and war. For Hobbes, “the first, and fundamental law of nature . . . is to seek peace, and follow it.” The “sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves” (87; emphasis in the original) is second only to the fundamental lex naturalis. In order to prevent unnecessary violence and war, human societies need to be regulated by contracts, or, as Hobbes called it, a “Pact, or Covennant” (89). For an extended discussion of the links between Epicureanism and the real story of America’s philosophical origins” see Stewart, ch. 3 “Epicurus’s Dangerous Idea.” For further references to the influence of Epicureanism on the development of ideas and concepts of democracy see also Purdy, esp. 6569; Zuckert, 87-89. See the seminal contributions to the American Studies project by F. O. Matthiessen and Perry Miller.

Introduction

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ary thought will return on the backs” of that concept (qtd. in Soper, 119). Or as Jedediah Purdy formulates it: “Treating humanity as just ‘part of nature’ has fostered racism, imperialism, and fascism, which imagined social life through a corrupted Darwinian triumphalism” (279). Making a similar (Foucauldian) argument, Paul Outka criticizes the classificatory systems of nineteenth-century ethnography for “emplacing various ‘racial’ groups according to their distance from the bestial, the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ or ‘Teutonic,’ or ‘Aryan’ almost always occupied the top and the African the bottom, the place nearest the animal” (7). As important as critical interventions like Outka’s are because they emphasize African Americans’ complex, often traumatic experience of nature, they often neglect the strategic use of the concept in the rhetoric of emancipation and nineteenth-century African American liberation. For example, a brief look at Frederick Douglass’s The Heroic Slave (1853) will demonstrate how at least one African American writer employs some of the strategies of nineteenth-century nature writing for narrating Black emancipatory ideas. In his novella, Douglass stages the Kantian Anschauung der Natur, the observation of nature and animals, as the precept of self-emancipation. In a crucial scene, the protagonist enacts the role of the naturalist (or scientist) who registers concrete natural phenomena and, subsequently, extrapolates ‘truths’ about the human condition, or rather about the situation of the Black subject under the condition of chattel slavery.5 By articulating the abolitionist claim for African American participation in the democratic project of the United States through images of nature, Douglass also participated in a tradition that arguably went into hiatus toward the end of the nineteenth century: the rhetorical and ideological imbrication of nature, democracy, and America. One of the last texts that addressed the philosophical and imaginative codependence of these three concepts is Whitman’s Democratic Vistas. In this prose piece, Whitman modernizes the political tenets of natural rights philosophy by affiliating them with the Darwinian idea of natural variety while at the same time reminding his fellow Americans of their 5

I make a more detailed argument, based on a close reading of Douglass’s novella in a yet unpublished conference paper on “Risk and Nature in the Work of Frederick Douglass.” CG

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national purpose and of the ideas and principles on which their nation was founded. In a historically crucial moment, when the rift that divided the nation along racial and regional lines was still in need of being mended, he implored his American readers to continue the work on “our experiment of democracy” (960). Whitman uses “the words America and democracy as convertible terms” (954); he holds that “democracy too is law,” and that “law is the unshakable order of the universe forever” (972). In calling upon nature and the universe as models for the political and cultural constitution of the nation, Whitman disentangles the democratic experiment of America from the nadir of its most recent history where it had almost been choked to death by the ethical and social vices of slavery and war. At the same time, he redefines democracy as part of the “unshakable order of the universe,” a rhetorical move that presupposes a concept of nature as an entity that remains unaffected by (and, ultimately, separate from) human history and society. Which brings us back to the beginning of this introduction, to Bill McKibben’s anxieties about the end of nature, and the project we pursued with the 61st Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies and the publication of this volume on America After Nature. The following questions have guided both the papers presented at the conference and the essays in this volume: What is the State of the Union, what the state of US-American culture and politics at this point in time, a decade and a half into the twenty-first century and under the condition of the current environmental crisis? If America, the imaginative core of the United States’ cultural and political identity, shares much of its conceptual history with nature and democracy, then what happens when the material reality named by one of the concepts— nature—changes its character as we knew it? In Nach der Natur: Das Artensterben und die moderne Kultur Ursula K. Heise observes that nature currently undergoes a “massive Umstrukturierung” (9), a massive ecological and geological restructuring that will not remain without consequences for the political, social, economic, and aesthetic constitution of modern culture(s). Heise’s concern is not that different from McKibben’s grim prophecy of the end of nature as “we” know it. Yet while McKibben’s lament about the end of nature may be dismissed as the problem of just another “Great White Dude,” a figure Andrew Ross identified as “angry white men” who “have found an accommodating haven under the big tent of environmentalist science, where they are not

Introduction

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automatically required to address questions about race, class, gender, and sexuality” (174), it could also be interpreted more sympathetically, as a concern about the future of democracy. “We have deprived nature of its independence, and that is fatal to its meaning,” McKibben writes. “Nature’s independence is its meaning; without it there is nothing but us” (n. pag.; emphasis in the original). In 1989, the word Anthropocene, describing the new epoch in which the human species emerges “as a globally potent biogeophysical force, capable of leaving a durable imprint in the geological record” (Revkin n. pag.), did not yet enjoy the same critical currency as it does today.6 But McKibbens’s was one of the first voices that addressed the cultural, political, social, and psychological challenges of the Anthropocene. The questions and problems outlined above offer a historical and intellectual frame for reading the individual chapters in this volume. The essays collected in the first section, KEYNOTES, are based on four plenary lectures that provided the conference participants with the general parameters for discussions in the workshops. FRANK ZELKO echoes Bruno Latour’s claim that “we have never been modern” when he takes issue with the Weberian thesis of modernity as a disenchanted mode of existence. In Zelko’s historical account, ecological holism appears as a transnational body of thought that “helped to mitigate the spiritual and existential disorientation of modernity.” Far from being merely an esoteric, or even necrophilic celebration of nature, ecological holism recognizes “the ineluctable logic of science and reason” as one, but not the only way modern humans relate to the natural world. It is, as Zelko writes, “a form of disenchanted enchantment.” Worried about the public inaction on climate change, JOHN MEYER investigates how the debates on climate and sustainability are framed, asking to what degree that determines if people can be moved to action. Meyer acknowledges the problematic us-versus-them divide—i.e., the divide between us, the concerned and responsible environmentalists and them, the larger populace of ignorant and selfish individuals—as one impediment to the popu6

Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer’s pivotal essay on “The ‘Anthropocene’” that introduced the term to a larger public was published in the year 2000.

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larization of environmentalist activism in the United States. However, the much greater problem is what he calls the “resonance dilemma,” the priority of more immediate and individual concerns such as jobs and job security, education, and the cost of living. Meyer offers what he calls an “environmentalism of everyday life” as a form to address the resonance dilemma. One way of linking larger issues such as global climate change and sustainability with local, regional, or national expressions of everyday life is through matters of justice, a topic picked up in JULIE SZE’s contribution. Discussing a number of art projects concerned with “issues of environmental inequality,” Sze seeks to draw attention to race, class, and geographical location as factors that determine the degree to which people are affected by the “catastrophe of climate change.” At the same time, Sze questions the viability of the Anthropocene as a category for addressing the current ecological crisis. The assumption of humaninduced changes in the discourse of the Anthropocene often fails to take into account “inequalities of agency, responsibility, impacts and vulnerabilities.” Not all people, societies, and cultures are equally responsible for nature’s massive restructuring. Like Meyer and Sze, SYLVIA MAYER is concerned with questions of climate change representation and communication. Focusing on the political, historical, and cultural context of the US, she traces the emergent genre of the climate change novel and explores its contributions to the larger discourse on global risk. In Mayer’s account, narrative fiction emerges as a cultural tool for imaginatively experiencing the individual, social, and emotional as well as the ecological consequences of the sensually elusive phenomena of climate change and risk. The essays in section two, THE POLITICS OF NATURE, explore political and policy issues related to the environment and reveal how these issues shape social, ecological, and teaching practices in the postnatural world. SASCHA PÖHLMANN investigates how the characteristics, rules, and principles of nature can productively inform the creation of political and social concepts. Analyzing Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Pöhlmann examines the poem’s construction of time, arguing that poetic performances of the future ultimately help Whitman envision a transtemporal democracy. In “Pesticides and the Transformation of the National Audubon Society,” MICHELLE MART traces the US government’s policies on the use of chemical pesticides and explores how one of the US’s most prominent conservationist organizations positioned

Introduction

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itself toward this environmental threat. Mart contends that it was the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring that caused a shift in the Audubon Society’s stance toward pesticide use and ultimately inspired the organization to strategically recommend moderation, rather than condemning pesticide use outright. This policy of restraint, Mart argues, ensured Audubon’s long-term success and established the organization as a powerful force in American environmental debates. GESA MACKENTHUN’s contribution considers the status of Native Americans in current debates surrounding ecology and the environment. Dismantling both the myth of the ecological Indian and the myth of the unecological Indian, Mackenthun’s essay argues for an in-depth analysis of the cultural work myths perform and, even more importantly, for the close scrutiny of those who benefit from the creation and dissemination of such myths. Exploring current trends in the EFL classroom, LAURENZ VOLKMANN calls for the inclusion of ecocritical and ecodidactic perspectives in the discipline’s recent turn to transcultural and globalized learning. Volkmann contends that ecological concerns should not simply be addressed as isolated phenomena, but can also productively inform classroom discussions of other issues, such as migration, multiculturalism, and the world economy. Recognizing the versatility and importance of ecodidactics for the EFL classroom, Volkmann suggests, will help negotiate the politics of curricula and textbook development. The essays in the third section, ECOLOGY AND URBAN ENVIRONMENTS, uncover the ways in which questions of ecology are discussed in urban environments. BORIS VORMANN’s article critiques the current discourse on sustainability in the city. He exposes the inadequacy of technology-based approaches as a possible solution to the problems of urban centers, while also pointing to the shortcomings of strategies that focus solely on the improvement of social interaction. Vormann instead proposes a third perspective, one that advocates for the creation of sustainable urban infrastructures, and argues that only a dual focus on human interaction and technology will allow cities to thrive. In “Artistic Negotiations of the Right to the City,” EMMANUEL TRISTAN KUGLAND explores the idea of the commons and applies it to his analysis of Brian Wood’s comic book series DMZ. Kugland identifies intellectual property and ecology as important catalysts for political dissent, while also arguing that DMZ’s narratological strategy undermines the very engagement with ecology and politics that the series’ thematic focus had

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seemingly called for. Integrating rural and urban environments, FRANK MEHRING’s reading of Walden elucidates the relevance of Thoreau’s 1854 book for today’s city dwellers. Routing his own analysis of the visual elements in Walden through John Cage’s musical interpretation of the work, Mehring develops the concept of the “Walden State of Mind,” a way of actively and mindfully perceiving one’s environment that allows busy urbanites to leave the stresses of the city behind. In “Hip-Hop Life Writing and African American Urban Ecology,” NASSIM W. BALESTRINI also explores the role of music in urban environments and examines its centrality in African American artistic expression. Carefully unpacking the metropoetics and multimedia practices emerging from Jay Z’s autobiography Decoded, Balestrini’s essay reveals the impact and reach of hip hop life writing as an art form for a variety of audiences while underscoring the critical importance of a black perspective on urban ecologies. The fourth section, VISUALIZING NATURE, investigates how photographs, dioramas, collages, and literary works that use graphic elements engage with questions of ecology, the making (or un-making) of disaster, and the potential for a greener future. In “Nature, Media Culture, and the Transcendentalist Quest for the Real,” HEIKE SCHÄFER analyzes the influence of early photography on the writings of Emerson and Whitman and offers one example of how new technologies affect literary practice. Schäfer suggests that by providing a critical vocabulary and a material window into the immediate representation of nature, photography led both writers to develop a nuanced theory of perception and signification that powerfully informed their works and led them to ultimately rethink the spiritual, cultural, and political function of literature. J. JESSE RAMÍREZ also considers the role of photography for the representation of environmental realities. Examining the works of diorama artist Lori Nix and George Stewart’s novel Earth Abides, Ramírez interrogates the critical purchase of a concept he terms “apocalyptic jouissance” and argues for its transformative powers in the post-national and post-ecological United States. In “A Photo Album of History: Ekphrasis in Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (Book):,” ANTONIA PURK focuses on the relationship between verbal and visual representations of the garden in Kincaid’s work. Purk reads the garden as a kind of palimpsest that, upon close investigation, reveals issues of colonization, representation, and visuality. Purk argues that, through her use of ekphrasis in particu-

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lar, Kincaid visualizes verbal descriptions and allows us to conceive of My Garden (Book): as a photo album that guides us through Kincaid’s personal memories and through a collective history of colonization. Applying the concept of the “anthropocenic sublime” to her analysis of Masumi Hayashi’s EPA Superfund Site photo collages, INGRID GESSNER productively combines ideas from the environmental humanities with critical perspectives from visual culture studies. Gessner emphasizes art’s dual function as aesthetic object and agent of political and social critique while also teasing out how Hayashi’s collages critically engage the viewer. The essays in the final section on RISK, POSTHUMANISM, AND DIGITAL CULTURES most directly address the problems of a world “after nature.” Supplementing Sylvia Mayer’s thoughts on risk and climate change fiction, MICHAELA CASTELLANOS reads Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as one of the earliest cinematic articulations of anxieties about global environmental risks. Yet unlike many narratives of climate change, Star Trek IV does not equate risk with impending destruction but also stages it as opportunity. Taking the work of theorists such as Cary Wolfe, Donna Haraway, and Brian Massumi as his starting point, WOJCIECH MAŁECKI proposes to turn to Richard Rorty and the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism in order to develop a posthumanist ethics, one that uses narrative as an important vehicle “for bringing us closer” to environments and bodies that “we have thus far avoided or neglected.” Posthumanism and the posthuman are also at the center of JAMES DORSON’s critical attention. More specifically, he investigates the conceptual history of posthuman subjectivity against the foil of Taylorism. Based on a close reading of David Foster Wallace’s story “Mister Squishy,” Dorson argues that posthumanism’s romance with the postnatural cyborg tends to obscure a key problem: technological enhancement is not synonymous with the subject’s liberation from the physiological constraints of the natural body but a form of control that, ultimately, creates a truly “post human economy” in which “human workers” are disposed for lack of efficiency. Issues of disposal, obsolescence, and detritus are also the subject of the two chapters that conclude this volume. Interested in both the material and aesthetic dimensions of obsolescence, BABETTE B. TISCHLEDER investigates the representation of trash in Pixar’s computer-animated film WALL-E. Taking one of her cues from Heather Rogers’s account of “the hidden life of garbage,”

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Tischleder approaches “garbage as the American consumer society’s true legacy” and sheds a critical light on WALL-E’s failure to articulate a more radical ecological critique of modern American culture’s wasteful consumption of natural resources. With her essay on Flarf, arguably the first avant-garde literary movement of the twenty-first century, MARYANN SNYDER-KÖRBER enters the postnatural space of the world wide web. Based on a highly productive synthesis of Jakob von Uexküll’s definition of Umwelt (environment) as a “subjectively angled” spatial phenomenon and Marcella Durand’s proposal to develop an ecopoetic theory that pays attention to the organic and the inorganic, the natural and the artificial components of our environments, Snyder-Körber reads Flarf “as an analytical category able to launch a productively expanded ecopoetics.” As a movement whose agents recycle, reuse, and reappropriate “e-detritus,” Flarf is undergirded by an anti-Romantic, postnatural aesthetic, and as such, perhaps the most authentic literary expression of America after nature. The United States is still a major agent in global politics. But twentyfirst-century American attitudes about nature and wilderness, about global warming and the consequences of climate change, about energy production and consumption, and large-scale food production will have to compete with those of other global players, with big ones such as China, Russia, and the European Union, and small ones such as the national islands and archipelagos in the Caribbean, and the Pacific and Indian Oceans that form the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Yet for the foreseeable future, American ideas about nature and its relationship to culture will continue to shape the institutions and structures that define and enact environmental policies world-wide. Democracy is the only form of government based on ethical and legal principles that hold the promise of equality and justice for all. As Cornel West suggests, the realization of the democratic project depends on overcoming the “fear to engage the world and learn from others” (77). With this volume we trace the American contours and the global dimensions of an ongoing experiment in democracy in a postnatural world.

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Works Cited Crutzen, Paul J. and Eugene F. Stoermer. “The ‘Anthropocene’.” IGBP Newsletter 41 (May 2000): 17-18. Print. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” The Essential Writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. Brooks Atkinson. New York: The Modern Library, 2000. 1-39. Print. Gersdorf, Catrin. “Risk and Nature in the Work of Frederick Douglass.” Perilous Passages: The Birth of Risk in Nineteenth-Century American Culture. International Conference. Schloss Thurnau, Bayreuth. 23-24 Oct. 2015. Lecture. Heise, Ursula K. Nach der Natur: Das Artensterben und die modern Kultur. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2010. Print. ---. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. 1651. Ed. J. C. A. Gaskin. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. Print. Johnson, Monte and Catherine Wilson. “Lucretius and the History of Science.” The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius. Ed. Stuart Gillespie and Philip Hardie. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. 131-48. Print. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993. Print. Lucretius. The Nature of Things. Trans. A.E. Stallings. London: Penguin Books, 2007. Print. McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. New York: Random House, 2006. eBook. Outka, Paul. Race and Nature from Transcendentalism to the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Palgrave, 2008. Print. Purdy, Jedediah. After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2015. Print. Revkin, Andrew C. “Confronting the ‘Anthropocene’.” The New York Times, May 11, 2011. Web. March 4, 2016. Ross, Andrew. “The Great White Dude.” Constructing Masculinity. Ed. Maurice Berger, Brian Wallis, and Simon Watson. New York: Routledge, 1995. 167-75. Print. Soper, Kate. What Is Nature? Culture, Politics, and the Non-Human. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Print.

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Stewart, Matthew. Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic. New York: Norton, 2014. Print. West, Cornel. Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print. Whitman, Walt. Poetry and Prose. New York: Library of America, 1996. Print. Zuckert, Michael P. The Natural Rights Republic: Studies in the Foundation of the American Political Tradition. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1996. Print.

Keynotes

FRANK ZELKO

Natural Wonders: Ecological Enchantment in a Secular Age The idea that the modern world is disenchanted—that it has been stripped of the magic and wonder that characterized the mythological and religious cosmologies of the past—has a long pedigree. Die Entzauberung der Welt, Max Weber wistfully proclaimed in 1917, was the inevitable result of the rational, scientific, and bureaucratic mindset that characterized the rise of modernity. In principle, the entire world had become calculable; there were no more mysterious, wondrous forces shaping our lives—just natural phenomena awaiting scientific explanation. “This means,” Weber told a Munich audience, “that the world is disenchanted” (139). Regardless of whether it was true or not, Weber’s pronouncement cast a long shadow over twentieth-century intellectual life. In recent years, however, an emerging body of scholarship has challenged the very idea that modernity is disenchanted. Enchantment, these scholars argue, remains pervasive even among the most secular and rational denizens of modernity. It survives in the form of astrology, mass spectator sports, magic shows and other phenomena that allow people to experience wonder and delight without delusion. Such experiences are as constitutive of modernity as reductive science, instrumental reason and secularism.1 The notion that modern enchantment is reflexive and ironic is certainly compelling and offers some useful insights into how people have coped with the psychological upheaval of modernity. However, it is hard 1

Prominent examples of this scholarship include Saler, As If, Landy and Saler, Cook, Owen, Hanegraaff, Lazier, and Munroe. For a useful historiographical overview, see Saler, “Modernity and Enchantment.”

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to avoid the oxymoron that lies at its core: can people experience the world as enchanted by engaging in forms of lucid self-delusion? Michael Saler posits “modernity remains enchanted in a disenchanted way, rendering the imagination compatible with reason, the spiritual with secular trends” (Saler, As If 13). But can this experience meaningfully be described as enchantment? After all, if enchantment is a mood or an emotion, it must, like other moods and emotions, be rooted in our biology. In fact, it is almost certainly linked to our species’ predisposition toward the supernatural.2 Therefore, to suggest that it can be fully satisfied through self-conscious mental trickery is like arguing that hunger can be satisfied by eating wafers and pretending they are steaks. Beyond whatever biological imperatives enchantment may involve, the notion of a ‘disenchanted enchantment’ also overlooks the fact that many have found durable, satisfying, and pervasive forms of enchantment that speak in the register of science and which do not infringe upon the central tenets of a secular modern worldview. In fact, since such forms of enchantment do not require self-reflexivity and ironic distance, they offer a more genuine and fully realized form of modern secular enchantment. Most notable among these are the holistic ecological views of nature held by certain scientists and intellectuals. Far from remaining the preserve of elites, such views have also shaped the thoughts and actions of numerous popular movements, particularly environmentalism. Such holistic views challenge what their proponents believe to be the

2

Neuroscientist Michael Persinger, a pioneer in the field of ‘neurotheology’, has shown that stimulating people’s brains with complex magnetic waves (via a so-called ‘God helmet’) can produce the sensation of a ‘felt presence’ that probably lies at the root of our tendency to believe in the supernatural. For a recent example of his provocative research, see Persinger, Saroka, Koren, and St-Pierre. For recent work on the evolutionary origins of the universal human predisposition toward the supernatural, see Boyer, Wade, and Wilson. Richard Dawkins views enchantment as an instinctive response to unexpected stimuli: “it is as if the nervous system is tuned at successive hierarchical levels to respond strongly to the unexpected, weakly or not at all to the expected” (Unweaving 264). Historians have barely begun to contemplate what the neuroscience revolution of the past quarter of a century might mean for the study of history. For a sophisticated discussion, see Smail.

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disenchanting dualistic and reductive worldview that dominates modern thought. Those of us who came of intellectual age in the era of Barthes and Derrida may find the essentializing tendencies of holism naïve and problematic. Nevertheless, it has exerted a profound influence on various strands of twentieth-century thought. To those who fully embrace a holistic worldview, nature contains intrinsic wonders that offer a wholly satisfying form of ‘rational enchantment’ that is entirely compatible with—indeed, is in large part derived from—a science-based cosmology.3 After briefly reviewing some of the recent literature on enchantment, this article will examine how the rise of ecological holism in Europe and North America throughout the twentieth century helped mitigate the spiritual and existential disorientation of modernity. It will do so by focusing on some of the key individuals and movements that contributed to and reflected this holistic ecological discourse, a swirling and amorphous transnational community of thought that indelibly shaped our understanding of nature. In the process it will argue that among a segment of educated, non-theistic, scientifically literate Westerners, the locus of enchantment shifted from the supernatural to the natural. Throughout the twentieth century, numerous intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic have recapitulated Weber’s disenchantment thesis in various forms.4 The political philosopher Jane Bennett provides us with a compact summary of this disenchantment narrative: There was once a time when Nature was purposive, God was active in the details of human affairs, human and other creatures were defined by a preexisting web of relations, social life was characterized by face-toface relations, and political order took the form of organic community. Then, this premodern world gave way to forces of scientific and instru-

3

4

The concept of ‘rational enchantment’ was developed by Anne Harrington in reference to Gestalt psychology, itself an important strand of twentiethcentury holism. It offered “the possibility of retaining a place for human significance in nature but without sacrificing rigorous experimental standards of traditional natural science” (103). Prominent examples include: Horkheimer and Adorno, Lukács, Ellul, and Blumenberg. For a useful overview, see Germain.

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Frank Zelko mental rationality, secularism, individualism, and the bureaucratic state—all of which, combined, disenchant the world. (Enchantment 7)

According to Bennett, Saler, and similarly minded scholars, Weberian disenchantment in its various guises has become a historical cliché in desperate need of deconstruction. Nobody denies that the discourse has been an influential phenomenon in twentieth-century life. Nevertheless, the skeptics argue, the disenchantment narrative constitutes “a performative discourse, bringing about the very effects it describes” (Saler, “Modernity and Enchantment” 693). In other words, those who follow Weber and suggest that the modern world is actually rather than merely rhetorically disenchanted have made a category error: they have confused the church with the religion, believing that the destruction of the former automatically entails the death of the latter. But the desire for enchantment is too much a part of our deep cultural past to be so easily obliterated by reductive science or instrumental reason. Weber and others failed to notice “that each time religion reluctantly withdrew from a particular area of experience, a new, thoroughly secular strategy for reenchantment cheerfully emerged to fill the void” (Landy and Saler 1). The denizens of modernity, therefore, have not passively accepted the disenchantment of the world. Nor have they merely fallen for the kind of insidious re-enchantment described by Horkheimer and Adorno, in which capitalism tricks an unwitting population into investing modern media and markets with a mystical aura. Instead, they have engaged in “a variety of secular and conscious strategies for re-enchantment, held together by their common aim of filling a God-shaped void” (2). The new scholarship on re-enchantment—let’s call it the ‘Antinomial School’ for reasons that will soon be apparent—views the disenchantment narrative as a soul-searching, at times alarmist discourse propounded by Western cultural elites who feel that humanity is psychologically ill-equipped to deal with a world emptied of providential certainty and meaning; who find popular culture distasteful; and who despair at what they perceive as the destruction of older, putatively more organic and holistic mental and social structures. In contrast, the Antinomial School portrays a modern world rife with its own form of enchantment, albeit one with a distinctly postmodern tinge. Michael Saler, the School’s chief historiographical expositor, suggests that there

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are forms of enchantment compatible with, and even dependent upon, those tenets of modernity usually seen as disenchanting the world, such as rationality and self-reflexivity. Modern enchantment often depends on its antinomial other, modern disenchantment, and a specifically modern enchantment might be defined as one that enchants and disenchants simultaneously: one that delights but does not delude. (Saler, “Modernity and Enchantment,” 700)

From this perspective, modernity is best defined, not as a series of binary oppositions (instrumental reason vs. religion) or dialectical transformations (instrumental reason becomes a new religion, although without being recognized as one), but rather, as a series of “fruitful tensions between seemingly irreconcilable forces and ideas” and “unresolved contradictions and oppositions, or antinomies” (Saler, “Modernity and Enchantment” 702). The idea that various forms of enchantment persist in—indeed, are constitutive of—the sensibilities of the modern West is a fresh and welcome approach to excavating the cultural history of secular modernity. Despite Weber’s warning that the world had become entirely calculable, people continued to find wonder and surprise in all sorts of realms. From this perspective, cultural phenomena such as magic shows and detective fiction functioned, in Joshua Landy’s reckoning, as “training grounds for lucid self-delusion, for the tenacious maintenance of fantasy in the face of facts. They are what makes possible the re-enchantment of the world” (Landy 129; italics in original). Thus various forms of delusion have continued to exist side-by-side with the very instruments that debunk them. Early nineteenth-century Europe, for example, experienced a wave of ghost story-debunking, while at the same time, and frequently among the same social milieu, there developed a craze for magic shows whose very fakeness was part of their appeal (Paige 165). The French historian Robin Walz views the rise of ‘rocambolesque’ fiction—fantastically improbable adventure stories that became extremely popular as industrialization made mass publishing increasingly affordable during the nineteenth century—as another example of this distinctly modern form of ‘delight without delusion’: it functioned, and continues to function, as a ‘mirror of the marvelous’ animating a disenchanted modernity. “The rocambolesque revives an otherwise sterile

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reality with irrepressible enchantments for popular audiences throughout the modern world” (148).5 Modern spectator sports play a similar role. As Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht suggests, the process whereby superb athletes and legions of spectators become “lost in focused intensity” functions as a “strategy of secular re-enchantment”(150).6 The Antinomial School makes a strong case for the existence of a particularly modern form of enchantment: one that accepts science and rationalism as hegemonic ontologies, but nonetheless provides space within which people can cultivate wonder and surprise. Weber may have been correct in his assertion that there were no more mysteries and that the world was, in principle, entirely calculable, but his gloomy prognosis of a disenchanted world was unfounded. Numerous antinomies—the indigestible cultural morsels of modernity—keep disenchantment at bay. They ensure that mystery and a sense of enchantment can percolate through the tough crust of reductionist science and instrumental reason. For the Antinomial School, phenomena such as magic shows, the rocambolesque, mass sports and astrology are the methadone of modernity: they provide just enough of a high to stave off addiction to the purer opiate of pre-modern enchantment. This is a clever analysis of certain trends in modern literature and popular culture, but is this form of re-enchantment, with its nudgenudge, wink-wink sensibility, all there is to the story? After all, our need for enchantment likely shares the same root as our desire for transcendence and meaning, as well as our tendency to look to the supernatural to explain life’s mysteries.7 It is hard to imagine that such deep psycholog5

6

7

For examples of similar forms of modern enchantments, see the other essays in Landy and Saler’s collection, as well as the numerous books discussed by Saler in “Modernity and Enchantment.” The philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly push this idea even further: “[t]here are moments in sport—either in the playing of them or in the witnessing of them—during which something so overpowering happens that it wells up before you as a palpable presence and carries you along as on a powerful wave. At that moment there is no question of ironic distance from the event. That is the moment when the sacred shines” (194). In a dauntingly erudite and magnificently speculative work of interdisciplinary synthesis, Iain McGilchrist has suggested that instrumentalism and reductionism are not merely cultural manifestations of a particular scientific

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ical needs could be adequately satisfied by lucid self-delusion. Various forms of religious fundamentalism will do the trick. However, these are so at odds with the ontology of modernity that they are of limited appeal to those who have embraced, even if reluctantly, the ineluctable logic of science and reason. Not surprisingly, many denizens of secular modernity quickly found that there were deeper and more powerful forms of reenchantment available: ones that went beyond ‘delight without delusion.’ Enchantment could be found in various holistic worldviews that suggested that there was more to the world than the mere sum of its parts. Wherever such views appeared, they always seemed to oppose the various forces of modernity that Weber and others viewed as disenchanting. Holistic ecology in particular offered a version of nature that was purposive, wondrous, and pregnant with enchantment. In this world, organisms cooperated for the greater good of the whole and with the ultimate goal of establishing balanced and durable environments, whether at the level of a small pond, a tropical rainforest or the entire planet. In such a world, maintaining the balance of nature became a sacred task. Where self-restraint and good deeds used to offer a ticket into heaven, they were now focused on the preservation of the only heaven we were ever likely to experience: the bounded, fragile space that constitutes our small blue planet. This worldview provided many disenchanted intellectuals and scientists—and eventually, a significant slice of the general population—with a satisfying form of enchantment that spoke in the register of science and was therefore fully ‘modern.’ As a worldview, holism tends to be somewhat nebulous. Despite its elusiveness, however, the concept is no less real than similarly softedged terms such as republicanism, liberalism, and romanticism. So while it might not be the most concrete of phenomena, it has nonetheless played a significant historical role, and not just in some of the more worldview, but also products of our divided brain: the result of a kind of long-term wrestling match between the narrowly focused and instrumentalist left hemisphere and the more empathic and creative right hemisphere. There is thus a kind of positive feedback between the cultural conditions of modernity, with its need for ever greater precision, calculation, bureaucratization and reductionism, and the left hemisphere of the brain, which excels at such tasks. Western culture, therefore, is a predominantly left hemisphere culture and a re-enchanting holism is the right hemisphere’s way of fighting back.

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ethereal realms of philosophy and scientific theory. As Charles Rosenberg puts it: “particular individuals in the past accepted inclusive and integrative assumptions about nature and society, invoked them, [and] used them to justify ways of thinking about the world as it was and as it ought to be” (335). And such ways of thinking buttress many elements of quotidian life in the modern world. The fact that you practice yoga, for example, is probably the result of someone else’s holistic thinking. 8 At the most general level, holism is both a worldview and a sensibility. It insists that everything in the universe is interconnected and interdependent and that the world can be properly understood only by focusing on the way that its constitutive parts interact with the constituted whole. From a historian’s perspective, as Christopher Lawrence and George Weisz usefully point out, “holism is essentially relational; it constitutes a rhetorical claim made in opposition to other approaches that are characterized as excessively narrow or reductionist in focus”(2). Holism has taken a variety of different forms depending on the academic discipline or social milieu that embraces it: it is sometimes metaphysical, tending toward spiritualism or vitalism, while at other times it is resolutely materialist and Darwinian. Mitchell Ash notes that skeptics sometimes portray holistic thought “as a wooly minded revolt against reason, an attempt to escape the constraints on both thought and action imposed by modern science” (ix). This characterization is demonstrably true in some cases. However, the more pervasive and influential forms of holism have been advanced by people seeking an enchantment compatible with and explanatory of secularism and science.9 Modern holism emerged in reaction to the mechanistic and reductionist scientific worldview that became increasingly prevalent throughout the nineteenth century. There were few better expressions of this development than the 1847 manifesto issued by a group of German 8

9

In addition to Lawrence and Weisz above, other useful histories of holism include: Wood, Ash, Harrington, Alster, Golley, and Craige, Laying Down the Ladder. For examples of such skepticism, see Lovejoy, Phillips, Holistic Thought, and Phillips, The Truth of Ecology. “The problem with holism,” writes Dana Phillips with reference to ecology, “is that we can get along piecemeal just fine without it, and aren’t able to move beyond the piecemeal with it. It is a burdensome ideology” (65-66).

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physicists, among them some of the most influential scientists of the century, including Hermann von Helmholtz and Karl Ludwig: [N]o other forces than the common physical-chemical ones are active within the organism. In those cases which cannot be explained by these forces, one has either to find the specific way or form of their action by means of the physical mathematical method or to assume new forces equal in dignity to the chemical-physical forces inherent in matter, reducible to the force of attraction and repulsion. (qtd. in Harrington, Reenchanted Science 7)

Such sentiments were echoed in 1858 by Rudolf Virchow, Germany’s leading physician, who continued the revolt against vitalism: “There is no spiritus rector, no life-spirit, water-spirit, or fire-spirit [...] Everywhere there is mechanistic process only, with the unbreakable necessity of cause and effect” (qtd. in Harrington, Re-enchanted Science 7). 10 It is not hard to see why such anti-vitalist sentiments became increasingly resonant. Technological breakthroughs allowed scientists to focus on and manipulate organisms at the cellular level. The reductionist science of the laboratory identified diseases and promised cures; it split apart and recombined molecules into useful new materials and products. Given their efficaciousness, it is not surprising that reductionist values and assumptions became increasingly pervasive to the point of seeming self-evident. In a time of rapid industrial expansion and growing consumerism, they offered a form of science that was on the one hand practical and result-oriented, but which also promised insight into the most fundamental levels of life and matter (Rosenberg 336).11

10

11

Few scientists were as devoted to establishing the mechanistic conception of life as the German Jewish biologist, Jacques Loeb. A ruthless critic of all vitalist and animist tendencies in science, Loeb immigrated to the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, taking up a position at the University of Chicago. Among his most famous students were John B. Watson, the founder of behaviorist psychology, and Gregory Pincus, the developer of the birth control pill. See Pauly. Despite dismissing vitalism as untenable in modern science, the renowned evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr was nonetheless sympathetic toward its earlier exponents, arguing that it was ahistorical to ridicule them. Instead, one

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The backlash against reductionism was exemplified in the work of several renowned European scientists and philosophers such as Christian von Ehrenfels, Max Wertheimer and Jakob von Uexküll. Uexküll developed an influential model of animal behavior in which every organism and its environment was part of an integrated system he referred to as the Umwelt.12 A conservative aristocrat, Uexküll was fearful of the social and political instability he felt would result from the deeply disenchanting mechanistic worldview that characterized early twentiethcentury science. “With the destruction of Christianity and its God,” he wrote in 1921, “the human being stops being human and becomes something worse than a beast: he becomes a machine” (qtd. in Harrington 65) For Uexküll, nature was not merely a mass of organic and inert parts; rather, it was part of what he called a Bauplan, or blueprint, which coordinated the lives of individuals into a harmonious and interconnected whole: We find that all characteristics of living things are integrated in a contrapuntal way with the characteristics of other unities. In this way, one gains the impression of an all-embracing harmonious Whole (Ganzheit), because even the characteristics of non-living things interweave in a contrapuntal way into the Bauplan of the living. (qtd. in Harrington 66).13

While Uexküll and his holistically minded colleagues philosophized a new scientific holism, others were busy creating an alternative culture that reflected this kind of holistic thought. Early twentieth-century Germany saw the rise of numerous organizations and movements that embodied what John Alexander Williams calls a ‘naturist’ ideology. These

12

13

should view vitalism as a natural and understandable reaction to crass mechanistic thinking. The English translation of Umwelt is ‘environment’, and the German word subsequently gained the same broad political meaning as its English equivalent. For a more detailed discussion of German efforts to combat the disenchantment of reductive science, including how such views were incorporated into Nazi thought, see Harrington. Many scholars view Uexküll as part of the same broad phenomenological tradition as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Edmund Husserl. For example, see Buchanan.

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groups were not predominantly interested in nature protection (although there were a good number of such organizations as well). Rather, they were concerned that the conditions of modernity—industrialization, urbanization, capitalism, reductionist science, philosophical nihilism and relativism—were debasing the body and soul of German citizens. The cure for this malaise lay in a reorientation toward a lifestyle that they perceived as more ‘natural.’ The result was the Lebensreform movement and its numerous offshoots, such as organic agriculture, Freikörperkultur (organized nudism), the Wandervogel and Naturfreunde hiking clubs, and Anthroposophy, Rudolph Steiner’s blend of science and spiritualism that continues to live on in the form of hundreds of Waldorf schools worldwide (Williams).14 Outside the Lebensreform mainstream were various radical nature cults such as the Naturmenschen, the longhaired, bearded, sandal and tunic-wearing dropouts whose nature worship reached monastic levels of asceticism. Inspired by Theosophy and Eastern religions, naturists believed that by deeply immersing themselves in nature’s holistic Bauplan, they could experience the transcendent sense of wonder and enchantment that every healthy soul required.15 The United States had its own Naturmensch, one who was every bit the equal of his German counterparts. John Muir spent much of his life roaming the wilderness of the American West. The product of a deeply religious upbringing, Muir nonetheless accepted Darwinian evolution as the principle explanation for the functioning of life on the planet. Rather than dwelling on the pessimistic implications of evolutionary theory— the emphasis on randomness and brutal competition—Muir viewed it as a part of the enchanted process of creation, the result of which was a harmonic and balanced universe. Nature, he believed, had its own intrinsic worth that was independent of whatever value humans bestowed 14

15

Although such cultural tendencies reached their apogee in fin de siècle Germany, they were by no means uniquely German. For an American perspective, see Jackson Lears. For Britain, see Marsh. On the connections between holistic thought, re-enchanted science, and organic agriculture, see DeGregori. For a general history of Lebensreform, see Barlösius. On the connection between Lebensreform and later German environmentalism, see Linse. Martin Green argues that these movements were vital precursors of the sixties counterculture.

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upon it, and Muir’s sense of wonder was illuminated by a holistic ecological worldview that was part pantheist, part transcendental. “When we try to pick out anything by itself,” he wrote toward the end of his life, “we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe” (211). Muir was one of the founders of the Sierra Club, America’s most venerable environmental organization, and his writing taught environmentalists, as Robert Fuller notes, “that learning to behold nature in a manner permeated by “rejoicing and wondering” is the important first step toward becoming a citizen of an ecologically healthy universe”(53).16 The Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky was another prominent holistic thinker whose influence runs through various currents of twentieth-century ecological thought. Like Steiner and others whose worldviews had been shaped by Theosophy, Ouspensky strongly resisted the reductionism that he believed downgraded the cosmic importance of consciousness and spirit in favor of mundane material processes. Thus Ouspensky claimed that all matter, regardless of its complexity or level of organization, was imbued with consciousness: that nature was, quite literally, alive and self-aware.17 Aldo Leopold, among the most influential figures in the history of American environmental thought, found Ouspensky’s mystical holism very convincing, and it came to permeate his own brand of holistic ecology. In “Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest” (1923) he wrote: Sometimes we vaguely feel an intense life manifesting itself in the phenomena of nature . . . There are days brimming with the marvelous and the mystic, days having each its own individual and unique conscious16 17

For a comprehensive treatment of Muir’s attitude to nature, see Worster, Passion for Nature. Ouspensky was influenced by the Anglo-Canadian psychologist, Richard Bucke, whose Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind (1901) has continued to shape the ideas of various countercultural intellectuals and New Age writers throughout the past century. Bucke argued that a handful of humans—Jesus, Buddha, Dante, Whitman, himself—had reached a higher, more advanced stage of self-awareness and an ability to plug into a collective consciousness, and that this development prefigured an evolutionary leap in consciousness that would one day characterize our species as a whole. Ouspensky devotes a chapter of Tertium Organum to a discussion of Cosmic Consciousness.

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ness, its own emotions, its own thoughts. One may almost commune with these days. And they will tell you that they live a long, long time, perhaps eternally, and that they have known and seen many, many things . . . There can be nothing dead or mechanical in nature. If in general life and feeling exist, they must exist in all. (qtd. in Meine, 214-15)18

While Ouspensky was content to emphasize the mystical elements of holism at the expense of science, the former South African prime minister Jan Christian Smuts felt he had discovered the great cosmological convergence that melded science with spirit and evolution with consciousness. One of the most influential figures in the history of early twentieth-century holism, Smuts—an Afrikaner, Boer War hero, and lifelong advocate of apartheid—seems like an anomalous figure in our story of holism and re-enchantment. But in addition to his military and political exploits, he was also a multi-lingual Cambridge-educated polymath with an interest in botany and evolutionary theory. Smuts was an avowed nature lover who would have felt a kinship with John Muir or the various metaphysical naturists in Germany. As unlikely as it may seem, until the mid-1920s, the venerable German word Ganzheitlichkeit did not have an English equivalent. It was Smuts who first came up with the term ‘holism’, although given his knowledge of German philosophy, it might more accurately be thought of as an act of translation than coinage. In his 1926 book, Holism and Evolution, he attempted nothing less than a synthesis of Darwinian evolutionary theory, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the philosophy of human consciousness and cognition. Such lofty ambition left little room for modesty. Smuts felt that in developing his concept of holism, he had discovered the “ultimate synthetic, ordering, organizing, regulative activity in the universe, which accounts for all the structural groupings and syntheses in it” (317). All reality, he concluded, was aggregative, contextual, and emergent: “the progressive development of the resulting wholes at all stages—from the

18

Meine argues that Ouspensky was Leopold’s strongest intellectual influence while he was developing his environmental ethic during the 1920s. Susan Flader, Leopold’s other leading biographer, agrees (17).

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most inchoate, imperfect, inorganic wholes to the most highly developed and most organized—is what we call Evolution” (99).19 Smuts’s metaphysical holism was incorporated into American ecological thought by the influential Nebraskan botanist Frederic Clements. Clements formulated a scientific theory that purported to explain vegetation patterns throughout the world. After careful study of his native prairie biome, he came to the conclusion that a process of long-term coevolution created plant communities that were thoroughly interdependent and which tended toward a balanced state he referred to as ‘climax.’ When a savannah or a hardwood forest is disturbed by fire, for example, it will gradually return to the pre-disturbance species composition, a process Clements called ‘succession.’ The stages of succession are reasonably predictable, and without further disturbance, the community will once more arrive at its former balanced or ‘climax’ state. Clements’s theory dominated ecological thought for a generation and continued to have cultural resonance long after it was displaced by theories that viewed nature as fundamentally chaotic rather than as cooperative and balanced (Worster, Economy ch. 11; Barbour; Tobey).20 As initially conceived, Clements’s notion of climax was a thoroughly materialist, if inevitably teleological model of nature, with none of the metaphysical overtones found in the work of some of his contemporary natural scientists, such as Uexküll. However, in the 1930s, Clements fell under the spell of a charismatic young South African ecologist named John Phillips. At a time when Clements’s work was under attack by skeptics such as Arthur Tansley and Henry Gleason, Phillips wrote a series of articles extolling Clementsian ecology, which had “become to me the deepest and most abiding reality, paradoxically both a starting point and a goal in the scientific study of communities” (qtd. in Hagen, Bank 83). Phillips, however, was a disciple of his South African compatriot, Jan Smuts, and felt that Clementsian ecology buttressed Smuts’s all-encompassing and highly speculative holistic theory. As historian of 19

20

For an analysis of Smuts’s influence on ecological ideas in the early twentieth century, as well as how they fed into his views on apartheid, see Anker, ch. 2. For a critique of Clementsian ‘balance-of-nature’ ecology, see Kricher. For a recent attempt to downplay Clements’s influence in the history of ecology, see Rumore.

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science Joel Hagen points out, “on the face of it, Clements’s mechanical-organic theory of succession fit uncomfortably with Smuts’s passionately antimechanistic defense of emergent evolution” (Hagen, Bank 84). Nevertheless, by the mid-1930s, Clements was enthusiastically recommending Smuts’s work to his colleagues and using Smuts’s holism to buttress his own ecological theories. And ironically, even as Clementsian ecology fell out of favor among professional ecologists in the postwar era, its holistic language and sensibility continued to resonate with ecological activists, particularly those who embraced the sensibility of the 1960s counterculture.21 Among twentieth-century American ecologists, few had as much lasting impact as Eugene Odum, a professor at the University of Georgia for over half a century. Odum’s undergraduate mentor and greatest intellectual influence was Victor Shelford, a renowned University of Illinois ecology professor who worked closely with Frederic Clements. Both Shelford and Clements were strongly influenced by Jan Smuts, whose pronouncements on holism they quoted approvingly in their 1939 text, Bio-Ecology: A whole is a synthesis or unity of parts, so close that it affects the activities and interactions of these parts, impresses on them a special character, and makes them different from what they would have been in a combination devoid of such unity or synthesis. … It is a complex of parts, but so close and intimate, so unified that the characters and relations and activities of the parts are affected and changed by the synthesis.

Ecology, according to Smuts, “was simply a recognition of the fact that all organisms feel the force and moulding effect of their environment as a whole” (Clements and Shelford 23. Originally in Smuts 122, 340). Shelford disdained reductionism in all its forms and dismissed scientists who opposed his holistic ecology as ‘anti-ecological.’ Thus Shelford and Clements, and by extension, Eugene Odum, were all linked together in the broad stream of holistic thought flowing through twentieth-century 21

In addition to the books cited above by Hagen, Anker and Worster, other useful histories of ecological ideas include Kingsland, Bocking, Mitman, Golley, and Slack.

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Western culture. This is not to say that holistic ecology was irreparably ‘tainted’ by the mystical, vitalist and organicist strains that ran through early twentieth century holism. It merely demonstrates the rather mundane reality that science cannot be easily separated from broader intellectual and cultural trends: that they are, in fact co-constitutive (Craige, Laying 24-25).22 Although Shelford’s holistic ecology influenced Eugene Odum for the rest of his life, his conception of holism did not remain static. As an increasing number of critics began to expose the limitations of Shelford and Clements’s ecology—their predilection for organicism and their tendency to examine biotic communities without due reference to their physical environment—Odum gravitated toward Arthur Tansley’s ecosystem model, which he subsequently elaborated into an allencompassing philosophy of nature and society. The natural world, Tansley argued, could best be understood as a series of interlocking ecosystems—a pond, a forest, the biosphere—each of which could be studied as a ‘whole’. How could one understand these systems without resorting to reductionism? The key, according to the methodology developed by Odum, was to examine the energy circuits and material flows that connected biotic and abiotic phenomena into a single interacting entity. Such an approach also lent itself to the study of pollution, habitat destruction and other anthropogenic impacts, thereby providing ecologists with tools that would enable them to act as society’s environmental problem solvers. In 1953, Odum published Fundamentals of Ecology, which would become the leading ecology textbook for the next two decades, thereby establishing ecosystem ecology as the dominant paradigm in the field. Fundamentals offered its readers a homeostatic model of nature in which ecosystems tended to evolve toward a state of equilibrium and harmony, constantly fending off and assimilating disturbances and fluctuating around a reasonably fixed ecological state. It was a model that reflected Odum’s broader, teleological view that harmony was the goal toward which both nature and human society were constantly evolving (Craige, Odum 26, 43; Hagen, “Teaching” 706). 22

For more on Smuts’s influence on early scientific ecology, see Golley 25-27. There is a veritable library of books dealing with the social construction of science. For a useful introduction, see Latour.

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Despite the popularity of Fundamentals, or perhaps because of it, some scientists found Odum’s metaphors and concepts deeply problematic. Most evolutionary ecologists, for example, were convinced that individual fitness was the key to understanding how life functioned and evolved. They were thus deeply suspicious of the group adaptation theories embedded in Odum’s ecosystem concept, as well as the notion that the elements of nature ‘cooperated’ in an effort to achieve a balanced state. Nevertheless, Odum’s metaphors resonated with broader cultural trends. His insistence that even a spacecraft constituted an ‘ecosystem’, a self-contained ‘life support system’ in which everything needed for survival was contained in a single vessel, was a powerful image for a public that was fascinated with the space program and beginning to see the first photos of the earth taken from outer space. (Worster, Economy 366-67; Hagen, “Teaching” 705-06).23 Furthermore, Odum was quite happy to see ecosystem ecology conflated with environmentalism; in fact, he actively promoted this conflation in numerous lectures and publications throughout the United States and the world, and his ecosystem evangelism resonated with students in particular. As his biographer Betty Jean Craige noted, the left-leaning students who believed that ecology would enable them to ‘save the earth’ liked Odum’s environmentalist message, populist political posture, vision of nature as inherently orderly, and desire for a peaceful and harmonious society in which humans would cooperate with one another rather than compete. (Odum 123)

Odum’s philosophy echoed that of Aldo Leopold, whom he greatly admired: “A thing is right,” Leopold pontificated, “when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” (Almanac 262). According to this logic, the indiscriminate use of pesticides was clearly ‘wrong’, threatening homeostatic ecosystems with fluctuations they could neither fend off nor

23

The impact of Fundamentals of Ecology was not limited to North America: it was translated into twelve other languages. See Craige, Odum xii. For a superb study of the impact of early outer space photography on environmentalism, see Poole.

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assimilate.24 Widespread air and water pollution, forest clear-cutting and land degradation, oil spills, and other forms of environmental destruction that threatened entire ecosystems all fell into the same category. Human beings, under the imprimatur of a reductionist and mechanistic form of science, were now the primary threat to the natural order. Odum’s holistic theories and metaphors implicitly criticized both radical individualism and laissez-faire capitalism. Given the rising number of reports of environmental destruction throughout the 1960s, it is little wonder that his holism appealed to a large number of progressive scientists and activists increasingly alarmed by the environmental problems caused by modern industrial society. As Karen Porter, one of his colleagues at the University of Georgia, noted: “Gene was a proselytizer of holism, and his message of interconnectivity inspired a generation of ecologists” (qtd. in Craige, Odum xii). In addition to Odum, a shy biologist from Pennsylvania was another highly influential popularizer of holistic ecology during the 1960s. Rachel Carson was raised in a Presbyterian family, and while she may have abandoned traditional Christianity, she nonetheless remained faithful to its broader moral precepts. Carson’s mother Maria was a fervent proponent of the Nature Study movement of the early twentieth century and raised Rachel according to its principles: children should be encouraged to explore the outdoors as much as possible; they should be educated about nature in a way that inspires a sense of wonder and enchantment; and they should be steeped in the movement’s juvenile literature, a blend of moralistic, sentimental and frequently religious nature tales. It is clear that her immersion in nature study would have a life-long impact on the way Carson attended to the natural world (Sideris).25 “The control of nature,” Carson sermonized, is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man . . . It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a sci24

25

Although, perhaps somewhat self-servingly given his work with the Atomic Energy Commission, Odum never extended this criticism to nuclear energy. See Hagen, “Teaching” 708-09. For the influence of Nature Study on Carson’s early life, as well as a broader history of the movement, see Armitage 209-11.

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ence has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth. (Silent Spring 279)

Humans, Carson warned, must adopt a more humble attitude toward the natural world: they must recognize their place within it rather than attempting to live as though they were separate from it. Like Leopold, Muir, and other major figures in the history of holistic ecological thought, Carson was urging people to exercise ethical restraint and to cultivate a sense of enchantment with the natural world. Her mission was not simply to inform people about nature: it was to inculcate the general population with the feelings that nature study and holistic ecology had inspired in her. Carson, therefore, was among the foremost popularizers of holistic thought. In a sense, her broader project, like those of so many other holists, was one of re-enchantment. “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children,” Carson wrote in a women’s magazine, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength. (Wonder 42-43).26

Carson’s schoolmarmish plea continues to resonate. In the process, it has inspired twenty-first century versions of the Nature Study movement, such as Richard Louv’s crusade to kick couch-bound kids outdoors so that they can experience the salubrious and wondrous qualities of nature.27 Carson and Odum’s holism influenced Kenneth Boulding, one of the twentieth century’s most influential, if unorthodox, economists and the progenitor of the relatively new discipline of ecological economics (Røpke). Born in Liverpool in 1910, Boulding was a devout Quaker and devoted peace activist. He immigrated to the United States in 1937, 26 27

The original essay was titled “Help Your Child to Wonder,” and was published in the Woman’s Home Companion in July 1956. Louv and Teilhard de Chardin, The Nature Principle. In a similar vein, see Van Noy.

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where he successfully fought a legal battle to gain US citizenship despite renouncing the oath to bear arms. Boulding was one of the few midtwentieth-century economists to pay heed to the notion that there were ecological limits to economic growth. In one of his most well known essays, “The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth,” he referred to capitalism as a “cowboy economy,” a term he felt was “symbolic of the illimitable plains” and the “reckless, exploitative, romantic, and violent behavior, which is characteristic of open societies.” A more apt model, he argued, would be a “spaceman economy,” a closed system with finite resources and limited capacity for waste disposal. If humans were to adapt to the limits of such a system, they would have to find their “place in a cyclical ecological system which is capable of continuous reproduction of material form even though it cannot escape having inputs of energy” (Boulding 9).28 Boulding was here drawing on Eugene Odum’s ecosystem model, and Odum, in turn, was impressed with Boulding’s ecological brand of economics and his Quaker commitment to pursuing a harmonious society. In a 1975 lecture at Yale, Odum quoted Boulding’s description of an ecosystem model of history in which society progresses from an early stage of chaos and competition toward a ‘mature’ state of homeostasis: One might even have an optimistic image of the present period of human expansion as a kind of adolescence of the human race in which man has to devote a large portion of his energy to sheer physical growth. Hence we could regard the stationary state as a kind of maturity in which physical growth is no longer necessary and in which, therefore, human energies can be devoted to qualitative growth—knowledge, spirit and love. (qtd. in Craige, Odum 121)29

It is doubtful anyone saw it this way at the time, but Odum was effectively channeling Uexküll, Ouspensky, Smuts and Carson—a whole slew of twentieth-century holistic thinkers—into the minds of impressionable and enthusiastic young ecologists and environmental activists. 28 29

Buckminster Fuller also adopted the spacecraft metaphor in Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Modern physics has also had a fling with enchanted holism, most notably through the work of Fritjof Capra and David Bohm.

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And what could be more enchanting than a holistic science that tells us that the tendency of both ecosystems and societies is toward harmony, spirit and love? To be sure, those inclined toward a materialist philosophy of science would have found such ideas problematic. Nevertheless, the fact that Odum’s reputation was built on countless studies published in numerous scientific journals meant that one could not dismiss his ecosystem ecology lightly. Catholics and Protestants might accuse each other of apostasy, but neither would claim that the other is not a religion. The same can be said of holistic ecology and more reductive, mechanistic, and materialist scientific worldviews. Both sides could legitimately claim that their view of nature is derived from a scientific understanding of the world. However, only holism left the door open to the possibility that there was more to life than matter and mechanism: that ‘the sum of the parts’ could yield something higher and nobler than “the chemicalphysical forces inherent in matter, reducible to the force of attraction and repulsion.”30 While Boulding was inculcating the dismal science with ecological holism, the Beat writer Gary Snyder was channeling it through poetry. Snyder, who spent ten years studying under a Zen master in Japan, believed eastern religions, unlike Christianity, did not view nature and the human world as separate realms of creation and were therefore much more compatible with an ecological worldview. Upon his return to the United States, Snyder fused his knowledge of Zen with the insights of holistic ecology, Native American spirituality, and American natural rights philosophy. The result was a biocentric ethic that embedded humankind deep within the natural world. For Snyder, the ethical implications of biocentrism required that other members of the natural community be treated with the same respect that humans, and westerners in particular, had traditionally reserved for other humans. To symbolize this ethical extension, Snyder rephrased the countercultural slogan, ‘Power to the people’, as ‘Power to all the people.’ To achieve this, he wrote in his Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Turtle Island, humans would need to “incorporate the other people . . . the creeping people, and the standing people, and the flying people and the swimming people . . .

30

From the 1847 German physicists’s manifesto quoted above.

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into the councils of government” (108).31 Such an environmental ethic, Snyder hoped, would ‘liberate’ both humans and the natural world from the straitjackets of corporate capitalism and scientific reductionism. In addition to being one of America’s most well known poets, Snyder became an inspiration to some of the more radical environmentalists of the 1970s (Gray, Ch. 4).32 Few represented this new environmental worldview—and its accompanying holistic ecological vision—better than the founders of Greenpeace, the direct action protest group that emerged from Vancouver in the early 1970s. The group’s early history also provides a useful illustration of how nature, when viewed through a holistic ecological lens, could become the locus of a re-enchanted world. In the early 1970s, Bob Hunter, a journalist with a penchant for grand theory, and Patrick Moore, an ecologist with one foot in the sixties counterculture, were hammering out a manifesto. As vanguard members of Greenpeace, the pair felt compelled to distill their ecological philosophy down to some essential first principles. “As suddenly as Copernicus taught us that the earth was not the center of the universe,” they proclaimed, “ecology teaches us that mankind is not the center of life on this planet.” Like Weber, Hunter and Moore felt that it was important to preserve a sense of meaning and wonder in an otherwise nihilistic world, but unlike him, they did not feel that science, or at least the particular form of ecology to which they subscribed, was automatically antithetical to it. Ecology 31

32

The poem, titled “The Wilderness,” originally appeared in August 1970 in Center Magazine. Snyder’s metaphysical holism prefigured the emergence of deep ecology. See Sessions. Greenpeace founder, Robert Hunter, clearly reflects this influence: “Ecology teaches us to recognize gestalts, to understand synergy, to appreciate the extent to which we are only one facet of an environment. Already, it has opened the path leading to a theology of the earth, thus short-circuiting Christianity and pointing the way back toward the kind of unfragmented, harmonious mental space understood perfectly by the ancient Chinese and—more intuitively—by primitive peoples the world over. Ecological consciousness, in short, is the common denominator of the real revolution which is just now beginning inside the gate of the comfortable concentration camp fashioned by technique. It is the root whose growth will make the difference, in the future, between freedom and unfreedom, stagnation and flowering” (111-12).

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could function as religion had in earlier times; in fact, they suggested, it could be a religion. “Like religion,” they continued, “ecology seeks to answer the infinite mysteries of life itself. Harnessing the tools of logic, deduction, analysis, and empiricism, ecology may prove to be the first true science-religion.”33 In October 1971, Hunter, Moore and several other Greenpeace activists were sailing through the remote Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. Their goal was to stage a direct action protest against US nuclear weapons’ testing on Amchitka Island. Along the way they dropped anchor off the coast of Akutan, a tiny speck of tundra amid the vastness of the North Pacific, and wandered ashore to explore. At one point Moore, at the time an ecology graduate student at the University of British Columbia, began to gently dig into the moss and soil with his bare hands. Soon others kneeled down and joined him, marveling at the miniature ecosystem that existed just below the island’s grassy surface. Moore began to give a spontaneous lecture on the interconnectedness of life, how all species were, at base, interdependent. Westerners understanding of nature—their taxonomies and splintering and dissecting approach to the natural world—had served to obscure this holism, which, to the men kneeling in Moore’s little circle, was never more 33

“The Three Laws of Ecology” and “Declaration of Interdependence” in Patrick Moore’s personal papers. I would like to thank Dr Moore for making these available to me. Moore subsequently donated his papers to Archives Canada in Ottawa. Several years later, James Lovelock, the English scientist who developed the Gaia hypothesis (the idea that the Earth functions as a single, self-regulating organism designed to preserve the conditions for life on the planet) similarly—and much more famously—stated, “Gaia may turn out to be the first religion to have a testable scientific theory within it” (qtd. Joseph 70). The Gaia hypothesis falls into a broader tradition of ‘biospheric holism’ associated with the French scientist and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard’s vision of the ‘noosphere’—a layer of the biosphere pervaded and increasingly shaped by a kind of collective consciousness, a ‘terrestrial sphere of thinking substance’—is deeply mystical. Lovelock’s Gaia, in contrast, is resolutely materialist. Both, nevertheless, are examples of holistic ecological enchantment. See Teilhard de Chardin 288. For an excellent overview of Teilhard’s holism, see Wood 111-138. Lovelock has published numerous books on Gaia. A good starting point is Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia.

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apparent than at that moment. A wide grin appeared on Moore’s face as he found the perfect hippie metaphor to describe this holistic ecosystem. It means, he exclaimed jubilantly, “that a flower is your brother!” Bob Hunter immediately ordained them all ministers in the Whole Earth Church: “It was a religious experience of some kind,” Hunter recalled. “At least it was connected to the root of what we thought of as religion . . . The emotion we know as awe” (Keziere and Hunter 40-41). Prior to encountering ecology at university, Moore later recalled, I had always viewed science as a purely technical subject, the objective of which was to dispel mystery rather than foster it. Now I saw that through the science of ecology one could come to appreciate the infinitely complex nature of the universe and gain an insight into the mystery of life. I realized the feeling of tranquility and wonder I had experienced as a child in the rainforest was a kind of prayer or meditation. Ecology gave me a sort of religion, and with it the passion to take on the world. I became a born-again ecologist. (43)34

The picaresque homily that Moore delivered on Akutan is a textbook example of the kind of holistic ecology that pervaded certain quarters of the scientific and environmentalist communities throughout the twentieth century. It also sparked a mood of wonder and a sense of enchantment among those present. In Jane Bennett’s useful definition, a mood of “[e]nchantment begins with the step-back immobilization of surprise but ends with a mobilizing rush as if an electric charge had coursed through space to you. In enchantment, a new circuit of intensities forms between material bodies” (Bennett, Enchantment 104).35 But beyond creating the sense of wonder that is central to enchantment, Moore’s holism also offered a satisfying explanation of nature, one that criticized 34 35

Numerous scholars and critics have argued that environmentalism bears all the hallmarks of a religion, see Dunlap and Taylor. Robert Fuller sees wonder as an emotion that underpins people’s “belief in the existence of ‘an unseen order.’ Wonder originates in response to novel or unexpected stimuli. What distinguishes the experience of wonder, however, is that it motivates us to contemplate the possibility that there are causal powers existing ‘beyond’ our immediate physical surroundings. In other words, wonder encourages belief in a metaphysical order of existence—an order, moreover, that has causal relevance to our lives” (14).

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the mechanistic reductionism of modern laboratory science without contravening its epistemological rules. There was no need for ‘delight without delusion’ here, no ‘tenacious maintenance of fantasy in the face of the facts.’ Nor was there a willful anti-scientism of the kind that might exist among a group of religious fundamentalists. Rather, this was a satisfying form of what George Levine and William Connolly call ‘nontheistic enchantment’: an enchantment that is not only compatible with science, but actually stems from science, or at least a particular version of it. (Levine xvii; Connolly). Moore was implying that if people wished to lead more satisfying and cognitively rich lives while also improving their relationship with the rest of nature, they would need to recognize the inextricable interconnectedness of all matter and practice a form of science that is fully informed by this awareness. The way to do this was not to reject science, but rather, to improve it: to push it toward a higher and more sophisticated realm that reflected nature in all its complexity. It was time to draw the curtain on what Rachel Carson referred to as “the Neanderthal age of biology” and replace it with a holistic science that was not only more respectful toward nature, but which would understand it more accurately and fully (Silent Spring 297). Few issues illustrate holistic ecology’s contribution to reenchantment better than the campaign against whaling that began during the early 1970s. The work of the renegade scientist and countercultural guru John Lilly was particularly important in helping to transform cetaceans from mere blubber and baleen to Buddhas of the deep.36 Once a mere natural resource, by the early 1970s whales had been symbolically reconstituted into ecological icons. In the process, particularly within the counterculture, they served as an all-purpose emollient that would heal the intellectual and ecological wounds that western culture had been inflicting upon the world since Descartes separated the mind from the body and insisted that all creatures other than humans were mere machines. The rhetoric of the anti-whaling movement is saturated with the vocabulary of ecological holism and enchantment, a point that is no36

Lilly’s most influential publications included Man and Dolphin and The Mind of the Dolphin. For a discussion of Lilly’s influence on both cetacean science and environmentalism, see Burnett, ch. 6. For more on the changing image of whales throughout the twentieth century, see Zelko.

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where better illustrated than in Mind in the Waters, an influential collection of essays compiled by Joan McIntyre, the founder of the antiwhaling group, Project Jonah. With equal parts holistic ecology and New Age romanticism, McIntyre decried the Cartesian worldview that denied feelings, imagination, awareness, and consciousness to other creatures. “It seems that in our craze to justify our exploitation of all non-human life forms,” she declared, echoing Rachel Carson, “we have stripped from them any attributes which could stay our hand.” Try, she urged her readers, “to imagine the imagination of a whale, or the awareness of a dolphin. That we cannot make these leaps of vision is because we are bound to a cultural view which denies their possibility” (8). According to McIntyre, the plight of the whales needed to be understood as part of a broader trend of human beings’ relationship with the natural world; indeed, it was this very bifurcation between nature and culture, and between the mind and the body, that lay at the root of the problem. In the water, the cradle of cetacean consciousness, the distinction between the mind and the body had been dissolved: “Without the alienating presence of objects and equipment, with only the naked body encasing the floating mind, the two, split by technological culture, are one again. The mind enters a different modality, where time, weight, and one’s self are experienced holistically.” In the sea, she continued, “the world can be thought and experienced simultaneously—not broken down into categories that stand for experience rather than experience itself” (94). After reading McIntyre and the other contributors to Mind in the Waters, one is left with an image of whales and dolphins as exemplars of ecological virtue and holistic consciousness. These are beings who are totally in tune with their environment and with each other; who possess advanced systems of communication and construct ‘thoughts’ from acoustically derived images; whose brains are larger than ours and have a greater degree of gray matter left over for the higher mental processes, rather than for simply manipulating objects. And even though some scientists found such claims problematic, there was enough support for them to ensure that the holders of such views did not need to feel that their views fell outside the parameters of scientific epistemology. The future of the whales, McIntyre insisted, was inextricably bound together with our own: “in saving them we can create a model of international action that can demonstrate a way to save ourselves and the rest of the

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earth we cherish” (224). This was the whale that Greenpeace activists were saving: a sublime, ecologically harmonious and super-intelligent aquatic being representing a supreme form of power and intelligence rooted in a oneness with nature, a state that humans, in their dangerous and pathetic struggles to conquer the natural world, had yet to achieve. If a flower was our brother, then the whale was our ecological conscience and spiritual guide. The effort to find enchantment through holistic views of nature shows no sign of abating, at least if the number of popular and academic publications on the subject is any guide. Sociologist James William Gibson has noticed “a new and striking kind of yearning” in the way that ordinary people feel and talk about nature. This yearning, he argues, is indicative of a “culture of enchantment” in which people are attempting to reinvest nature with spirit, a process that “alters the fundamental meanings that the West has given the natural world, imagining a new covenant between people, land, and creatures” (3, 11-12). George Levine, like Richard Dawkins, feels that a Darwinian worldview offers us a potent form of secular enchantment. Even if Weber was correct in claiming that everything in the modern world was potentially calculable and that all mysteries have become mere problems in search of a solution, there is still a potential for wonder. “To be enchanted even without uncertainties, to be patient in certainty, to find a world potentially explicable in natural terms as thrilling as a world laden with mysteries—that is the naturalistic ideal that I find driving Darwin’s life and work” (Levine xv-xvi).37 Jane Bennett has boldly and ambitiously (though perhaps not entirely successfully) claimed that materials that we have traditional perceived as inert—metal, rocks, electricity—actually have a kind of agency: a capacity “not only to impede or block the will and designs of humans, but also to act as quasi-agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own.” Thus she detects “a vibrant materiality that runs alongside and inside humans” thereby embedding and embodying us with everything else in the natural world (Bennett, Vibrant Matter viii ). It is not difficult to see why such ideas have continued to resonate with people who are skeptical of supernatural explanations of the world, 37

For a similar argument, see Richards, and Dawkins, The Magic of Reality.

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but who are nonetheless yearning to scratch the deep psychological itch of enchantment. As the ecologist Frank Golley noted, a holistic ecological worldview offers some of the comfort and solace of older forms of spiritualism and religion but without overtly violating the tenets of materialist science: It postulated the existence of a complex entity, larger than humans or society, which was self-organized and self-regulating. In one sense, the whole was an extension of the Mother Earth idea in modern guise. It involved the extension of God-like or parental properties to nature. Most significantly, it provided the individual faced with the complications and difficulties of daily life the notion that somewhere out there, there was ultimate order, balance, equilibrium, and a rational and logical system of relations. (Golley 3)

Members of the Antinomial School may argue that scientific holism could be categorized as a form of ‘disenchanted enchantment’. Scientific methodology, after all, is inherently self-reflexive and its claim on truth is always provisional. However, holistic ideas about nature are never presented as mere scientific theories open to falsification; rather, they are ontological claims about the nature of reality. The universe, they assert, is interconnected and adds up to more than the mere sum of its parts; all scientific inquiry must proceed from this fundamental insight. Such forms of essentialism are the bedrock of enchantment. Without them, we are left floating in a postmodern sea of relativism, selfreflexivity, and irony. The Antinomial School’s concept of a ‘disenchanted enchantment’ is undoubtedly a useful way to describe certain literary and cultural trends of the modern era. Many historians would also view it as a laudable normative concept, part of a progressive vision to undermine various forms of essentialism and fundamentalism that undergird older forms of enchantment. However, it is thin gruel to those who wish to satisfy the visceral need for enchantment that has constituted part of our emotional makeup since our ancestors began to see spirits in rocks and trees. Scientific holism, on the other hand, offers the ontological heft and emotional oomph of enchantment, while enabling people to feel they are still full-fledged members of a secular, rational, modern world. The notion that ‘a flower is your brother’ conveys an idea that for all its whimsy is nonetheless deeply serious: humans are part of an infinitely complex

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web that connects us to everything else in ways that appear wondrous but are also potentially knowable. Science may have explained the world in purely material terms, thereby emptying life of providential mystery, but the yearning to experience the numinous need not go unfulfilled. Works Cited Alster, Kristine. The Holistic Health Movement. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1989. Print. Anker, Peder. Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895-1945. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Print. Armitage, Kevin C. The Nature Study Movement: The Forgotten Popularizer of America’s Conservation Ethic. Lawrence: UP of Kansas, 2009. Print. Ash, Mitchell. Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890-1967: Holism and the Quest for Objectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995. Print. Barbour, Michael. “Ecological Fragmentation in the 1950s.” Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. Ed. W. Cronon. New York: Norton, 1995. 233-55. Print. Barlösius, Eva. Naturgemässe Lebensführung: Zur Geschichte der Lebensreform um die Jahrhundertwende. Frankfurt: Campus, 1997. Print. Bennett, Jane. The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001. Print. ---. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010. Print. Blumenberg, Hans. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Trans. Robert M. Wallace. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983. Print. Bocking, Stephen. Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of Contemporary Ecology. New Haven: Yale UP, 1997. Print. Bohm, David. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1980. Print. Boulding, Kenneth. “The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth.” Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy: Essays from the Sixth RFF Forum. Ed. H. Jarrett. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins P for Resources for the Future, 1966. 3-15. Print. Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Print.

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Buchanan, B. Onto-Ethologies: The Animal Environments of Uexküll, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze. Albany: State U of New York P, 2008. Print. Bucke, Richard. Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1901. Print. Buckminster Fuller, Richard. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. New York: Dutton, 1968. Print. Burnett, D. Graham. The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012. Print. Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Berkeley: Shambhala, 1975. Print. Carson, Rachel. The Sense of Wonder. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Print. ---. Silent Spring. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1962. Print. Clements, Frederic E. and Victor E. Shelford, Bio-Ecology. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1939. Print. Connolly, William E. Why I Am Not a Secularist. Minneapolis: Publisher, 1999. Print. Cook, James. The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001. Print. Craige, Betty Jean. Eugene Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2002. Print. ---. Laying Down the Ladder: The Emergence of Cultural Holism. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1992. Print. Dallmayr, Fred. Return to Nature? An Ecological Counterhistory. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 2011. Print. Dawkins, Richard. The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. New York: Free P, 2011. Print. ---. Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder. New York: Mariner Books, 1998. Print. DeGregori, Thomas R. Origins of the Organic Agriculture Debate. Ames: Iowa State P, 2004. Print. Dreyfus, Hubert and Sean Dorrance Kelly. All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age. New York: Free P, 2011. Print. Dunlap, Thomas. R. Faith in Nature: Environmentalism as Religious Quest. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2004. Print.

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Ellul, Jacques. The Technological Society. Trans. J. Wilkinson. New York: Vintage, 1964. Print. Flader, Susan. Thinking Like a Mountain: Aldo Leopold and the Evolution of an Ecological Attitude Toward Deer, Wolves and Forests. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1974. Print. Fuller, Robert C. Wonder: From Emotion to Spirituality. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2006. Print. Germain, Gilbert G. A Discourse on Disenchantment: Reflections on Politics and Technology. Albany: State U of New York P, 1993. Print. Gibson, James William. A Reenchanted World: The Quest for a New Kinship with Nature. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2009. Print. Golley, Frank. A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology: More than the Sum of the Parts. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993. Print. Gray, Timothy. Gary Snyder and the Pacific Rim: Creating Counter-Cultural Community. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2006. Print. ---. Greater than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920-1950. Ed. C. Lawrence and G. Weisz. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Green, Martin. Mountain of Truth: The Counterculture Begins: Ascona, 19001920. Hanover: UP of New England, 1986. Print. Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. “‘Lost in Focused Intensity’: Spectator Sports and Strategies of Re-Enchantment.” The Re-Enchantment of the World. Ed. Joshua Landy and Michael Saler. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2009. 149-58. Print. Hagen, Joel. An Entangled Bank: The Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1992. Print. ---. “Teaching Ecology During the Environmental Age, 1965-1980.” Environmental History 13 (2008): 704-23. Print. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. “How Magic Survived the Disenchantment of the World.” Religion 33.4 (2003): 357-80. Print. Harrington, Anne. Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996. Print. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002. Print. Hunter, Robert. The Storming of the Mind. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1971. Print.

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Jackson Lears, T. J. No Place of Grace: Anti-Modernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981. Print. Joseph, Lawrence E. Gaia: The Growth of an Idea. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1990. Print. Keziere, Robert and Robert Hunter. Greenpeace. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972. Print. Kingsland, Sharon E. The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890-2000. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2005. Print. Kricher, John. The Balance of Nature: Ecology’s Enduring Myth. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009. Print. Landy, Joshua. “Modern Magic: Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin and Stéphane Mallarmé.” The Re-Enchantment of the World. Ed. Joshua Landy and Michael Saler. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2009. 102-29. Print. Landy, Joshua, and Michael Saler. “Introduction: The Varieties of Modern Enchantment.” The Re-Enchantment of the World. Ed. Joshua Landy and Michael Saler. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2009. 1-3. Print. Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. Print. Lawrence, Christopher and George Weisz, “Medical Holism: The Context.” Greater than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine 1920-1950. Ed. Christopher Lawrence and George Weisz. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. 1-22. Print. Lazier, Benjamin. God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination Between the Wars. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009. Print. Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac. New York: Ballantine, 1948. Print. Levine, George. Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. Print. Lilly, John. Man and Dolphin. New York: Pyramid, 1961. Print. ---. The Mind of the Dolphin: A Non-Human Intelligence. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1967. Print. Linse, Ulrich. Ökopax und Anarchie: Eine Geschichte der ökologischen Bewegungen in Deutschland. München: DTV, 1986. Print. Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from NatureDeficit Disorder. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2008. Print. Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Revolt Against Dualism. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1930. Print.

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Lovelock, James. The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. Print. Lukács, Georg. History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Trans. R. Livingstone. Cambridge: MIT P, 1971. Print. Marsh, Jan. Back to the Land: The Pastoral Impulse in England from 18001914. London: Quartet Books, 1982. Print. Mayr, Ernst. “The Autonomy of Biology.” Ludus Vitalis 12.21 (2004): 15-27. Print. McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Print. McIntyre, Joan. Mind in the Waters: A Book to Celebrate the Consciousness of Whales and Dolphins. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons & Sierra Club Books, 1974. Print. Meine, Curt D. Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2010. Print. Mitman, Gregg. The State of Nature: Ecology, Community, and American Social Thought, 1900-1950. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992. Print. Moore, Patrick Albert. Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist. Vancouver: Beatty Street Publishing, 2010. Print. Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911. Print. Munroe, John Warne. Laboratories of Faith: Mesmerism, Spiritism, and Occultism in Modern France. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2008. Print. Ouspensky, Peter D. Tertium Organum: A Key to the Enigmas of the World. London: Kegan Paul, 1922. Print. Owen, Alex. The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. Print. Paige, Nicholas. “Permanent Re-Enchantments: On Some Literary Uses of the Supernatural from Early Empiricism to Modern Aesthetics.” The ReEnchantment of the World. Ed. Joshua Landy and Michael Saler. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2009. 159-89. Print. Pauly, Philip J. Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering Ideal in Biology. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.

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Persinger, Michael, et al. “The Electromagnetic Induction of Mystical and Altered States within the Laboratory.” Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research 1.7 (2010): 808-30. Print. Phillips, Denis C. Holistic Thought in Social Science. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1976. Print. Phillips, Dana. The Truth of Ecology: Nature, Culture, and Literature in America. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. Print. Poole, Robert. Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth. New Haven: Yale UP, 2010. Print. Richards, Robert J. “Darwinian Enchantment.” The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now. Ed. G. Levine. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2011. 185-204. Print. Røpke, Inge. “The Early History of Modern Ecological Economics.” Ecological Economics 50.3-4 (2004): 293-314. Print. Rosenberg, Charles. “Holism in Twentieth Century Medicine.” Greater than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920-1950. Ed. C. Lawrence and G. Weisz. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. 335-56. Print. Rumore, Gina Maria. A Natural Laboratory, a National Monument: Carving out a Place for Science in Glacier Bay, Alaska, 1879-1959. Diss. U of Minnesota, 2009. Print. Saler, Michael. As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print. ---. “Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographic Review.” American Historical Review 111.3 (2006): 692-716. Print. Sessions, George. “The Deep Ecology Movement: A Review.” Environmental History Review 11.2 (1987): 105-25. Print. Sideris, Lisa H. “The Secular and Religious Sources of Rachel Carson’s Sense of Wonder.” Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge. Ed. L. H. Sideris and K. D. Moore. Albany: State U of New York P, 2008. 232-50. Print. Slack, Nancy G. G. Evelyn Hutchinson and the Invention of Modern Ecology. New Haven: Yale UP, 2011. Print. Smail, Daniel L. On Deep History and the Brain. Berkeley: U of California P, 2008. Print. Smuts, Jan Christian. Holism and Evolution. New York: MacMillan, 1926. Print. Snyder, Gary. Turtle Island. New York: New Directions, 1974. Print.

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Taylor, Bron. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Berkeley: U of California P, 2010. Print. Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2011. Print. ---. The Phenomenon of Man. Trans. Bernard Wall. New York: Harper & Row, 1959. Print. Tobey, Ronald. Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895-1955. Berkeley: U of California P, 1981. Print. Treitel, Corinna. A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2004. Print. Van Noy, Rick. A Natural Sense of Wonder: Connecting Kids with Nature through the Seasons. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2008. Print. Wade, Nicholas. The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures. New York: The Penguin P, 2009. Print. Walz, Robin. “The Rocambolesque and the Modern Enchantment of Popular Fiction.” The Re-Enchantment of the Modern World. Ed. Joshua Landy and Michael Saler. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2009. 130-48. Print. Weber, Max. Weber: Essays in Sociology. Ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford UP, 1946. 129-56. Print. Williams, John A. Turning to Nature in Germany: Hiking, Nudism, and Conservation, 1900-1940. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007. Print. Wilson, David S. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002. Print. Wood, Linda Sargent. A More Perfect Union: Holistic Worldviews and the Transformation of American Culture after World War II. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. Worster, Donald. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. sec. ed. New York: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print. ---. A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print. Zelko, Frank. “From Blubber and Baleen to Buddha of the Deep: The Rise of the Metaphysical Whale.” Society and Animals 20 (2012): 91-108. Print.

JOHN M. MEYER

Denialism versus the Resonance Dilemma in the US At the heart of both activist and academic discussions of environmentalism lies a question: What is the key obstacle to action on climate change and promoting sustainability? Sometimes posed explicitly, at other times left implicit, the question is integral precisely because it is such a challenging one. It is central to questions of movement strategy, such as the perennial “what is to be done?” The question is prompted, in large part, by the yawning gap between the magnitude of the environmental challenges we face and the inadequate steps that have been taken— worldwide—to address them. Denialism Within the US environmental community, as well as among some journalists and academic commentators, conventional wisdom has it that the answer to this question is “denialism.” Many books, articles, and essays have decried both “climate change denialism” and—more broadly— “science denialism” (Washington and Cook; Dunlap and McCright; Mooney, War; HoundDog). The attention, here, is focused upon the influence of those who reject the empirical reality of climate change and other scientifically documented phenomena. In both cases, denialism is cast as an ideological view that corrupts the understanding of a large portion of the citizenry as well as elected officials, preventing Americans from properly understanding the character of the challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss, and other urgent problems.

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In most cases, a diagnosis of “denialism” is presented as an example (albeit a negative one) of American exceptionalism—that is, a characteristic of its political discourse that distinguishes the US from most other nation-states. While denialism can also be seen as influential in the public sphere in a few other Anglo-American countries—notably Australia, the UK, and perhaps Canada—it is far less familiar in other places. Those who focus on denialism as an obstacle to sustainability in the US tend to focus on the role of wealthy, self-interested funders (including the Koch brothers), corporate interests (including the petroleum industry), right-wing foundations (including the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute), and a media echo-chamber cultivated by Fox News and other right-wing sources. Collectively, these players constitute the key nodes in what Riley Dunlap and Aaron McCright have labeled the “Climate Change Denial Machine” (Dunlap and McCright). This is a real and well-documented phenomenon. Because my aim is to displace “denialism” from its role as key variable that can explain tepid public support for action, I first wish to be clear that I do not aim to dismiss the existence of these well-funded opponents, and it is emphatically not my aim to condone their message. Denialism—the product of this “machine”—has played a role in poisoning and polarizing US political discourse; it has prompted a shift in the position of many Republican elected officials and some voters, and has thereby been an obstacle to the adoption of climate legislation in the US Congress in recent years. On the other hand, it is also well documented that consistent and sizeable majorities in the US do accept the reality of climate change. As a summary of one particularly thorough recent poll noted: “Two-thirds of Americans (67%) say there is solid evidence that the earth has been getting warmer over the last few decades, a figure that has changed little in the past few years” (Pew, “GOP”). This stable majority exists in so-called “red” and “purple” states as well as “blue” ones.1 One recent poll, for example, found that 79% of re1

“Red” states are those dominated by Republican party voters, while “blue” states are dominated by Democratic party voters. Those states with a relative balance between the two—“swing states”—are characterized as “purple.” Of

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spondents in California (a “blue” state) affirmed that global warming was happening; the same position was also held by 70% of respondents in Colorado, Ohio (“purple” states), and Texas (“red”). Even larger majorities can be found supporting other environmental concerns. Moreover, the percentage that asserts global warming is not happening was below 20% in each of these states. In sum: For all its sound and fury, for all its influence upon a minority of Republican voters, denialism has had at most a modest impact on overall public support for climate and environmental action. To put this in an appropriate context, it is useful to recognize that most social movements and leaders would be thrilled to find that two-thirds or more of the populace supported them. Imagine, for instance, if President Obama (or any other US president) were elected by 67% of the voters, or had a 67% public approval rating. In the US, the media would label that a “mandate”! Similarly, the 20% or less that denies climate change also must be seen in a proper context: roughly one in five Americans can be found to believe a wide variety of implausible or even ridiculous things. In recent polls, for example, 26% of Americans state that they believe that the sun revolves around the earth (comparable percentages were also found in Germany and the UK); 20% believe doctors and the government want to vaccinate children even though they know that vaccines cause autism and other psychological disorders; indeed 13% believe President Obama is the anti-Christ (National Science Board 7-23; Oliver and Wood; Public Policy Polling). There is no question that these views matter. They can influence public discourse and sometimes they can poison it. A minority with a strongly held view can have disproportionate influence. But we can gain an appropriate perspective by matching up the 13% of Americans who believe Obama is the anti-Christ with the 14% of Texans who assert that global warming is not happening: certainly such views matter, but they don’t really matter all that much. When we over-

course, these color associations stand at odds with longer-standing international traditions. This color-coded terminology has become so deeply entrenched and familiar in the US that it may be surprising to note that it only originated in 2000, in televised maps displayed during the contested presidential election (Zeller).

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estimate the share of the population that holds views such as denialism, we grant undue influence to these relatively marginal views. On its own, such a modest minority of citizens or voters is simply not sufficient to explain a major impediment to action. Yet when denialism is at the center of environmental discussion, it prompts questions like the one that serves as the title of a recent Mother Jones magazine article by Chris Mooney: “How do you get people to give a damn about climate change?” (“How Do”). Mooney, a prominent science journalist, is the author of numerous books and articles about climate change and public attitudes. Here, in seeking an answer to the title question, he asks whether those advocating for action on climate change will be more effective by telling the truth—offering what he calls a “blunt assertion of fact,” such as that 97 of 100 climate experts agree that climate change is occurring and is anthropogenically caused—or whether advocates would be better off with “an acknowledgment of human irrationality and an attempted workaround” (“How Do”). Both strategies are commonplace. The former presumes that the obstacle is primarily a lack of accurate information, or a need for climate activists to shout louder in order to be heard through the din of daily life. The latter, Mooney argues, is reliant upon “framing strategies” (“How Do”). Framing has, in fact, become integral to both activist and academic discussions of “climate change communication” in the past decade.2 This attention has been heavily influenced by the work of academic linguist and political strategist George Lakoff. Yet Mooney is using a particularly shallow conception of framing here that is inconsistent with Lakoff’s and others’ development and use of the concept. Essentially, Mooney is using it here as a synonym for political “spin” or manipulation. He describes framing as a way of “sugar-coating” the message about climate and draws a contrast between this and his description of a fact-based approach. I will return to the question of how framing is defined and understood later in this essay, drawing upon a deeper conception of both framing and narrative in these debates. A focus upon denialism cultivates and reinforces a particular conception of most Americans as ignorant, apathetic, and greedy or egoistic. 2

See, for example, “Yale Project” and “Center for Climate Change Communication.”

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This conception is itself deeply problematic. It posits a vast divide between an enlightened, engaged, and altruistic “us,” and an ignorant, apathetic, and egoistic “them” (Meyer, “Populism” 229). This divide sets the stage for a particularly nasty sort of paternalism: not only in policy proposals, but also in the attitude or tone of presentation. This is reflected in Mooney’s title: “How Do You Get People to Give a Damn . . .” Of course, the readers of the article are not taken to be among the “people” under consideration, allowing us to see that the title implicitly asks, “How do we get them to give a damn?” Two things are worthy of our attention in this formulation: first, as already noted, is the “us versus them” divide. Second is the word “get.” When the question is how do we get them to give a damn, the “getting” seems to open the door wide for manipulation and coercion in the name of a goal already posited as worthy and necessary. In sum, I have argued that denialism is not as persuasive an explanation for inaction in the US as many seem to believe. Yet efforts to combat denialism often separate environmentalists from the populace with which they wish to be connected. We ought to consider another answer to the initial question regarding the key obstacle to action. This answer is far less exceptional to the US. The Resonance Dilemma In contrast to denialism, another way of thinking about the key obstacle to acting on climate change and sustainability focuses upon the lack of resonance of these concerns. From this perspective, the problem is not active opposition, but that these challenges don’t resonate as urgent priorities in most people’s lives. President Obama captured this problem when he argued to a group of committed environmentalists and donors that it is “hard to sell aggressive environmental action” because many if not most people are “concerned . . . but it’s probably not rising to your No. 1 concern” (Shear). Indeed, there’s ample and consistent evidence that environmental concerns rarely if ever rise to the top ten in polls asking people to identify their “top priority” concerns. Climate change or global warming typically shows up even lower on such priority lists, often not even in the top twenty (Pew, Priorities 8).

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The reason, I wish to argue, for this lack of resonance (despite equally consistent evidence of support) is that climate and environment are typically viewed as something to be addressed after more immediately pressing concerns of jobs, family, education, and other aspects of everyday life. President Obama also expressed this view in his meeting with environmental donors. He acknowledged that many in the room would conclude that it was “shortsighted” that for many people “aggressive environmental action” was “not rising to your No. 1 concern.” Yet, he argued, “that’s what happens when you’re struggling to get by . . . in a difficult economy.” The implication, here, seems to be that once economic conditions improve—when less people are “struggling”—then environmental concerns will become a higher priority for more people. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to support this supposition. The lack of priority or resonance cannot be understood as a temporary product of a “difficult economy.” It is a consistent finding of public opinion polls taken over many years, in both economic good times and bad (Pew, Priorities 8). Climate and environment are real concerns—but they’re rarely if ever high priorities for action. The consequence is that environmentalists who assert that these must displace more immediate concerns can readily be perceived as “out of touch,” or distant from the everyday experience of many people. This perception can be illuminated through lenses of culture, race, and identity. On all these criteria, there is no persistent gap in support for issues (Leiserowitz and Alerlof). Yet there is a gap in identification with “environmentalism”: Substantially lower levels of identification exist among younger and non-white Americans. As Ryan Young of the Greenlining Institute has argued: “If you want to gain the trust of the emerging non-white majority, it’s not just a messaging thing. It’s a values thing. You must understand the values of these communities and craft policy around that” (Mock, “Mainstream”). Younger adults of the so-called millennial generation born after 1980—the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in the US— are also substantially less likely than their older peers to identify as “environmentalists” (Ingraham). It seems, then, that identification as an environmentalist is an impediment to building popular support for environmental issues, since as journalist Christina Larson noted several years ago, “Americans like green, but they are less fond of greens” (Larson).

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Climate change and other global environmental challenges are a deep challenge to our way of life. Yet they rarely resonate deeply with our everyday lives. All this is a reflection of the resonance dilemma: While most Americans do believe that climate change and environmental degradation pose real problems, and while they also endorse or support policy action, they don’t prioritize these concerns in the face of jobs, family and other everyday worries. The gap between these two is the dilemma. Many focus upon “getting” people to believe that these are problems and to support policy action, as I have noted, yet this isn’t really the key challenge. Speaking and acting as though it is likely exacerbates the distance between environmentalists and those who don’t identify as such. The urgent need is to address concerns in a way that they will be prioritized. This, I argue, requires engagement with everyday worries and practices rather than attempting to trump them. With the resonance dilemma now at the center of our vision, we can take a step back and consider two divergent tendencies in environmentalism—both in the US and elsewhere. The first, mainstream, tendency is one that I will call “postmaterialist environmentalism.” The second, counter-tendency, can appropriately be labeled an “environmentalism of everyday life.” These two tendencies also reflect divergent representations of both environmental concern and environmentalist identity. While the postmaterialist representation of environmentalism reinforces a preoccupation with denialism as the primary obstacle to action, the counter-tendency offers meaningful resources for addressing the resonance dilemma. Postmaterialist Environmentalism To better understand what I am calling postmaterialist environmentalism, it helps to first consider the colloquial sense of “materialism.” This is often characterized as an undue attachment to consumer goods and other material “stuff,” something that seems at odds with reducing one’s ecological footprint and is therefore often perceived as antienvironmental. Postmaterialism, then, entails a sort of transcendence of the preoccupation with material goods. As such, it is consistent with a commonplace self-identification of many environmentalists, whose position among the educated, relatively affluent populations of western

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societies is often taken to be concomitant with their “enlightened” aesthetic or moral concern for often-distant others. The postmaterialist representation can be seen in environmentalist discourse on many levels. For example, in a recent forum in the online environmental magazine Grist, there was discussion of a newly released study that drew attention to the lack of diversity within the US environmental movement, and particularly among the staff of environmental NGOs, agencies, and foundations. Many who commented sought to dismiss the significance of a lack of staff diversity by describing it as a logical product of the more urgent concerns among many poor and marginalized groups. For example, one wrote: Most people in U.S. urban cultures don't relate to environmental issues, regardless of the makeup of environmental groups. Minorities generally have more in your face issues, like constant police harassment, poverty, etc. Even my white poor and working class friends don't generally relate to environmental issues. (Mock, “Report”)

Similarly, in a book by environmental activists and provocateurs Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, they write: . . . around the world there is a very strong association between prosperity and environmental values . . . ecological concern is a postmaterialist value that becomes widespread and strongly felt—and thus politically actionable—only in postscarcity societies . . . [environmentalists misunderstand their movement] as a reaction to industrialization rather than a product of it. (28-29)

The association between prosperity, privilege, and environmental concern is also propounded by economists and others who posit the existence of an “environmental Kuznets curve” The general nature of this relationship is reflected in the following graph:

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The idea, here, is that as a given society industrializes and becomes economically wealthier, environmental conditions will be initially subject to decay. At some point, however, proponents of the environmental Kuznets Curve posit that members of the society will become affluent enough that they are no longer so preoccupied with industrialization and development and instead devote more attention to threats to quality of life from these processes. At this turning point, it is anticipated that the society will adopt a more stringent approach aimed at improving environmental conditions, resulting in the changed trajectory in the righthand side of the graph. While proponents initially posited this as a predictable relationship, careful empirical research has revealed far more questions and doubts about either the existence or the generalizability of such a downward bend of the curve (Stern). Nonetheless, the notion that societies will become “green through growth” remains influential (Adler 269-70). By far the most influential and developed version of this representation of environmentalism is reflected in political scientist Ronald Inglehart’s so-called “post-materialist values thesis.” Inglehart has conducted decades of cross-national public opinion research, from which he claims to have identified a “new-values” orientation that grew in post-World War II generations in affluent post-industrialized societies including those in North America and Western Europe (Inglehart, Shift; Inglehart, “Values”). Inglehart and others have used this research to explain the rise of a variety of social movements, including environmentalism (Inglehart, “Support”). The claim, in relation to the latter, is that the environmental movement did not emerge and grow in response to objective, material conditions but instead upon the cultural rise of “subjective values” of autonomy, self-development, and quality of life that his surveys indicate have become more widespread in affluent societies. Here and elsewhere, Inglehart borrows heavily from psychologist Abraham Maslow’s well-known notion of a “hierarchy of needs.” Inglehart turns Maslow’s hierarchy into a dichotomy, however, in which so-called lower-level needs for physiological security and safety are described as material needs, while higher-level needs are characterized as “postmaterial.” The illustration below reflects an impressionistic sense of Maslow’s hierarchy overlaid with Inglehart’s dichotomy.

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The postmaterialist representation is not wholly without merit. It does reflect significant elements and aspects of environmentalism and has been a powerful lens for viewing environmental policymaking and action in the US. It also supports a particular, expert-driven response to environmental concern that has been termed “administrative rationality” (Dryzek 75-98). It places heavy reliance upon the authority of science and scientists, as well as the management and administrative skills of other professionals. From this perspective, it is unsurprising that the denial of expertise is perceived as a central obstacle to environmental action. At its core, postmaterialism posits the need to trump everyday (material) concerns and practices; it thus stands in contrast with the quest for an environmentalism of everyday life. An Environmentalism of Everyday Life In contrast to the postmaterialist representation described above, this counter-conception of environmentalism is rooted in everyday concerns. The focus is upon the conditions needed to sustain and reproduce life on both an individual and a communal level, including provisioning activities such as securing meals, health care, adequate housing, transportation, education, employment, and security for one’s self and household. Giovanna Di Chiro describes this focus upon everyday life and livelihood as “social reproduction” (Di Chiro; Bakker). As such it is intrinsically attentive to the intersections of gender, class, race, and position in the global economy. Its evident focus, moreover, can be seen as con-

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sistent with concerns that are already reflected as “top priorities” in US public opinion polls, such as strengthening the economy, improving access to jobs, securing Medicare and Social Security, managing health care costs and improving education (“Thirteen Years”). This conception of environmentalism cultivates the recognition that climate change and environmental stress can make vulnerable people more vulnerable: that they exacerbate asthma and allergies, prompt flooding of—especially—low lying homes, limit mobility, and often contribute to job losses. In these and many other ways, the inextricability of environmental concerns from social ones becomes a central theme and the intersections with the everyday are highlighted. A focus on everyday life also prompts us to focus upon practices: what sort of mobility or transportation is required or sought by members of particular communities, what policy changes might enable healthier practices, how obstacles to healthy food can be overcome. This attention to the practices by which people engage with the material world around them enables us to bring together a focus on individual behavior and one focused on the structural conditions of public policy and economy (Shove, Pantzar, and Watson; Spaargaren; Giddens). Doing so is necessary since such practices cannot be effectively transformed through either individual consumer choices alone or through abstract policy change disconnected from the everyday. A focus on practices also means that attention is being directed at the identities that are already embraced by the individuals and communities involved. For some, concern might be motivated by the relatively abstract identification as an environmentalist. Yet it is more likely that it is one’s identity as a parent, a member of a particular community, or as (for example) an individual seeking just transportation, affordable housing, or safe parks, that activates their concern. These already-present identities mean that action does not require getting people to identify in new ways so much as it requires facilitating action upon concerns and priorities already present. In all the aforementioned ways, an environmentalism of everyday life stands in contrast to postmaterialist environmentalism. Yet it is equally important to recognize that grounding environmentalism in material practices does not somehow fix or determine its positions: Values, interpretation, and judgments are inextricable and political contest is inescapable. The role of unequal power and privilege is key, thus

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movements preoccupied with the everyday are frequently framed in terms of “justice:” environmental justice, climate justice, transportation justice, food justice. This sort of materialist turn is being noted and called for in many quarters today (e.g., Siegle). One prominent example of a movement focused on everyday life, of course, is the environmental justice movement. This movement first emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s in communities of color in the US, often fighting against the location of toxic dump sites or polluting industries in their communities. It has also offered a prototype that has been applied to a growing range of movements and concerns in recent years (Schlosberg). What distinguishes environmental justice activities and movements is a focus upon everyday experiences and places “where we live, work, and play” (Novotny). Activists demand fair distribution of environmental goods and bads, and also demand recognition and respect for themselves and their communities. Their organizing and action is rooted in local knowledge and familiarity with patterns of disease, exposure to toxins, and access to quality food or other provisions within their communities. Those involved in these efforts have long struggled with identification as “environmentalists,” with some arguing that the label inhibits organizing while many others have struggled to redefine it to fit their concerns, strategies, and contexts (Allen, Daro, and Holland 10534; Bauer 17-18, 243). Community-based environmental management initiatives offer another example of everyday environmentalism. These collaborative efforts have taken root primarily in rural, resource-dependent communities, with a growing number in the US west. Many are organized around a particular watershed and seek to bring together diverse stakeholders, including those employed by resource extraction industries (e.g., fishers and loggers), locals working in other fields dependent upon the rivers, forests, or other natural resources, members of local NGOs, government and industry representatives, and others. Despite their differences in perspective and interest, what most stakeholders have in common—in cases where collaboration is successful—is a shared connection to the particular place that is the subject of the group’s activity, and an interest in sustaining fields, forests, rivers, and other resources upon which local economies and livelihoods depend. This commonality is also the basis for shared vulnerability: in the US west, recognition of this shared vulnerability is often centered on the substantial and growing danger of

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wildfire. Thus even if there is disagreement about the reality or causes of climate change, a focus on consequences such as fire can often generate far greater consensus. As with environmental justice activists, moreover, those involved in community-based environmental management efforts often remain wary of the “environmentalist” moniker, because their efforts emerge out of a concern for livelihood and community whereas an environmentalist identity is often taken to be more associated with an urban, and postmaterialist, sensibility. In most accounts, both environmental justice and community-based resource management activities in the US have been presented as manifestations of localism. That is, whatever their other impetuses may be, they are motivated by a concern for one’s immediate surroundings, places, and the people with whom one is closest. Often, this has also led to the disparagement of such efforts as a manifestation of “NIMBYism”— an acronym for “Not in My Back Yard”—which is characterized by critics (inappropriately, I have argued 3) as an overly parochial concern expressed at the expense of other communities (Feldman and Turner). Yet even without this disparaging association, place-based localism is limited in its ability to address global challenges such as climate change and species extinction. Framing Everyday Environmentalism for Global Challenges Integral to a robust environmentalism of everyday life, then, is also the identification of opportunities to connect everyday material practices, on the one hand, with climate crisis, species extinction, and other global challenges, on the other hand. For insight into this, it is fruitful to return to my earlier discussion of issue framing. Yet in contrast to journalist Chris Mooney’s account, this requires a deeper sense of framing, in which framing is no longer characterized as mere “spin” or manipulation since frames are instead understood to go ‘all the way down.’ As George Lakoff, the most prominent scholar of framing puts it, “all thinking and talking involves ‘framing’” (71-72). That is, from this perspective, there is no such thing as an “unframed” argument and therefore—contra 3

See Meyer, “Hypocrisy.”

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Mooney—framing cannot be contrasted with truth telling. The point, here, is that narratives, frames, and representations are always at work; the question is what gets included and excluded in a given frame. 4 Postmaterialism—and in particular Inglehart’s postmaterialist values thesis—offers one frame for understanding environmental concern, but many vital forms of identity, issues, and interests are left outside the frame, making it particularly limited and problematic. Everyday environmentalism can become a frame that facilitates dialogue between big, seemingly abstract challenges like climate and sustainability, on the one hand, and the ever-present challenges and priorities of reproducing everyday life on the other hand. This promising direction is reflected in some initiatives for climate justice and also in recent work documented and advanced by Julian Agyeman and others under the rubric of “just sustainabilities” (Agyeman). A variety of other initiatives focused upon altering material flows of energy and food can also be fit into this frame. In all cases, it is vital to recognize that “environmental” concerns are widely held but are activated in diverse ways, not limited to a particular class or identity, even—or especially—an identity as “environmentalists.” I have been sketching the contours of an environmentalism that engages with, rather than seeking to trump, everyday material concerns and suggesting some of the existing movements and initiatives that might now fit within this frame. It will be helpful to draw upon theoretical resources that can help to develop this further. One potentially valuable resource is recent scholarly work on “new materialism” and “posthumanism” (Bennett; Coole and Frost; Braun and Whatmore). Theoretical work in this vein foregrounds the porosity of human selves and the webs that connect us with non-human beings and habitats (both at the level of micro-organisms that are integral to the human body and the more familiar macro-organisms—plants and animals—that exist without us), technological systems, and the many elements of the built environment within which we live. In these respects it helps upend the

4

For an excellent overview, see: Hall.

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postmaterialist assumption that environmental concern emerges from the transcendence of material phenomena. 5 By the same token, this work is only valuable for the present project if it is pursued in the right spirit. Too often, new materialist writing places a near-exclusive focus upon a broad worldview (described in many of these writings as ontology), and therefore on the need to transform this posited worldview or ontology into a new one that would allow us to recognize our immersion in the material world. This is mistaken and misguided.6 The real hope for greater resonance, as I have been arguing throughout, comes not from trumping our everyday ways of thinking about and being in the world, but by critically engaging with them. Only in this way can efforts to improve conditions be facilitated. This requires the articulation of interests and movements, and a respect for existing practices, neither of which rely upon first seeking a consensus on the scientific evidence for an issue like climate change. In sum, to rethink supposedly abstract, long-term, and global issues like climate change in terms of everyday practices is an urgent and promising possibility. Rather than overestimate the persuasiveness of denialism, we must directly and honestly confront the resonance dilemma and the challenges it raises for all who have a stake in a more sustainable future. Works Cited Adler, Jonathan H. “Conservative Principles for Environmental Reform.” Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 23.2 (Spring 2013): 253-280. Web. 3 June 2013. Agyeman, Julian. Introducing Just Sustainabilities: Policy, Planning and Practice. London: Zed Books, 2013. Print. Allen, Kim, Vinci Daro, and Dorothy Holland. “Becoming an Environmental Justice Activist.” Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social

5 6

I develop these points much further in chapter three of Engaging the Everyday. See again: Meyer, Engaging, chapter three, for an explication.

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Bakker, Isabella. “Social Reproduction and the Constitution of a Gendered Political Economy.” New Political Economy 12.4 (2007): 541-56. 17 Dec. 2007. Web. 1 Apr. 2014. Bauer, Joanne R. Forging Environmentalism: Justice, Livelihood, and Contested Environments. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2006. Print. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010. Print. Braun, Bruce, and Sarah Whatmore, ed. Political Matter: Technoscience, Democracy, and Public Life. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010. Print. “Center for Climate Change Communication.” n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. Coole, Diana, and Samantha Frost, ed. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham: Duke UP 2010. Print. Di Chiro, Giovanna. “Living Environmentalisms: Coalition Politics, Social Reproduction, and Environmental Justice.” Environmental Politics 17.2 (2008): 276-98. 8 Apr. 2008. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. Dryzek, John S. The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print. Dunlap, Riley E., and Aaron M. McCright. “Organized Climate Change Denial.” Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. Ed. John S. Dryzek, Richard B. Norgaard, and David Schlosberg. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. 144-60. Print. Feldman, Simon, and Derek Turner. “Why Not NIMBY?” Ethics, Place & Environment 13.3 (2010): 251-66. 14 Dec. 2010. Web. 1 Aug. 2014. Giddens, Anthony. The Constitution of Society: Introduction of the Theory of Structuration. Oakland: U of California P, 1984. Print. Hall, Cheryl. “What Will It Mean to Be Green? Envisioning Positive Possibilities Without Dismissing Loss.” Ethics, Policy & Environment 16.2 (2013): 125-41. 3 July 2013. Web. 26 Aug. 2013. HoundDog. “Republican Science Denial—a Clear and Present Danger to U.S. National Security.” Daily Kos. 19 May 2014. Web. 29 July 2014. Inglehart, Ronald. “Changing Values among Western Publics from 1970-2006.” West European Politics 31. January-March (2008): 130-46. Print. ---. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990. Print.

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---. “Public Support for Environmental Protection: Objective Problems and Subjective Values in 43 Societies.” PS: Political Science and Politics 28.1 (1995): 57-72. Print. Ingraham, Christopher. “The Green Movement Has a Millennial Problem.” Washington Post. 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 May 2014. Lakoff, George. “Why It Matters How We Frame the Environment.” Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture 4.1 (2010): 70-81. Taylor and Francis+NEJM. Web. Larson, Christina. “The Emerging Environmental Majority.” Washington Monthly. May 2006. Web. Leiserowitz, Anthony, and Karen Alerlof. “Race, Ethnicity, and Public Responses to Climate Change.” 26 Apr. 2010. Web. 30 July 2014. Maslow, Abraham H. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50.4 (1943): 370-96. Web. 19 Sept. 2012. Meyer, John M. Engaging the Everyday: Environmental Social Criticism and the Resonance Dilemma. Cambridge: MIT P, 2015. Print. ---. “Hypocrisy, NIMBY, and the Politics of Everybody’s Backyard.” Ethics, Place & Environment 13.3 (2010): 325-27. 14 Dec. 2010. Web. 1 Aug. 2014. ---. “Populism, Paternalism, and the State of Environmentalism in the U.S.” Environmental Politics 17.2 (2008): 219-36. Print. Mock, Brentin. “Mainstream Green Is Still Too White.” COLORLINES. 2 April 2013. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. ---. “New Report Expounds on Old Problem: Lack of Diversity in Green Groups.” Grist. 28 July 2014. Web. 31 July 2014. Mooney, Chris. “How Do You Get People to Give a Damn about Climate Change?” Mother Jones 18 Oct. 2013. Web. 30 July 2014. ---. The Republican War on Science. New York: Basic Books, 2006. Print. National Science Board. Science and Engineering Indicators 2014. Arlington VA: National Science Foundation (NSB 14-01). Febr. 2014. Web. 30 July 2014. Nordhaus, Ted, and Michael Shellenberger. Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Print.

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Novotny, Patrick. Where We Live, Work, and Play: The Environmental Justice Movement and the Struggle for a New Environmentalism. Westport: Praeger, 2000. Print. Oliver, J. Eric, and Thomas Wood. “Medical Conspiracy Theories and Health Behaviors in the United States.” JAMA Internal Medicine 174.5 (2014): 817-18. Web. 30 July 2014. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. “GOP Deeply Divided Over Climate Change.” 1 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 May 2014. ---. Public’s Policy Priorities: 1994-2013. 24 Jan. 2013. Web. 30 July 2014. Public Policy Polling. “Conspiracy Theory Poll Results.” 2 Apr. 2013. Web. 30 July 2014. Schlosberg, David. “Theorizing Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.” Environmental Politics 22.1 (2013): 37-55. Print. Shear, Michael D. “Obama Tells Donors of Tough Politics of Environment.” The New York Times. 4 Apr. 2013. Web. 15 Apr. 2013. Shove, Elizabeth, Mika Pantzar, and Matt Watson. The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How It Changes. London: Sage, 2012. Print. Siegle, Lucy. “We’re Losing Faith in Global Change as Local Causes Boom.” The Guardian. 14 June 2014. Web. 1 Aug. 2014. Spaargaren, Gert. “Theories of Practices: Agency, Technology, and Culture.” Global Environmental Change 21.3 (2011): 813-22. Web. 4 Mar. 2013. Stern, David I. “The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve.” World development 32.8 (2004): 1419-39. Print. “Thirteen Years of the Public’s Top Priorities.” 27 Jan. 2014. Web. 11 June 2014. Washington, Haydn, and John Cook. Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand. London: Earthscan, 2010. Print. “Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.” n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. Zeller, Tom. “Ideas & Trends; One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State.” The New York Times. 8 Feb. 2004. Web. 29 July 2014.

JULIE SZE

Environmental Justice and Environmental Humanities in the Anthropocene In a 2005 article entitled, “What the warming world needs now is art, sweet art,” activist and writer Bill McKibben writes, Time rushes on, in ways that humans have never before contemplated. That famous picture of the earth from outer space that Apollo beamed back in the late 1960s—already that’s not the world we inhabit; its poles are melting, its oceans rising. We can register what is happening with satellites and scientific instruments, but can we register it in our imaginations, the most sensitive of all our devices? (McKibben n. pag.; emphasis added).

Although scientists have agreed that climate change is real, and the lived impacts of the problems of climate change are increasingly apparent to more people around the world, the climate politics seem only to have stagnated. But what of the art, the sweet art? In one sense, perhaps the only glimmer of hopeful change has been in the rise of cultural production around climate change (Artists and Climate Change). This piece focuses on examples of the “art” of climate change. My analysis draws squarely from the integration of environmental justice and environmental humanities, with the starting point that literature, arts and the humanities offer a potential window into the lack of understanding for the most oppressed and disenfranchised. In some sense, the call for increased recognition for the most politically and culturally disempowered echoes John Muir’s call for protecting “wilderness” that cannot speak. At the same time, this call seeks to extend and complicate Muir’s call for protecting wilderness, understanding that he called for the displacement of the Yosemite Indians as a visual “blight” to the wilderness he sought to protect and elevate. My intention in this contribution is to

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explicitly foreground the lives and experiences of those hardest hit by ecological injustice, and those with the least responsibility for causing the problems related to climate change, through a selective account of arts projects that highlight issues of environmental inequality. The central questions I address are: How does one make art in the face of climate change and social disaster? What is the function of socially engaged and collaborative art-making practice? What is the role of art and transformation in contexts of great environmental damage and social divisions? These are, of course, not new questions—previous generations also asked these questions after great social, political and natural catastrophes. Perhaps the only difference is of kind: The catastrophe of climate change is a slow-moving one in real-time, what has been called elsewhere by literary scholar Rob Nixon, “slow violence” (Slow Violence). What follows are some preliminary thoughts in response to these questions as they are related to climate change in particular, and environmental pollution more broadly. The projects discussed in this piece were presented at a Visual Activism conference organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which focused on themes of environment and inequality (Harmattan Theater). The topics and geographies in these artistic projects span space and time, and issues yet taken together, portray, what Nixon has called for: an “environmental justice approach to Anthropocene story-telling” (“The Great Acceleration” n. pag.; emphasis added). The Anthropocene, as Stoermer and Crutzen argue, is the era when human impacts have shaped geologic time. 1 In his piece, “The Great Acceleration and the Great Divergence: Vulnerability in the Anthropocene,” Nixon suggests that although environmental crises and human inequality are deeply intertwined, narratives about the Anthropocene have generally “sidestepped the question of unequal human agency, unequal human impacts, and unequal human vulnerabilities.” Nixon writes: “Stories matter—they matter immeasurably. . . . In a world drowning in data, stories can play a vital role . . . in the making of environmental publics and in the shaping of environmental policy” (“The 1

For a short and popular discussion about the debates over the term, see Stromberg.

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Great Acceleration” n. pag.). In other words, the “side-stepping” of these perspectives of inequalities of agency, responsibility, impacts and vulnerabilities, is not minor and irrelevant. Rather, ignoring these perspectives reenacts and re-stages violence, epistemological and actual. Thus, it is particularly important to highlight artist-practitioners who collectively foreground these perspectives of inequality in their cultural and artistic representations, generally, and in the case of climate change in particular. I focus on climate change because its environmental impacts are out-sized (affecting a number of different problems), and because its entry to the cultural scene is relatively recent and underanalyzed. Environmental justice scholarship and analysis may also offer insights to how climate justice and injustice stories are narrated and understood within cultural and political spheres. Environmental Justice Approaches to Story-telling Before I can elaborate how Anthropocene story-telling might contribute to environmental justice (and vice versa), let me first give a brief overview of 1) environmental justice movements; and 2) environmental justice humanities approaches. They are different, yet vitally interconnected. Both are important to understanding how climate justice and environmental justice analyses intersect with humanities and storytelling projects. Both highlight typically under-represented voices in the epic narrative that is global climate change. At the core of the term “environmental justice” is a redefinition of the term “environmental” as not only “wild” places (“nature”), but also the environment of human bodies, especially in racialized communities, in cities, and through labor (exemplified by the movement slogan that the environment is where people “live, work, play, and pray”). The environmental justice movement aims to combat a broad range of environmental problems—from nuclear contamination on Native American lands and oil-refinery pollution in black communities in Louisiana and California, to epidemic rates of child asthma in poor urban neighborhoods throughout the nation, to name a few, linked through their analytic framework that emphasizes disproportionate negative impacts. The Re-Locate Project in Kivalina, Alaska is one potent example of an environmental justice representation of the Anthropocene. Kivalina is an

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Iñupiaq village that will be destroyed from flooding due to rising sea levels from melting permafrost. As the Re-Locate project describes, Kivalina, an “isolated whaling community . . . home to around 400 people, is facing imminent relocation and the need for viable futures is urgent” (Re-Locate, “Overview”). Kivalina is two short flights away from Anchorage: 90 minutes to a hub village and then another 30 minutes to the village itself, located between two whaling bowhead communities 80 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Re-Locate is a collaborative art and social practice project, with a number of international partners, working with local leaders. Re-Locate is a group of social artists from around the world working with a group of delegates from Kivalina to initiate a new, community-led and culturally specific relocation, using social arts methods and online media, that intend to make the social, political, and environmental issues related to relocation visible to global audiences; support community discussion and consensus building; locate, connect and educate new relocation partners; create spaces where people in Kivalina can share original media and ideas about local identities and ways of life; and develop an infrastructure for managing global support and pursuing relocation planning opportunities.(Re-Locate, “Overview”)

Collaborators in Re-Locate include a multidisciplinary group of partners, including several scholars and artists from the California College of the Arts, UC Santa Cruz, and the University of Washington. The ReLocate website explains, “In Northwest Alaska sea levels are rising and permafrost is melting, and entire villages are falling into the sea. For a host of reasons, previous relocation efforts in Kivalina are stalled, leaving the community looking for alternatives” (n. pag.). The Re-Locate project is premised on “solidarity and engagement” and a long-term dialogue in which people from Anchorage, Austria, California and elsewhere travel to the village on a recurrent basis to develop shared priorities. Kivalina is probably most well known for its lawsuit filed on February 26, 2008, in US District Court. The lawsuit was filed with legal assistance from the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, along with a number of advocacy groups and law firms. The lawsuit alleged that the twenty-four largest oil and electric companies are the top global warming polluters in the US and are substantially contributing to

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global warming and the resulting damage to Kivalina (Native Village).2 The suit, later dismissed, was based on the common law theory of nuisance, and claimed millions of monetary damages from the energy industry for the destruction of the village from flooding caused by climate change (Native Village).3 It is in the global context that indigenous voices on climate change matter immensely, if not primarily. Although the number of Kivalina residents is small, the moral and legal critique they level is particularly important to the global climate change context. This struggle and history has been collected by Shearer, based in large part on the voices of those active in the village, notably, Colleen Swan, a former tribal administrator and currently a city council member in Kivalina. Swan has been at the center of initiating and managing Kivalina’s host of strategies, from lawsuits to the revitalization of traditional practices—for claiming political agency and supporting village relocation. The perceived isolation of Kivalina is belied by the collaborative engagements and uses of technology that link people from around the globe to the village, through a set of social relationships. The function of the Re-Locate website is to make the local climate change impacts of Kivalina visible to a global audience. The website hosts a number of different projects, each of which has different goals and partners. These projects include TV broadcasts produced by Kivalina youth, “Modeling Kivalina,” a design project for a relocation center; a site called “Towards a History of Dwelling-Site Selection in the Kivalina Region” that contextualizes contemporary Kivalina within a broader environmental and social history, and an emergent web platform that will share the stories of Kivalina residents. These diverse projects range in style, whether they are ongoing, one-time, or still under construction, but they share a general goal: to make real the experiences of Kivalina to a global audience for whom the washing away of homes and communities is most likely something they either never knew or thought about, or a 2

3

The lawsuit also alleged that a group of defendants led by ExxonMobil has engaged in a conspiracy to mislead the public about the causes and effects of climate change (CRPE, Campaigns, Climate Justice, Kivalina, AK). It was dismissed on the grounds that regulating greenhouse gas emissions was a political, rather than a legal issue (Native Village).

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mere abstraction when confronted with this reality for many indigenous and small-island communities, particularly in the Pacific Islands (Leahy). I mean to conflate these issues in the Pacific Islands and the Arctic North. Indigenous sovereignty is unique historically and legally in the US context from racial justice concerns. However, climate justice activists themselves make links across case studies, scales, and histories in ways that are fascinating and generative. Participants in Re-Locate, both Kivalina residents and those coming from afar, are very aware of the politics of co-producing their knowledge at the same time that they are focusing on a shared goal of increasing awareness and recognition for the threats that Kivalina residents face. Re-Locate has written about their guiding principles (ReLocate, “Outline”). Project participants focus on foregrounding their stories and perspectives, as well as making “public” the enormous amount of data and information—including correspondence with agencies, studies, and video and audio materials related to Kivalina. The goal is to ensure that a digital archive functions as a “design” tool, one that will transform information hidden away in a binder (or in a technocratic set of unusable data) into a more active and public domain. This tool will expose the local and indigenous impacts of climate change, and the inequalities of agency, impact and vulnerability. This notion of “making public” aligns with the goals of the social art and collaborative practices of the project. According to an interview with Re-Locate project co-director Michael Gerace, “we approach the work as individuals, then the collaborative process, itself is art.” He continues that participants are “opening with eyes to seeing, somehow building a new way of seeing. Building a new commons is how I see the art, essentially depending.”4 The imperative of this artistic practice, in Re-Locate’s view, is to show how we in more industrialized economies that are most responsible for climate change, “might habituate differently under the current violent system,” which cannot, and does not work in Kivalina, and which is actually actively threatening the imminent future of that community.5 4 5

Unpublished interview with the author of this chapter, May 2014. Unpublished interview with the author of this chapter, May 2014.

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Agency, Impacts, Vulnerabilities The Re-Locate project foregrounds these too often ignored dimensions of inequality and its environmental impacts through their images, narratives and stories. Although Re-Locate does not explicitly use the Anthropocene to frame its work, the project effectively foregrounds questions of agency, justice, and vulnerability in its understanding of global climate change and its disproportionately negative impact on indigenous populations. In particular, themes of water and flooding and its relationship to extractive energy politics are particularly prominent. Water and flooding, are, of course, the most obvious and immediate impacts of sea-level rise from rising temperatures. Thus, these questions of cultural recognition and water’s metaphoric and literal power, and the ability to see from the perspective of those with the least amount of political power, matter now more than ever. Water, thus, is an environmental issue, but it is also an effective symbol for constant social change, through water’s interconnection with technologies, peoples, and places. One of the other projects in the SF Moma Visual Activism Conference was the Harmattan Theater, an environmental theater company based in New York City. This theater focuses on artistic implications of climate change and global water politics. According to their website, Harmattan Theater devises “site-specific public performances and installations in water-bound sites around the world. . . . [P]rojects deal with ecology, public space, urbanism and the future of water” (Harmattan Theater n. pag.). Installations and performances by the theater have taken place in Amsterdam, Lisbon, Cochin and New York, and the historical Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The site continues by explaining that the performance pieces are “immersive experiences, meditations on geography and the poetics of space through embodied interactions with the lived environment.” (Harmattan Theater n. pag.) The chosen sites for their theatre are linked by water, defined by their waterscapes, their cosmopolitanism, sea-faring, and trade. Climate change makes these historically important port cities incredibly vulnerable to flooding and sea-level rise. In other words, what defined these historical and cultural landscapes was the access to water, which is now a source of great danger in the face of imminent sea-level rise.

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One of their sites is New York City—where water and intensified flooding as a result of climate change have taken on particular importance after Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy was a massive weather event in 2012 that caused 117 deaths; closed airports and the stock exchange; flooded the NYC subway system; downed power lines that left millions without electricity and heat for days; burned down hundreds of houses; and created waves in NYC harbor that exceeded 30 feet (never before recorded). Photographer Syd London captured much of the chaos after Hurricane Sandy flooding, including the lack of post-disaster services, and the storm’s particular devastation to working class people and the elderly (London). In a very different spatial context, the impact of water is felt keenly in rural communities. Another SF MOMA panel participant was Veejayant Dash, an artist who focuses on community engagement with water issues in villages of Odisha, India. These villagers are negatively impacted in the areas of health and sanitation, inequality in terms of rights and access to water, and changing habitats. Dash highlights how the rivers have changed course over time, the gendered labor issues related to getting clean water, as well as the various cultural rituals associated with water in these particular villages. These issues of inequality related to water and pollution distribution are taken up by another prominent artist on the Visual Activism panel. Mel Chin is an artist whose recent work in New Orleans addresses scientific and artistic practice in fascinating ways. One of Chin’s projects is called Operation Paydirt/Fundred Dollar Bill Project. This project is a multidisciplinary effort to (according to the website): “support awareness and solutions to lead contamination and help end childhood lead poisoning,” with a particular focus on New Orleans (the site of Hurricane Katrina) (Chin). When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, the toxicity in the soil was a major public health issue. Chin’s projects rely on collaboration between artists, institutions and youth. These artists are all different, in terms of the places, people, and approaches they take. They also differ in their artistic practices, and how deeply engaged the artists are in the communities. There is seemingly little to link these projects in terms of geography (urban/rural), medium (photographs, site-specific, long-term community-based collaboration). And yet, they are indeed linked, however loosely. They are linked through their topics and themes—Visual Environmental Activism broad-

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ly, and water more specifically. Lastly, what these diverse projects collectively highlight is how issues of environment and inequality, particularly around water and pollution which seem ephemeral and constantly changing, can be represented artistically and visually. They also take a particular stance on the question of the power of art in these issues of representation, experience, and the creation of meaning. The artists believe that their art matters in the face of destruction and climate change. Theirs is the sweet art of the Anthropocene; one focused on issues of inequality and social change. Environmental Justice, Climate Justice and the Humanities In the context of global climate change, the contributions and creativity from literature, arts and humanities is that these fields present the best possibility to inhabit or different worldviews and to promote more recognition and thus, possibly reduce injustice. Unfortunately, these perspectives tend to be overlooked in discussions of climate change, which has focused primarily on the climate change science, and the reactionary politics of climate change skepticism. Literature, arts, and the humanities in general offer the possibility to inhabit or have a different view of the world, and are thus effective tools in imagining the world differently in the context of climate change. Climate Justice frames the political debate about climate change adaptation as a matter of social justice. The climate justice movement sees responsibility for climate change as unevenly distributed between the developed and the developing worlds: The United States, for instance, still contributes a large share of the world’s carbon emissions. Average per capita emissions in the US remain among the highest in the world (although China exceeded the US in total emissions in 2007), with Canada, Western Europe, and Japan not far behind but surpassed by such oil-producing countries as Qatar, Kuweit, and the United Arab Emirats.6

6

For a detailed survey of data see Trends in Global CO2 Emissions: 2015 Report. The Report was co-authored by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

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Meanwhile, the climate justice movement understands the problem of climate change in terms of historical responsibility (what Friends of the Earth calls “historical carbon debt,” 8), not solely through projections into the future. The climate justice movement focuses, too, on the challenges of human development by using a human rights framework, and a focus on the rights of local communities. This humanistic emphasis of the climate justice movement is what distinguishes its approach from official government protestations in India and China against global restrictions on their carbon emissions. In short, those populations that are most negatively affected by climate change are found to be the least culpable, encapsulated by the Bali Principles of Climate Justice (“Bali Principle”). The Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCCI) describes that, “Climate justice is a vision to dissolve and alleviate the unequal burdens created by climate change” (n. pag.). The EJCCI website defines climate justice as “a form of environmental justice” that necessitates the “fair treatment of all people and freedom from discrimination with the creation of policies and projects that address climate change and the systems that create climate change and perpetuate discrimination.” 7 By considering the crisis of climate change in terms that are grounded historically, sociologically, geographically and with due attention to both the macro and the micro causes and effects, climate justice is a potential critical tool for those wary of green hype but keen to see climate change as the crisis of modernization that in part it is. This distinction between the political, legal and cultural domains in regards to climate change is a view rejected by climate justice activists, and in particular, indigenous and small island communities. The economic, moral and political issues are huge. According to the New York Times, the most recent IPCC report, “The poorest people in the world, who have had virtually nothing to do with causing global warming, will be high on the list of victims as climatic disruptions intensify” (Gillis n. pag.). The report cited a World Bank estimate that poor countries need as much as $100 billion a year to try to offset the effects of climate 7

The EJCCI website, accessed May 21, 2014 under http://ejcc.org/cj, is no longer available as of March 2016. However, their description of climate justice, as quoted in this paper, proliferated throughout the web.

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change. The $100 billion figure, though included in the 2,500-page main report, was removed from a 48-page executive summary to be read by the world’s top political leaders. It was among the most significant changes made as the summary underwent final review during an editing session of several days in Yokohama. In other words, those facing the greatest impacts are those with the least culpability, and with the least ability to pay to mitigate these disastrous impacts. These issues of disproportionality are at the root of political movements for environmental and climate justice, and thus are also at the heart of artistic representations for these claims to justice across variegated landscapes. Conclusion In a May 2014 New York Times article reporters Gillis and Chang summarized what scientists had discovered: A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable. . . . [scientists] suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet, and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries. (n. pag.)

Clearly, in an era where the scientific alarm around climate change is reaching new heights, the political inaction on emissions reduction and global climate change shows that existing practices are not working. What we need, perhaps, is to inject a different way of looking at climate change, one that highlights different ways of knowing and different ways of being in the world, or at the very minimum, insists that those audiences in Western developed nations pay attention to those who are being currently and imminently threatened by climate change. Those in Kivalina, in small-island states, as well as youth climate change activists around the globe are insisting that climate change is already proving disastrous in their lives and in their communities. Unlike most opinion polls in which US residents believe climate change impact to be decades away, these activists highlight the imminent harm to their communities and bodies, almost none of which they were responsible for.

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Re-Locate and the other artistic projects discussed are important parts of the intellectual and cultural projects of defining an environmental justice approach to the Anthropocene. These perspectives both accept (in part) the meta-narrative of humans affecting geologic time, yet insist that human impacts are themselves variable and uneven, and shaped by politics, culture and histories of exploitation. Only by recognizing the common humanity of those who have the least culpability and are most impacted, can imminent totalizing disaster be averted. We already have too many examples of the problems of the lack of cultural recognition. Before Hurricane Katrina, according to Brian Wolshon, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University who served as a consultant on the state’s evacuation plan and who was cited in a New York Times article by Scott Shane and Eric Lipton, “little attention was paid to moving out New Orleans’s ‘low-mobility’ population—the elderly, the infirm and the poor without cars or other means of fleeing the city, about 100,000 people.” As Wolshon remembered, when (disaster planners and government officials were) explicitly asked about what to do with those populations at meetings, “the answer was often silence” (n. pag.). In other words, the failure to see and to act are closely interlinked. And this failure to see is in part a failure of recognition, of the worldviews and experiences of those “less visible” and legible, in the case of Hurricane Katrina, the elderly, sick and those too poor to own a car. What the Kivalina residents and the artists discussed in this essay categorically refuse, is silence. Rather, they advocate for more visibility, legibility and justice. Kivalina residents and the artists focus on the voices and perspectives of those least responsible and most impacted by climate change and flooding. To those who embrace the climate justice worldview, from residents directly impacted to artists who work in solidarity, climate justice and the arts are intimately connected. They foreground the perspectives of those most rendered invisible by government policy, disaster planning, and the broader cultural sphere. Residents in Kivalina, New Orleans, ports in Amsterdam and small villages in Odisha, small island Pacific nations, and youth climate justice activists in the US and Europe are diverse as are their issues. However, their perspectives are linked, through environmental justice analyses and approaches that have humanities approaches as a key component to addressing climate change and environmental pollution.

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We need art, love, creativity, restoration, relationships and humor in the face of the calamity that is climate change. Re-Locate shows us what that might look like, not as a prescription or “scalable” project or process, but in an insistently local and indigenous context. Here, “tip of the iceberg” is no longer metaphor, but the harsh reality, ready to flood Kivalina village. The Re-Locate Project is one example of the “sweet art” of the Anthropocene, one that foregrounds the environmental justice perspectives, and which uses collaboration and creativity at its expansive definition of art and action. Works Cited Artists and Climate Change: Contributions from the Artistic Community to the Vexing Problem of Climate Change. Web. 30 May 2014. Chin, Mel. Fundred: Operation Paydirt. Web. 21 May 2014. Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE). Web. 5 March 2016. “Bali Principle of Climate Justice.” 2002. Web. 21 May 2014. Friends of the Earth International. Climate Debt: Making Historical Responsibility Part of the Solution. December 2005. Web. 5 March 2016. Gillis, Justin. “Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come.” The New York Times, 31 Mar. 2014. Web. 31 May 2014. Gillis, Justin, and Kenneth Chang. “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans from Polar Melt.” The New York Times, 12 May, 2014. Web. 30 May 2014. Harmattan Theater. “Performances.” Harmattan Theater, 2015. Web. 21 May 2014. Leahy, Stephen. “The Nations Guaranteed to be Swallowed by the Sea.” Motherboard/Vice, 27 May 2014. Web. 30 May. 2014. London, Syd. “Sandy versus NYC.” Syd London, 2012. Web. 21 May 2014. McKibben, Bill. “What the Warming World Needs Now is Art, Sweet Art.” Grist, 22 Apr. 2005. Web. 30 May 2014. Native Village of Kivalina and City of Kivalina. “Federal Appeals Court Rules That Inupiat Alaskan Village Being Destroyed by Global Warming Cannot Hold Polluters Accountable under Federal Law.” Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Press Releases, September 21, 2012. Web. 30 May 2014.

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Nixon, Rob. “The Great Acceleration and the Great Divergence: Vulnerability in the Anthropocene,” Profession, 19 Mar. 2014. Web. 30 May 2015. ---. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2011. Print. Re-Locate. Kivalina. Web. 22 May 2014. ---. “Toward an Outline for an Ethnocompositionist Manifesto. Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities Vol. 2: 2, Fall 2015. Web. Shane, Scott and Eric Lipton. “Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure.” The New York Times, 2 Sept. 2005. Web. 30 May 2014. Shearer, Christine. Kivalina. A Climate Change Story. Chicago: Haymarket, 2011. Print. Stromberg, Joseph. “What is the Anthropocene and are we in it?” Smithsonian Magazine, Jan. 2013. Web. 30 May 2014.

SYLVIA MAYER

Risk Narratives: Climate Change, the American Novel, and the World Risk Society Risk awareness has become a cultural force that permeates contemporary societies. The need to deal with a future that is marked by uncertainty, contingency, and insecurity is frequently expressed in risk discourse. Environmental risks, often closely related to technological risks, have been at the heart of contemporary risk discourses, including risk theory and risk research in the social sciences. 1 This essay focuses on a part of environmental risk discourse that has largely been neglected in risk theory and risk research: fictional texts. By exploring the contribution of a number of US American novels to the risk discourse of global, anthropogenic climate change it demonstrates that fictional texts play an important role in risk discourse and risk communication. The novels addressed can be regarded as representatives of an emerging genre, the climate change novel. They will be read as “risk narratives,” that is as narratives that can be defined according to central insights developed primarily by the social sciences. The essay starts out by introducing the concept of risk, and, in particular, Ulrich Beck’s concept of the world risk society, in order to define the term risk narra1

Ulrich Beck’s Risikogesellschaft (1986; Risk Society, 1992), published shortly after the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe, can, arguably, be regarded as the study that launched the rapidly growing interest in risk in sociology and in other disciplines of the social sciences. His concept of the risk society was centrally developed on the basis of connecting environmental and technological risks. On the role of environmental risks for current risk theory and risk research in the social sciences see Jakob Arnoldi’s chapter “Risk, technology and nature,” 67-83.

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tive. It will then provide a short discussion of the challenges that the novelistic engagement with climate change has to face, and then suggest a generic distinction between two types of climate change risk narratives: risk narratives of anticipation and risk narratives of catastrophe. The remainder of the essay will provide several brief readings of both types of climate risk narratives in order to outline some of the features that mark the emerging genre of the American climate change novel. Eventually, reading these climate change novels as risk narratives will add to our understanding of what geographers Stephen Daniels and Georgina H. Endfield have called the complex “matrix of narratives” (222) that currently addresses the issue of climate change. Risk, the World Risk Society, and Fictional Risk Narratives In his 2004 essay “The Rise of Risk,” sociologist David Garland argues that “[t]he idea of risk has come to appear indispensable for understanding our time” (49). He substantiates this claim by drawing attention to the multiplicity of meanings the word “risk” reveals: Today’s accounts of risk are remarkable for their multiplicity and for the variety of senses they give to the term. Risk is calculation. Risk is a commodity. Risk is a capital. Risk is a technique of government. Risk is objective and scientifically knowable. Risk is subjective and socially constructed. Risk is a problem, a threat, a source of insecurity. Risk is a pleasure, a thrill, a source of profit and freedom. Risk is the means whereby we colonize and control the future. ‘Risk society’ is our late modern world spinning out of control. (48)

This “variety of senses” points toward the fact that the meanings of risk have changed, that they have accumulated over time, now, even including meanings that seem to contradict each other. At the same time, it points toward the trajectories of current risk theory and risk research as it has developed since the 1980s.2 Historically, risk is a concept of the 2

For a survey of the emergence and striking growth of contemporary risk theory and risk research in the social sciences since the 1980s see Arnoldi, Lupton, and Zinn.

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modern era. While human beings have always engaged with uncertainty, while they have always tried to control the future in the sense of avoiding harm or losses, the term and the concept of risk emerged only in the early modern era. In the context of colonial, capitalist business ventures, the concept of risk began to be defined by economic decision making, by the calculation of profits and losses. The simultaneous emergence of the insurance industry—with its reliance on probability calculus and its goals of risk minimization and risk management—mark this economic origin of the concept and illustrate why risk is linked to the terms “calculation,” “commodity,” and “capital.” The last sentence of the quotation, however—“‘Risk society’ is our late modern world spinning out of control”—indicates a striking shift in meaning that has characterized our period of late modernity, the period beginning in the aftermath of World War II. When sociologist Jakob Arnoldi claims that we are faced with a “crisis of risk” (36), he refers to the observation that, at least in today’s developed, highly industrialized societies, the meaning of risk in public discourse has to a large extent been narrowed down to a discourse centering on risk as threat. To be sure, in an economic context, risk still refers to the calculations of profits and losses, and there are, moreover, specific cultural practices of risk taking that promise “pleasure,” “thrill,” and “freedom” to their practitioners (for instance, in so-called extreme sports). At the same time, however, the belief that probabilistic, statistical calculation is capable of minimizing and thus managing especially large-scale technological dangers has considerably waned. As a result, sociologists such as Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens have argued that risk must be acknowledged as a factor that has transformed societies and their institutions to such an extent that we have entered a new phase of modernity: late or reflexive modernity. The most well known sociological concept in this context is Beck’s risk society, which has expanded over the years to the world risk society. Beck regards risk as a productive force, which “represents the perceptual and cognitive schema in accordance with which a society mobilizes itself when it is confronted with the openness, uncertainties and obstructions of a self-created future” (World at Risk 4). The risk society, Beck argues, “designates a developmental phase of modern society in which the social, political, economic and individual risks increasingly tend to escape the institutions for monitoring and protection in industrial society” (“Reinvention” 5), i.e. the institutions of government, industry, and

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science. Similar to Anthony Giddens, whose work on late modernity also pivots on the notion of risk and who regards contemporary culture as a “risk culture” (Modernity and Self-Identity 3), Beck identifies a range of new risks, most prominently environmental risks such as radioactivity or global warming/climate change, that are the “unintended” consequences of scientific and technological modernization. These new risks are “manufactured,” human-made, risks that are often intangible and latent in their effects and thus can no longer be fully assessed by science or controlled and minimized by traditional forms of risk management and insurance. The world risk society turns out to be a society in which “the very idea of controllability, certainty or security collapses” (World Risk Society 2), a society which is increasingly dominated by doubt and the loss of belief in notions of progress through science and technology. As a result, we can observe transformations of social structures, political institutions, and political processes of decision-making— ultimately on a transnational, global scale. Beck introduced the concept of the risk society in the mid-1980s. Since then, he has expanded the concept considerably, acknowledging, most significantly, the impact of globalization. 3 In World at Risk, his most recent book publication on the world risk society, he identifies three key global risks: global economic threats, the threat of global terrorism, and global environmental threats—most prominently, the risk of global, anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, in World at Risk Beck also introduces a distinction between risk and catastrophe that will become important for my own distinction between two types of climate change risk narratives. Beck argues: Risk is not synonymous with catastrophe. Risk means the anticipation of the catastrophe. Risks concern the possibility of future occurrences and developments . . . Whereas any catastrophe is spatially, temporally and socially determined, the anticipation of catastrophe lacks any spatiotemporal or social concreteness. Thus the category of risk signifies the controversial reality of the possible . . . Risks are always future events that may occur, that threaten us. But because this constant danger shapes 3

On the criticism that has been levelled against the very influential theories of Ulrich Beck, as well as on his response to this criticism, see, more recently, Sørensen and Christiansen 123-40.

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our expectations, lodges in our heads and guides our actions, it becomes a political force that transforms the world (9-10, emphasis in the original).

The reality of risks—their influence on our subjectivities and on our personal and collective notions of self—thus strongly relies on anticipation and on the controversial. It is in risk scenarios, possible future worlds that in their creation involve narrative and the imagination, that the anticipation of a possible future catastrophe expresses itself. Risk scenarios, therefore, come in the form of factual and fictional texts, in the graphs and statistics of scientific modeling as well as in works of fiction. Risks as the anticipation of catastrophe are marked by controversy, by differences in risk perception and risk assessment that reflect the impact of a variety of cultural factors. Work in cultural anthropology, in the tradition of Mary Douglas (Douglas and Wildavsky), has, most significantly, shown how strongly risk perception is connected to the reproduction of a community’s cultural order. Furthermore, as comparative risk research has shown, risk perception depends on the specific social, economic, cultural and geographic position of individuals and social groups, and differences can be found both within a society and between different societies. What is perceived as a major risk in one community or society may be regarded as a perfectly calculable phenomenon in another. The reality of risks, moreover, depends on what Beck in World at Risk calls the “staging” (10) of risk. It requires the representation and communication of risks to make them real, to create awareness of an imminent threat that might result in catastrophe. Risks are thus not simply objectively measurable phenomena, but also subjective or collective cultural constructions. The “controversially real”, the anticipated must be represented and communicated in order to become a shaping force in the realms of the personal, the political, the social, the economic, and the cultural. Obviously, this argument is important for literary and cultural studies. If risks emerge and become effective through representation, narration, and communication, risk research can certainly benefit from the study of fictional risk narratives of the last decades. Fictional risk narratives have, in fact, contributed very specifically to risk discourses. Their essentially unlimited imaginative and formal range allows them to explore the complexity and diversity of individual and

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collective risk experiences worldwide. They work with—and at the same time transcend—factual, scientific representation. Fictional risk narratives make use of a variety of knowledge that marks the diversity of human perceptions and experiences of risk, including differences in vulnerability and adaptability to risk due to social inequality. Moreover, their intellectual and affective appeal may succeed in making the various cultural, social, political, economic, and psychological factors that figure in specific risk experiences more easily perceptible, intelligible, and concrete. Ultimately, they may thus contribute more successfully to the development of a more sustainable environmental ethical stance than non-fictional, for instance, scientific, risk narratives. 4 The Challenges of Representing Climate Change One of the major global risks we are confronted with today is the risk of climate change. After decades of research into—and controversial debate about—the causes of global warming, climate science today overwhelmingly agrees that current climatic effects of global warming have anthropogenic causes, that they are predominantly human-made. The authors of the latest IPCC report 2013, for instance, claim that it is “extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century” (“Summary” 12). Some scientists go as far as to proclaim the advent of a new geological age that is characterized by historically sustained human intervention into the planetary ecosphere. They proclaim that humanity has become a geological force so that today we live in a new geological age, the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer). Climate change refers to the fact that the planet’s oceans and atmosphere have undergone a process of warming up, caused by a carbonbased, fossil fuel economy whose rate of greenhouse gas emissions has, since the beginnings of industrialization, rapidly grown—thereby trans4

For a more comprehensive introduction to these points, see Ursula Heise’s pioneering chapter “Narrative in the World Risk Society” in Sense of Place (119-59); for the affective impact of fiction films that address the risk of climate change, see, in particular, Weik von Mossner.

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forming ecological systems on a global scale. Climate change modeling envisions ecosystemic changes that involve a variety of far-reaching geographical and biological transformations around the world and ultimately pose a threat to existing life-support systems for the planet’s species. The melting of the polar ice caps, of glaciers and permafrost in several parts of the world, the acidification of the oceans, and the increase in extreme weather phenomena may result in large-scale migrations, not only of humans but also of other species, or in large-scale species extinction. Such large-scale ecological changes obviously also imply dramatic transformations of established economic, social, political, and cultural orders. Politics and public opinion in countries around the globe by now predominantly acknowledge the existence of the risk of anthropogenic climate change. At the same time, however, the failure to develop policies, technologies, and socio-economic practices that could effectively curb greenhouse gas emissions indicates inadequate engagement with the specific threats climate change poses. Fear that the economic cost of climate change legislation will be too high and undermine economic competitiveness has characterized probably all national politics; it certainly has been central to US national climate policies since the 1990s (Falke). Inadequate response to the risk of climate change must, however, not simply be explained as a consequence of conflicting economic and/or political interests. It is also the consequence of the problem of comprehending the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change in its historical, cultural, and psychological complexity. Climate change can be regarded as an issue that is in many ways “intangible.” Greenhouse gas emissions are basically invisible, and their accumulation has occurred on a temporal and spatial scale that not only eludes the individual’s direct perception but also goes beyond the lifetime experience of any single generation. The effects of global warming are defined by latency, since cause-and-effect relations, developing globally at a fairly slow pace, are hidden. Moreover, intangibility is also the result of global power relations that render already visible effects of climate change invisible, simply by reducing, or even eliminating their presence in media coverage. A case in point are climate refugees, migrant populations forced to leave their home environments once they have been made uninhabitable due to

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rising sea-levels, extreme weather events, or drought and water scarcity. Climate refugees are national and transnational “unimagined communities” whose neglected presence illustrates that an acknowledgement of the reality and possible future consequences of climate change is firmly linked to socioeconomic privilege.5 The richer parts of the world, at least their elites, can still afford to deny the effects of global warming: They are less vulnerable to climate change risk since they still have the means to protect themselves against many of the consequences. The poorer parts of the world do not have this privilege. They are much more vulnerable to environmental risk in general, and to the risk of climate change in particular. Finally, and maybe somewhat paradoxically, it is the sciences that also account for a sense of intangibility. Despite the existence of the vast body of climate science data that has been collected over the last decades and despite the overwhelming scientific consensus on the anthropogenic causes of global warming, there is still a certain degree of scientific uncertainty. Prediction of future scenarios that illustrate the results of a changed climate is difficult; in fact, it is ultimately impossible. Scientific computer models of climate change, for instance, are only approximations of developments that occur on a global scale and manifest themselves locally or regionally in very different ways. Scientific uncertainty thus remains a major source for hesitation—in terms of acknowledging that there is a risk in the first place, in terms of its possible future effects, and in terms of the development of national and international climate policies that would curb greenhouse gas emissions more effectively (Hulme 72-108). Invisibility and latency of effect, the necessity to acknowledge and respond to elusive temporal and spatial scales, global power constellations, and the issue of scientific uncertainty: all of these factors point toward the complexity of the issue of climate change. They illustrate why it can be difficult for the individual and for social communities to 5

The phrase “unimagined communities” is borrowed from Rob Nixon, who in Slow Violence uses it in his discussion of the concrete and imaginative displacement of populations in processes of national economic development (150-74). While Nixon, retaining Benedict Anderson’s focus on nationalism, limits the meaning of the phrase to communities within the borders of the nation-state, I extend its meaning to the transnational.

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relate their experiences to processes of global ecological transformation, and they show that climate change is a global risk whose perception depends on the willingness and the ability to engage with forces that spell destabilization and a changing future. Furthermore, they also explain why it has been difficult to develop what Ursula Heise calls an “eco-cosmopolitan stance”, an environmental ethical position whose planetary scope recognizes the impact of global forces on the local. Such an ethical environmental position is indispensable when it comes to devising and implementing wide-ranging economic, political, and cultural practices that would mark the transition to a more energy-efficient, post-carbon global economy. As Susan Moser has shown in a study of non-fictional texts, the intangibility of climate change directly translates into problems of its communication. Her argument also pertains to fictional explorations of climate change. Literary critics such as Heise (205-10), Daniels and Garrard, and Trexler and Johns-Putra (185) have begun to point out that fictional texts, too, are confronted with the intangibility of the risk and have to grapple with the question of how to turn it into aesthetically pleasing and morally effective narration. The Climate Change Novel: Risk Narratives of Anticipation and Catastrophe Fiction addressing contemporary anthropogenic climate change is a fairly recent phenomenon. As Adam Trexler and Adeline Johns-Putra have pointed out for Anglophone climate fiction in general, “literary portrayals of worldwide environmental change” do have a “pre-history” (186), especially when we look at science fiction texts. But the corpus of texts addressing current human-made climate change consists largely of novels published since the 1990s. For these novels, climate change is a central theme in terms of its ecological, scientific, socio-economic, political, and cultural implications. Despite the fact that the climate change novel is still an emerging genre, it is already possible to distinguish between two different types of novels—a distinction that can be made if we approach climate change novels as risk narratives. Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s definition of risk as the anticipation of catastrophe, I regard the state of anticipation and the

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state of catastrophe as temporal markers that characterize all climate change novels, but do so in conspicuously different ways: The risk narrative of anticipation, on the one hand, concentrates on developing a fictional world that is marked by the anticipation of climate collapse, by the cultural moment of uncertainty in a late twentieth/early twenty-first century present when awareness of the risk figures prominently in a culture, but has not yet led to full-blown climate catastrophe. It focuses on the strong sense of uncertainty and controversy about how to respond to the various threats—and possible first signs—of the global risk of climate change. Future large-scale catastrophe is envisioned only briefly, as a possibility, usually signaled by the representation of weather anomalies and their socio-economic and cultural consequences (Mayer). The risk narrative of catastrophe, on the other hand, concentrates on developing a future fictional world in which the risk has turned into catastrophe, in which what used to be a risk scenario has in fact materialized in climate collapse. It envisions and explores a world in which climate change has caused dramatic and devastating changes in the global ecosystemic, socio-economic, political, and cultural orders. Life in these narratives is marked by dramatic experiences of displacement, toxic pollution, and species extinction. The period that precedes this future, the stage of anticipation, is often, sometimes very briefly, introduced in these narratives, usually by means of flashbacks that delineate the characters’ world before the onset of catastrophe. The climate change novel can thus be defined as made up of risk narratives that either put emphasis on the state of anticipation or on the state of catastrophe. The following two sections will now briefly introduce several US American climate change novels that can be categorized as risk narratives of catastrophe or as risk narratives of anticipation to show how they tackle the intangibility of climate change and how they address living in the world risk society more generally. The American Climate Change Novel as Risk Narrative of Catastrophe The following novels can be categorized as climate change novels and as risk narratives of catastrophe: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), T. C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth (2000), Steven Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming

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(2009), and Dale Pendell’s The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse (2010). Butler’s Parable novels trace the story of a young African American woman, Lauren Olamina, who grows up in the L.A. area of the American West Coast—in a future American society that has radically disintegrated as a consequence of climate change. The novels consist of diary entries spanning the time between 2024 and 2035. Parable of the Sower describes how the security of the gated community in which Lauren grows up is destroyed, how she travels north with a few other survivors to start a new agrarian community, and how she matures as an intellectual and spiritual leader. Lauren develops a new religion, Earthseed, which becomes the basis for the creation of “Acorn”–a community that in Parable of the Talents is, however, destroyed by an authoritarian, Christian fundamentalist government. Ultimately, the hope of the Earthseed community lies in colonizing outer space. Boyle’s Friend of the Earth tells the story of Ty Tierwater, who lives at the age of 75 in the year 2025 as the keeper of a pop star’s private zoo, again on the West Coast. In this future American society, the basic ecological structures of civilization have heavily deteriorated due to climate change. By having its protagonist look back at his life as a radical environmentalist in the 1980s and 1990s, the novel exploresoften satiricallythe inadequacies of dealing with the climate risk in American society during these decades, even among American environmentalists. Steven Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming traces the experiences of an unnamed narrator-protagonist who has to cope with the effects of climate catastrophe during what are, roughly, the first four decades of the twenty-first century. The first of nine episodes that make up the novel starts on New Year’s Eve 1999, when the narrator as a boy is confronted with the risk of the Y2K computer meltdown and its potential disastrous global consequences. In the following eight episodes of this picaresque novel, the threats the protagonist is confronted with are all closely linked to dramatically changed weather patterns that signal the devastating effect of climate change on the sociopolitical and economic orders of his future world. Dale Pendell’s The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse, finally, starts out in the year 2021, when the climate collapses, when conspicuous rising sea levels signal the onset of climate catastrophe and when a global pandemic begins to kill most of the world’s population. In twelve

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sections, the novel “chronicles” nothing less than the planet’s development in terms of its ecologies, geographies, and various types of civilization over the next 16.000 years. At the same time, the novel returns again and again to the geographical space that today is called California, where a “great bay” gradually forms and over the millennia continually spreads in its Central Valley. As risk narratives of catastrophe, these climate change novels demonstrate that fictional scenarios of a changed future climate go far beyond the information developed by scientific risk scenarios. In imagining a diversity of individual and communal experiences of climatically changed futures and in exploring what it means intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually to live in a dramatically changed dystopian world, the novels make the risk of climate change more tangible. Climate change is represented as involving both drastic ecological change and drastic cultural transformation, thereby putting emphasis on the fact that the natural and the cultural are inextricably linked to each other. On the political level, moreover, the novels develop scenarios of a radically deteriorated American democratic system—Pendell’s novel even does away with the nation-state as such. Interestingly, socioeconomic class privilege still plays a role in the novels by Butler, Boyle and Amsterdam. While in these novels vulnerability to environmental risk has vastly spread after climate collapse, there are still small governing elites that are not as utterly exposed to the diversity of environmental threats as the vast majority of an impoverished American population. In their focus on future settings, these risk narratives of catastrophe tackle in particular the representational challenge of the vast time scale climate change implies. In this context, Butler, Boyle, and Amsterdam choose future settings that are still fairly close to their readers’ present in the 1990s or in the first decades of the twenty-first century respectively. This choice may be read as an attempt to illustrate that climate change is after all not simply a matter of a distant future that can be ignored or neglected in the present, that it is instead an ongoing process of transformation and destabilization that will soon have an impact on the readers’ lives—or on the lives of the generations that follow. Pendell’s novel addresses the challenge of representing the temporal scale in a different way. In the first of the twelve sections of his novel, he establishes such a near-future connection between reader and fictional world by dating the “Collapse” in the year 2021. From then on, how-

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ever, the sections cover ever vaster periods of time, first decades, then centuries, then millennia. What this narrative strategy ultimately accomplishes is to embed “our” anthropogenic climate change of late modernity within a geological time scale. The twelve sections of the novel open with short reports on the characteristics of the period at stake, with socalled “panoptics.” These panoptics provide information about how the US West Coast around the Great Bay as well as various other regions of the planet develop in terms of their ecologies and civilizations. About 10,000 years after the “Collapse”, the reader learns in one panoptic, the interglacial, i.e. the warm period between two ice ages, was coming to an end and a new ice age was beginning. It becomes clear that the comparative shortness of this interglacial (which is, in fact, the one we live in) was caused by the continuing effects of anthropogenic climate change as it had developed since the beginnings of industrialization in the late eighteenth century: the greenhouse gas emissions of the Anthropocene, once in the atmosphere, had stayed there and in a multiplicity of feedback loops had continued their warming effect. It is important to note at this point, that none of the novels presents an end-of-the-world scenario, not even Pendell’s rather drastic future vision. The mode of narration defining these novels is the dystopian modenot the classic apocalyptic mode. Risk narratives of catastrophe illustrate Heise’s argument that there is a difference between apocalyptic narratives and risk narratives: While the apocalyptic narrative works with the idea of “utter destruction,” the risk narrative works with the idea of crisis. Heise argues: In the apocalyptic perspective, utter destruction lies ahead but can be averted and replaced by an alternative future society; in the risk perspective, crises are already underway all around, and while their consequences can be mitigated, a future without their impact has become impossible to envision. (142)

The climate change risk narrative of catastrophe thus embraces Frederick Buell’s argument that we “dwell in crisis,” that “dwelling in crisis” characterizes the contemporary world risk society, or, in Buell’s words: “Environmental crisis […] has become part of the repertoire of normalities in reference to which people construct their daily lives” (76). Only one of the five novels discussed here introduces the stage of anticipation, the period of time preceding the catastrophes of climate col-

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lapse, at some length: Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth. In the chapters that are set in the 1990s, the novel addresses the period of time when climate change was still a controversially debated risk. These chapters orchestrate the contrasting voices of environmentalist characters and characters that oppose any environmentalist stance. Moreover, a closer look at individual characters reveals in detail the impact of environmental risk on their subjectivities and identities, thereby shedding light on what it means to live in the world risk society. It is the risk narrative of anticipation, however, that imagines the controversial character of the risk of climate change and its impact on subjectivities and identities in the world risk society in much more detail. The American Climate Change Novel as Risk Narrative of Anticipation The following novels can be categorized as climate change novels and as risk narratives of anticipation: Susan Gaines’s Carbon Dreams (2001) Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science in the Capital trilogy, the novels Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007), and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (2012). The novels focus on our cultural moment of late modernity that is characterized by uncertainty and controversy about the climate risk. Moreover, risk narratives of anticipation attribute a much more important role to the sciences than the narratives of catastrophe discussed in the previous section. Susan Gaines’s Carbon Dreams can also be categorized as “lab fiction” (“laboratory fiction”), as science-in-fiction literature. The novel tells the story of a young, female scientist, Tina Arenas, who is a specialist in geo-chemistry and does work in paleo-climatology. It is set in the early 1980s, at a point in time when climate change had only begun to become a fiercely debated scientific and political issue in the US and abroad; a point in time when the effects of industrial greenhouse gas emissions were, especially in terms of media coverage, still rather invisible. The reader is acquainted with the details of Tina’s scientific work—data gathering, hypothesis testing and theory formation, and controversial discussions of scientific results among scientists—, and also learns about the struggles of a young, very committed and very gifted scientist to get funding for her work and attain a permanent posi-

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tion in academia. In the course of the novel, Tina develops new, important insights into the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the “paleo-climate” that dates back as far as 3.8 billion years. In this way the reader is familiarized with the larger time scales that must be taken into consideration when it comes to understanding climate change—relating the current anthropogenic climate change to the many climate changes that have occurred over geological time. With its scientist protagonist, Carbon Dreams highlights several points that characterize the world risk society and the complexity of the climate change issue. It presents the risk of climate change as a controversial issue—within the scientific community, within the realm of politics, but also within the realm of the family. When some of the results of Tina’s work become known in the scientific community, she has to learn that scientific work cannot easily be discussed and developed beyond the vested interests of the economy. A co-scientist, working as a lobbyist for the petroleum industry, for instance, refers to her results in an article published in The New York Times, using them to argue that there is no such thing as human-made global warming. What Tina regards as inconclusive results, the other scientist uses—much to her dismay—to make wide-ranging claims. Moreover, Tina has repeated discussions on the political status of very specialized scientific work and on the meaning of scientific uncertainty with her environmentalist boyfriend. In these discussions, she is reminded that the sciences cannot be regarded as an activity isolated from wider cultural, economic, or political realms. In the course of the novel, she learns that even as a scientist whose field of research targets periods of time that, at least for the layperson, seem unfathomable, she has responsibilities to her own time, to the present, as well. The importance of climate science in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science in the Capital trilogy is also immediately defined by the choice of its protagonists, who are, with few exceptions, scientists, science administrators, or scientific political consultants. In contrast to Gaines’s novel, however, Robinson’s novels ultimately focus on the realm of politics. Set predominantly in Washington D.C. in a very near future, the novels explore, as Roger Luckhurst has argued, the “complex matrix of institutional forces that lie at the heart of the American political machine,” “contradictory forces,” that drive the “social and ecological relations” (172) in the United States.

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The trilogy covers a period of about two years in which several severe weather irregularities occur, culminating in a temporary stalling of the North Atlantic Gulf current. These weather irregularities transform the personal lives of the major characters as well as US and international environmental politics. Forty Signs of Rain ends with a large-scale flooding of Washington; Fifty Degrees Below traces the impact of very unusual seasonal temperatures, especially a severe winter, that are at least in part linked to the stalling of the Gulf current; and Sixty Days and Counting focuses on the massive political, economic, and scientifictechnological efforts undertaken to fight against the continuing threat of changing weather patterns—ultimately on a global scale. The fictional world Robinson develops revolves around the probable effects of “abrupt climate change,” a scientific risk scenario delineating the possibility that the effects of global warming might show much more rapidly than what is assumed by the majority of climate science studies. The scenario of abrupt climate change allows Robinson to create a near-future setting that is closely and plausibly interlinked with the present moment and thus particularly capable of making the contemporary risk experience concrete and tangible. The three protagonists of the novels are Frank Vanderwal and Anna and Charlie Quibler. Frank and Anna are scientists and initially work as colleagues at the National Science Foundation in Washington; Anna’s husband Charlie works as a science consultant for the liberal senator Phil Chase, who in the third novel has become US president and begins major restructurings of national and international environmental politics, trying to establish what Luckhurst calls a “productive, ecologised capitalism” (172). The three characters are the major focalizers of the novel, and it is thus largely through their perceptions and experiences that the reader can trace the controversy surrounding the risk of climate change and the implications of its global reach, including its dependencies on global political power relations. Frank, Anna, and Charlie, moreover, represent subjectivities that emerge in the world risk society. Tracing their experiences, the reader learns how risk, in the words of Ulrich Beck, shapes their expectations, lodges in their heads, and guides their actions—ultimately illustrating the claim that global risk has become a political force that transforms the world. While in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior the realms of science and politics are no longer central, climate science still plays an im-

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portant role in this novel. It is important in terms of its protagonist’s development. Set in contemporary rural Tennessee, Flight Behavior tells the story of twenty-eight-year old Dellarobia Turnbow and her family. The Turnbows are sheep farmers, members of the local Christian community of Feathertown, and—like their neighbors—are preoccupied with battling poverty. The novel opens on the day when Dellarobia, out of deep frustration with what she regards as the dead-end situation of her life, decides to run away and leave her family, including her two small children. When she is walking up a mountain, she is suddenly confronted with the appearance of millions of monarch butterflies on a mountainside owned by her family and located in the vicinity of their homes. It turns out that the animals have changed their usual migratory route to accommodate climatic changes wrought by global warming on their usual winter roosting sites in Mexico. They have migrated further North, probably too far, though, since in Tennessee they face the danger of too low temperatures and are thus exposed to the threat of extinction. The encounter with the butterflies becomes a turning point in Dellarobia’s life. Once the news about the appearance of the butterflies spreads, she becomes involved in the question of what to do with the forest where the animals roost. Learning to put long-term ecological considerations over short-term economic ones, Dellarobia successfully opposes her father-in-law, who is about to sell the trees to a lumber company in order to better the family’s desperate economic situation. Moreover, she starts to meet various kinds of people that come to their place to visit the butterfly site, among them environmentalists from all over the world, media people, and, most significantly, scientists, the entomologist Ovid Byron and his research team. Dellarobia becomes part of the team and is introduced to scientific work, thereby gradually resuming the formal education that had ended when she became pregnant at age seventeen. In her work and in the many conversations she has with the scientists, but also with the diverse groups of environmentalists and with people from her local community, she gradually becomes aware of the controversial scope of conclusions it would be possible to draw about the appearance of the butterflies on the mountainside. While it is clear to the scientists that the changed migratory route of the butterflies indicates a “continental ecosystem breaking down,” most likely “due to climate change” (228), other characters reject any such interpretation. They

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bring up opposing scientific voices or insist that the phenomenon must be seen as an isolated act of God that does not point to environmental risk, but must rather be understood as a reflection of the power and beauty of divine creation. The latter response is that of the majority of the townspeople, who reject the results of climate science and show a general distrust of any form of environmentalism. By employing a protagonist who moves within and between the world of the scientists and the world of the townspeople, the novel sheds light on the variety of subjectivities that exist in the world risk society and on the controversial character of climate change discourse. Moreover, in Dellarobia’s encounter with representatives of the various groups of people, the reader, together with the protagonist, is made aware of the role that socioeconomic status as well as educational background have on the development of different stances toward climate change. Most importantly, perhaps, the novel here explores the psychological complexities of climate change denial. As Axel Goodbody has shown, Kingsolver’s novel addresses at some length the prevailing skepticism, especially in the United States, towards acknowledging scientific findings that provide evidence of the reality of anthropogenic climate change. The attitudes several characters show point toward what sociologists and environmental psychologists have identified as central factors for climate change denial: fear of destabilization, fear of a loss of control, and guilt. 6 Climate change denial may thus have less to do with the invisibility of greenhouse gases, the latency of their effects, or elusive temporal or spatial scales, than with the active psychological process of blocking information and knowledge that is at least experienced unconsciously as a manifest threat.

6

Goodbody draws on the work of sociologist Kari Norgaard, who in her study Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life, studies “the disjuncture between the collectively constructed sense of normal everyday life and the troubling knowledge of climate change and our contribution to it” and insists that this type of denial is an active process of evading “feelings of fear, guilt, and helplessness” (Goodbody 43).

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Conclusion The novels introduced here indicate that the emerging genre of the American climate change novel has begun to explore the complexity and diversity of individual and collective experiences of the global risk of anthropogenic climate change. Both the risk narratives of catastrophe and the risk narratives of anticipation participate in the American—and ultimately Anglophone—discourse on climate change. They draw attention to what it means to live in the world risk society in which the anticipatory and controversial character of risk unfolds a shaping power in the realms of society, politics, economy, and culture, a shaping power that extends to our subjectivities and to our constantly developing sense of self. They thus successfully meet the challenges of representing and communicating climate change; they transcendwhile also drawing uponscientific modeling, and make climate change perceptible, intelligible, and tangible. With a focus on US American spatial settings, the novels nevertheless develop notions of deterritorialized American spaces, of spaces that are impacted by and contribute to global forces and thus signal both a sense of place and a sense of planet. By doing so, they allow for readings that develop an eco-cosmopolitan environmental ethical stance. While both types of risk narratives share all these features, they differ most prominently in the following points. While the narratives of catastrophe, which focus on future settings, emphasize larger time scales in order to make the temporal scale of climate change more tangible, the narratives of anticipation, which focus on the late twentieth/early twenty-first century present, explore in more detail what it means to live in the world risk society, in which uncertainty and controversy dominate our confrontation with anthropogenic climate change. Addressing uncertainty and controversy is often firmly linked to a critical exploration of the topic of climate science, an exploration that more often than not reveals a rather high degree of trust in both the scientist and in the knowledge he or she creates. Finally, these climate change risk narratives overcome any dualistic conceptual notion that might posit the realms of nature and culture as separate: Echoing the idea of the Anthropocene, they insist that this separation is untenable, that climate change is just as much a cultural

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phenomenon, and to be addressed as such, as it is a phenomenon that must be studied by the natural sciences. Works Cited Amsterdam, Steven. Things We Didn’t See Coming. 2009. London: Vintage, 2011. Print. Arnoldi, Jakob. Risk: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009. Print. Beck, Ulrich. “The Reinvention of Politics: Towards a Theory of Reflexive Modernization.” Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Scott Lash. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. 1-55. Print. ---. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage, 1992. Print. [Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. 1986] ---. World at Risk. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009. Print. ---. World Risk Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999. Print. Boyle, T. C. A Friend of the Earth. 2000. London: Bloomsbury, 2001. Print. Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. 1993. London: The Women’s Press, 1995. Print. ---. Parable of the Talents. 1998. London: The Women’s Press, 2000. Print. Crutzen, Paul J. and Eugene F. Stoermer. “The ‘Anthropocene’.” Global Change Newsletter 41 (2000): 17-18. Print. Daniels, Stephen, and Georgina H. Endfield. “Narratives of Climate Change: Introduction.” Journal of Historical Geography 35 (2009): 215-22. Print. Douglas, Mary, and Aaron Wildavsky. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982. Print. Falke, Andreas. “Why Is the United States a Laggard in Climate Change Policy?” American Environments: Climate—Cultures—Catastrophes. Ed. Christof Mauch and Sylvia Mayer. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 31-55. Print. Gabriel, Hayden, and Greg Garrard. “Reading and Writing Climate Change.” Teaching Ecocriticism and Green Cultural Studies. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 117-29. Print. Gaines, Susan. Carbon Dreams. Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 2001. Print.

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Garland, David. “The Rise of Risk.” Risk and Morality. Ed. R. V. Ericson and A. Doyle. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2003. 48-86. Print. Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. 1990. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991. Print. ---. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1991. Print. Goodbody, Axel. “Risk, Denial and Narrative Form in Climate Change Fiction: Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior and Ilija Trojanow’s Melting Ice.” The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Ed. Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014. 39-58. Print. Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. Oxford: Oxford U P, 2008. Print. Hulme, Mike. Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 2009. Print. Kingsolver, Barbara. Flight Behavior. New York: Harper Collins, 2012. Print. Luckhurst, Roger. “The Politics of the Network: The Science in the Capital Trilogy.” Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Unimaginable: Critical Essays. Ed. William J. Burling. Jefferson: McFarland, 2009. 170-80. Print. Mayer, Sylvia. “Explorations of the Controversially Real: Risk, the Climate Change Novel, and the Narrative of Anticipation.” The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Ed. Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014. 21-37. Print. Moser, Susan. “Communicating Climate Change: History, Challenges, Process and Future Directions.” Wires. Climate Change 1 (2010): 31-53. Print. Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 2011. Print. Norgaard, Kari Marie. Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011. Print. Pendell, Dale. The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2010. Print. Robinson, Kim Stanley. Fifty Degrees Below. 2005. New York: Bantam Books, 2007. Print. ---. Forty Signs of Rain. 2004. New York: Bantam Books, 2005. Print.

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---. Sixty Days and Counting. New York: Bantam Books, 2007. Print. Sørensen, Mads P. and Allan Christiansen. Ulrich Beck: An Introduction to the Theory of Second Modernity and the Risk Society. London: Routledge, 2013. Print. “Summary for Policy Makers.” Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. IPCC. 27 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 March 2015. Trexler, Adam, and Adeline Johns-Putra. “Climate Change in Literature and Literary Criticism.” Wires: Climate Change 2 (2012): 185-200. Print. Weik von Mossner, Alexa. “Facing The Day After Tomorrow: Filmed Disaster, Emotional Engagement, and Climate Risk Perception.” American Environments: Climate—Cultures—Catastrophe. Ed. Christof Mauch and Sylvia Mayer. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 97-115. Print. Zinn, Jens O., ed. Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty: An Introduction. Malden: Blackwell, 2008. Print.

The Politics of Nature

SASCHA PÖHLMANN

Walt Whitman’s Politics of Nature and the Poetic Performance of the Future in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” The Romantic Politics of Nature This paper originates from a workshop whose organizers, Clemens Spahr and Johannes Völz, posed a guiding question about the politics of nature in American Romanticism: How does the translation of principles of nature into political and social concepts work? If humans are, in Henry David Thoreau’s words, “not wholly involved in Nature,” can they still assume that principles of nature correspond to social forms (429)? Furthermore, is it possible to deduce a utopian politics, or any social idea, from a consideration of nature at all? In this essay, I will address these questions with regard to Walt Whitman’s poetry and how he made utopian political claims based on a consideration of nature. I will argue that his radical democratic politics derive, to a significant extent, from a contemplation of time, and that the linchpin that connects nature and politics meaningfully and causally in his works is a conceptualization of futurity. Only a notion of the future enables Whitman to base a democratic politics on nature, and his poetry works to actively construct futurity itself—not a particular future but rather a space of potential—so as to imagine a utopian political space that has an impact on the present as well, and which is cultivated in the precarious balance between the extremes of uncertainty and determinacy. Importantly, this is not just a description but also a performance of futurity: Only in the poem itself, and in the premeditated act of reading the poem, do future and present come together in the utopian imagination that has political consequences for both. In a first step, I will address Whitman’s notion of futurity,

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nature and politics in general, and then I will read “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” as an exemplary poem of this kind of utopian performativity that envisions a transtemporal democracy. In writing about Whitman’s politics in the limited space of an essay, I will rather neglect the familiar territory that has received sufficient critical attention, most notably in Betsy Erkkila’s wide-ranging classic Whitman the Political Poet (1989) and, more recently, in A Political Companion to Walt Whitman (2011), an anthology edited by John E. Seery. Probably the first example of Whitman’s politics that may come to mind for many readers is his sexual utopia based on a “love of comrades” that celebrates adhesiveness “as a social relation, a politics, and a metaphysics” (Erkkila, “Public Love” 134),1 which he first expressed in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass but particularly emphasized after the Civil War as a way of restoring national unity. Much could be (and has been) said about his prose, in particular about his jeremiad Democratic Vista, in which he fuses aesthetics and politics to reconcile individualism and democratic mass culture in what he terms “ensembleIndividuality” (DV 987).2 His nationalist politics has received more critical attention than his globalist politics, although the latter is increasingly coming into focus as literary studies more and more leaves its own nationalist paradigms behind; still, essays such as “Poetry To-day in America—Shakspere—The Future,” in which Whitman declares that “I have thought that both in patriotism and song (even amid their grandest shows past) we have adhered too long to petty limits, and that the time has come to enfold the world,” have been relatively neglected by critics (1049).3 Critics have also commented extensively on Whitman’s con-

1 2 3

Betsy Erkkila’s essays “Whitman and the Homosexual Republic” and “Public Love” give a good introduction to this subject. See for example Morton Schoolman’s essay “Democratic Enlightenment.” Andrew Parker offers one of the rare critical readings of this essay in “The Poetry of the Future,” but unfortunately mostly quotes or paraphrases Whitman without commenting on the text. A better essay on Whitman’s globalism, although not on “Poetry To-Day,” is George Kateb’s “Walt Whitman and the Culture of Democracy,” since it reads Whitman’s radical democratic views as antithetical to nationality rather than as harmonious or even synonymous with it.

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flicted attitude towards race, slavery,4 and imperialism, which is evident for example in poems such as “Song of a Redwood Tree,” which presents “a utopian vision of a future America” but is at the same time a “hymn to Manifest Destiny” (Reynolds, Whitman 512; Phillips 301).5 This poem is also central to M. Jimmie Killingsworth’s monograph Walt Whitman and the Earth: A Study in Ecopoetics (2004), which explores the politics of Whitman’s poetry from an ecocritical perspective. It is also the text that indicates most concisely the conflicted and complex attitude towards nature in Whitman’s poetry, and it serves well as a starting point for any inquiry into its politics of nature, including mine with its focus on issues of time and futurity. The many poems included in the death-bed edition of Leaves of Grass by no means display a consistent attitude towards nature, and there is no single basis for a discussion of Whitman’s politics of nature because there is neither a single nature nor a single politics in Whitman. In some poems, such as “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” Whitman seems to privilege an immediate perception of nature over its mediation by language. In other poems, Whitman deconstructs the binary opposition of nature and culture in various ways, most notably in “Give Me the Splendid Silent Sun,” which seems at first to be a clichéd nature poem but quickly turns against itself to celebrate urbanity instead. Here, however, I would like to focus on two aspects in particular in the following that can be considered dominant in Whitman’s work. These form a dialectic that haunts “Song of Myself” and is most explicit in “This Compost,” which was first published in the 1856 edition under the title of “Poem of Wonder at The Resurrection of The Wheat.” On the one hand, “This Compost” espouses a holistic philosophy of maximal universal connectedness; on the other hand, it presents the human individual as removed from this universality, the self detached from a natural, non-human Other. The former aspect is the one most often commented on by Whitman critics while the latter had been rather neglected until M. Jimmie Killingsworth fully addressed the scope of this dialectic in Walt Whitman and the Earth. This paradoxical duality of two con4 5

See for example Martin Klammer’s Whitman, Slavery, and the Emergence of “Leaves of Grass.” See for example Dana Phillips’s essay “Nineteenth-Century Racial Thought.”

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flicting yet interrelated perspectives on nature relates directly to the question asked at the beginning of this paper. If Whitman’s attitude towards nature is inherently conflicted, how can he be said to derive a certain (democratic, egalitarian, universal) politics from nature? Does nature lend itself as a foundation for sociopolitical ideas if the human individual seems to be both included in and excluded from it at the same time? I will take a closer look at both positions before indicating a possible answer to this question that takes a third position beyond this duality. Whitman’s Dialectic of Nature Whitman’s holistic outlook on nature—the first and arguably more dominant position in his poetry—translates rather directly into a democratic politics. Whitman often espouses a philosophy of compost, not only in the poem that includes the term in its title, and this is probably summarized most concisely in these lines from “Song of Myself”: The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceased the moment life appeared. (Leaves of Grass 1855 32)6

In the poem, the finality of death is repeatedly reinscribed as the beginning of life; the speaker reckons that life is but “the leavings of many deaths,” and he considers everything part of a universal play of “perpetual transfers and promotions” in which “All goes onward and outward . . . and nothing collapses” (LoG 1855 86, 32). Even though there is certainly death on the microlevel of individual beings, there is only change but no annihilation on the macrolevel of the universal. The speaker can “laugh at what you call dissolution” because he “know[s] the amplitude of time”: considering the long-term view of things, he neither naively denies the mortality of the individual nor espouses a 6

The 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass will be cited as LoG 1855 in subsequent references. All Whitman references will be drawn from Whitman, Poetry and Prose.

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religious belief in an afterlife, but he knows that, speaking with deceptive simplicity, life goes on (LoG 1855 46). This belief is based on a view of futurity without entropy; when the speaker states that “there are millions of suns left,” he does indicate an ending to the process of perpetual transfers and promotions, but this ending is so remote from the human beings he addresses that one may well consider their futurity practically unlimited (LoG 1855 28). In “Song of Myself,” this vision of a future of life growing on the compost of death is condensed in its “core symbol, its leitmotif, seemingly inexhaustible in its ramifications and embodying the mysteries of nurture, decay, death, and renewal” (Aspiz 37): the grass, “the beautiful uncut hair of graves,” or what Whitman calls “the deathless grass” in “By Broad Potomac’s Shore” (LoG 1855 31, LoG 1892 592).7 The grass is not just the living proof of the transformative power of nature that overcomes death, it is also a symbol of a global and democratic human community that “embodies simultaneously individualism, each spear a unique phenomenon, and radical democracy, as it is a common vegetation that sprouts everywhere, among all sections and races” (Reynolds, Whitman 327). In the poem, Whitman’s holistic view of life translates directly into a democratic, ‘natural’ politics: if everything in existence is connected, and if everyone is part of the same universal material as anyone else, then there is no justification for a hierarchy among those who exist (notably, human and non-human alike), and the ‘natural’ social state is so radically democratic that one may well call it anarchic. Yet this ‘natural’ holism is also undermined in Whitman’s poetry, and a second perspective that is related to the first but crucially different from it complicates the issue of deriving a politics of nature. This is the other major view of nature in Whitman’s poetry that Killingsworth works out in his ecocritical study, using “This Compost” as a paradigmatic example. While the poem retains the holistic view of life and death that is best summarized by its title, it also distances the speaker, the human individual, from the nature he is allegedly part of. As the neat image of a universal connectedness of life begins to crack, the politics that derive from it may also lose their foundation, and this is the instance 7

The 1891-92 death-bed edition of Leaves of Grass will be cited as LoG 1892 in subsequent references.

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in Whitman’s poetry that corresponds to the questions asked at the beginning of this essay. The speaker in “This Compost” wonders at the transformative power of the earth, its marvelous “chemistry” that changes toxic dead matter into living beings, but he does so in a tone that is “radically different from the affectionate tone the persona had used while contemplating the grass-covered graves in ‘Song of Myself’” (LoG 1892 496; Aspiz 98). In this poem, the speaker addresses nature in occasionally bemused but generally loving and even erotic terms. In contrast, the speaker of “This Compost” declares “Now I am terrified at the Earth,” and the poem “begins not with a celebration of identity with the earth but with a dramatic recognition of difference” (LoG 1892 496; Killingsworth 11), as the speaker expresses feelings of alienation, irritation, and detachment that are radically different from the sense of unity, connectedness, and harmony that is dominant in other poems about the notion of compost that is so central to Whitman’s works: Something startles me where I thought I was safest, I withdraw from the still woods I loved, I will not go now on the pastures to walk, I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea, I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. (LoG 1892 495)

Killingsworth argues that the “poem’s ecological power depends upon its treatment of earthy thingishness,” upon presenting the earth as something that is precisely not connected to or dependent on the human individual, but as something irreducibly Other (19). Thus “the poet must engage the limits of human language and being, understanding the earth not only from the perspective of identity but primarily as a thing unto itself” (19). The poem can be read as a record of the failure of Whitman’s celebratory treatment of compost, and “[o]ne thing that stops working for Whitman in ‘This Compost’ is the metaphorical network that mediates his relationship with the earth” (20). It is not renewal itself that fails in “This Compost” but rather its linguistic representation, and it remains an expression of awe at this sublime resurrection rather than its description or even an answer to the questions it poses. Yet if this “terrible thingishness of the earth” (48) is a given, and fantasies of unity with nature must remain just that for the human individual,

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how is it possible to derive a politics from this nature nevertheless? I argue that the factor of time, and in particular that of futurity, is what justifies Whitman’s politics of radical democracy—derived from nature even though it cannot be said to develop directly and unconditionally from a genuine embeddedness of the social self in nature. If this holistic ‘natural’ unity fails as a foundation of imagining commonality that will in turn be taken as the basis of a radical democratic vision, then the common must be found elsewhere, and Whitman finds it in an imagination of futurity that allows him to derive a politics for the present. This is still part of a consideration of nature, and it is still part of a holistic sense of universal connectedness, but with a temporal focus that diminishes the importance of the irreducible othering of the earth for the individual to the point where it no longer matters for this politics of nature. Critics often read Whitman’s attitude towards futurity as escapism, especially in his post-Civil War writing. For example, he states in Democratic Vistas that “the fruition of democracy, on aught like a grand scale, resides altogether in the future,” apparently espousing a “deferral of possibilities” because America fails to bring democracy to fruition in the present. (DV 980; Reynolds, Whitman 506). Yet it is only half the truth to argue, as M. Wynn Thomas does, that Whitman “took flight, disastrously, to the future,” since he also found in the future the connecting element that could potentially create a sense of the common in the present (91). In other words, Whitman’s poetry and prose often convey a sense of beginning this future in their respective present. If he is “building the cloud castles of the future” (79), then the aspect of building in his present should not be underestimated, or else one might make the mistake of criticizing a utopian writer for the fact that he is describing a no-place that does not really exist while ignoring the effects of such an endeavor on the world that does exist. This impulse of beginning is highly important in Whitman’s texts, and it indicates how he employs an imagination of futurity for political purposes in the present. Particularly the notion of a common future shaped in a common present (and in a communal process) is relevant to the question of deriving a democratic politics from nature in Whitman’s poetry. Whitman finds one strong unifying element in the natural fact of death: All humans, and indeed all living things, are connected and equal, but not because they are all alive at the same time, and not because they are all part of nature, since nature retains an irreducible otherness towards the individual and

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fails to offer a solid basis for a universal sense of wholeness. For Whitman, humans are connected not because of any ‘natural’ present but because of a projected common future: Because they all have to die, they will inevitably participate in the universal process of “perpetual transfers and promotions” (LoG 1855 86). In other words, Whitman somewhat paradoxically needs this imagination of futurity to justify his radical democratic politics in the present, because only with a consideration of the future can he overcome the fundamental alienation from nature that prevents a more straightforward holistic vision of a cycle of life and death. There is no compost without a sense of futurity, and there is no politics without it either. The problem with this temporal politics of nature is that the future is never here but always there, always not-yet but never present. It is thus yet another weak point within the democratic structure Whitman creates in his poetry and prose, and its elusiveness gives rise to the criticism I have quoted above that accuses Whitman of postponing something he knows cannot be achieved in his present, or not even in any future present. However, Whitman successfully addresses and overcomes this problem in his poetry and through his poetry, and not just in the editions of Leaves of Grass before 1860, although he is most successful in these. As Killingsworth shows, a poem such as “This Compost” precisely does not seek to overcome the distance between humans and nature through language and poetic mediation, but rather engages “the limits of human language and being” and points beyond these limits while remaining within them in an almost Wittgensteinian fashion (19). Yet matters are very different as far as the future is concerned, and Whitman works hard at making his poetry a place “where the future becomes present,” where the future is not something irreducibly unknowable and inaccessible but also nothing fully determined either, a space of potential that has an effect on the present and is in turn affected by it (LoG 1855 13). This temporality is not beyond language as nature is, and thus Whitman can build his democratic poetics and politics on futurity rather than on the present world alone.

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Performing Present and Future in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” Yet how does Whitman manage to fold the future onto the present in such a way as to make the former truly a presence? The poem that exemplifies his strategies of doing so best is “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” and it shows that the future is not something static in Whitman’s poetry, not just something that simply is ahead of us and coming at us. On the contrary, futurity is performed in this poem (as in a number of others), and the text is a poetic version of what Ernst Bloch calls a “directing act of a cognitive kind,” a beginning that is actively made in order to affect the future in the present while considering both in their mutual interdependence (12; original emphasis). This explicit performativity in and of the poem, its existence as a textual speech act, is what makes the future become present in it and through it, as I will demonstrate in a moment. Whitman succeeds in incorporating the reader in such a way as to make it impossible not to consider present and future together. The transtemporal commonality readers must imagine then forms the basis of a utopian democratic politics that incorporates different presents and combines the universal with the particular. Poetry is a necessary aesthetic medium in this process: While the poem cannot (and does not want to) connect the reader and the earth in “This Compost,” it actually cannot fail to connect the reader and the future in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” in its textual act. Ed Folsom indicates the reason for this inevitable connection in this particular poem by explaining Whitman’s more general poetics of embodiment. Instead of “representing a world for a reader to look into, Whitman makes his reader the subject of his poems: The striking realization we have in reading much of Leaves of Grass is that we, at the moment of reading the poem, are what the poem has worked to call into presence” (15; original emphasis). Especially the use of deixis achieves this feat of incorporation, as words such as here or now necessarily relate to any reader’s temporal and spatial context and will continue to do so whenever the poem is being read, ensuring the poem’s perpetual contemporaneity. Published first as “Sun-Down Poem” in 1856, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” presents its speaker on a ferry ride, and from this position he draws parallels between his perceptions and those of other human beings in the future in that same urban setting of what would become New York City. David Lehman argues that the poem resembles a letter “post-

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dated one hundred years into the future” (12); it seeks to create conditions in which an imagination of continuity and mutual influence between present and future is possible, and furthermore it strives to be an imaginative foundation that can be related to in the future, and from which that future can in turn relate to its own future. By folding its own present continually onto the future (and vice versa), the poem projects a transtemporal commonality of existence and perception, and it is not only concerned with its own here and now but with an outlook on how this here and now will change and remain the same in its own moment. Standing on the ferryboat, the speaker first faces a crowd and then turns to the addressee in the future: Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. (LoG 1892 308)

The speaker acknowledges in this last line that his present contemplations are strongly informed by a consideration of the future. Importantly, by addressing the reader directly, the speaker does not relate to a general but always a particular future, yet it is not one that would ever leave its perpetual present moment when the act of reading occurs. As he often does, Whitman here seeks to ensure the continuous validity and timeliness of his poetry, and he does so by opening up this imagined future while still relating it to the particulars of his own time and place. Furthermore, Whitman constructs this continuity even though he pretends to describe it; the “similitudes of the past and those of the future” it presents exist because of their treatment in the poem (LoG 1892 308). It imagines a world to which future readers can relate, and it presents that world in consideration of this readership without withdrawing too far into the abstract. Future readers are not confronted with the past in this poem; it is not historical. Instead, they are confronted with a perpetual present that reaches to the past and especially far into the future and fuses these temporal levels. In other words, the poem confronts two presents with each other, and thus it opens the present of the reader to its

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own future, as if pushing them beyond their own contemporary existence. In doing so, the poem repeatedly employs a phenomenological approach when its speaker focuses on “my smallest sights and hearings” to find continuity in the personal rather than in larger frameworks such as the historical or the national (LoG 1892 308). This contributes to the universality and perpetual validity the poem strives for. Even though the poem is quite precise in its particularity of time and place, it still retains a considerable openness with regard to the “others that are to follow me” (LoG 1892 308). They share in the same phenomenology of “life, love, sight, hearing” as it is “joining site and sight, ‘I’ and eye, to the moment of the poem’s incarnation by the reader” (Sharpe 92). The poem thus succeeds in perpetually connecting a particular present to a particular future without becoming historical or narrow. This “certainty of others” (LoG 1892 308) is connected to Whitman’s philosophy of continuity, but it is expressed less on the level of life and death than of perception here: Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, Others will see the islands large and small; Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. (LoG 1892 308)

Whitman imagines a community of perception in these lines, keeping what is perceived general enough to avoid an all too narrow historicity while still conveying a distinct locality. Philip Fisher highlights the political implications of this imagination of community when stating that, for Whitman, the politics of any aesthetics within a democratic social space requires that there exist experiences across time that not only will happen in iden-

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Whitman’s understanding of community necessarily goes beyond the present in order to ensure the sustained cultivation of the democratic social space and its future. The poem is not aiming at producing “the same feelings” in every reader; it does not provide some kind of objective correlative. Instead, it tells readers that whatever their perceptions and emotions are, they are the same as those of humans before them who shared the unstable place of that ferry. It does not matter at all whether it is actually true or not. The poem’s future-founding strategy is rather to claim that it is, and it is even necessarily true because readers of course only compare their mediated perceptions to those of the speaker. They do not actually perceive anything beyond what the poem offers them, and this is what necessarily ensures the continuity of experience. The world in the poem is not prior to common perception but is produced as a common place in the poem’s imagination: “In Leaves of Grass, to see eye to eye is to make the world exist, and to know oneself to be inseparable from it” (Sharpe 69). This includes an acceptance of the flexibility of semiosis that Mark Bauerlein addresses in Whitman and the American Idiom. Bauerlein claims that Whitman, in his poetry until 1860, aims to “restore language to its natural, physical, emotive beginnings”; this natural language would “not mean but be,” and “instead of being a simple exterior or posterior record of a primary experience, be it perceptual or emotional, the word must function as a cooperative participant in or an instantaneous manifestation of that experience. It would be potentially itself and its referent, present and future” (5). Yet I think Bauerlein’s reading places too much emphasis on Whitman’s alleged “shameless effort to forestall readings of his poetry that fail to correspond with his intentions,” be these efforts textual or biographical, and he ignores Whitman’s reader-oriented theoretical position (25). In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Whitman is not obliging “the reader to retranslate . . . signs back to their emotional content”; he is not trying to fix meaning in this way but is rather trying to keep it open so that its continued understanding can be ensured, even if this understanding has nothing to do with any original “emotional content” (Bauerlein 24). In presenting the phenomena as seen by the speaker and offering them for the reader’s perception by textual mediation, the poem disconnects signification from reference rather than affix it. Instead of stabilizing mean-

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ing and “obviating arbitrariness,” Whitman is doing just the opposite in order to keep the poem flexible enough to be read in a future that may be connected to Whitman’s present by nothing else than the poem (25). In other words, the poem would still be able to continue to do its work of folding one present onto the other even if everything the speaker saw in the poem were actually gone, and the poem would be able to do so because of its openness and not in spite of it. This occurs through the fundamental ambiguity of personal pronouns: The poem is not “spontaneously deictic” because it manages to make “the word . . . contiguous or coexistent with the event,” but it employs deixis to distance itself from its events of perception while at the same time establishing their continuity with future events (5). The signifier “you” that addresses the reader is always at the same time precise and vague in its reference, and it cannot be otherwise; its “shifting referent” celebrates and makes full use of an irreducible play of signification rather than trying to arrest it (Sharpe 93). Kerry C. Larson observes that Whitman in the poem identifies his reader as a referent capable of being designated in his discourse in the same breath that he implies the necessity of continued solicitation. The addressee is hardly an implied reader, but neither is he an utterly accessible presence, which suggests that the relationship between author and reader is not something Whitman works from but works toward. (8; original emphasis)

Bauerlein misreads “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” as an attempt to communicate an actual experience, yet it is first and foremost a textual act that achieves communication not necessarily with reference to anything outside it but within its own realm of signification, and through the very arbitrariness it allegedly seeks to obviate. Therefore, the center of the poem is not “the drama of the poet’s consciousness” but that of the reader as he is confronted with a present that is not his in a future that is his present (Chari 181). The poem is thus producing a unity of experience while maintaining diversity. While the poem, in the image of the ferry, offers a democratic social space in which humans can move and remain still at the same time, it also offers a democratic social time in which all presents share equally in the same experience of place. It works to represent experience as both always new and yet always similar, placing it in the controlled space of potential between uncertainty and determinacy. If “poet and reader begin to en-

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gage in a double motion, not just across the river in their respective eras, but across time and text, toward each other” in the poem, then this beginning is made perpetually available to all readers in the future, and the connected performance of speaker, text, and reader creates a sense of transtemporal community and, ultimately, democratic politics (Sharpe 93). The third section of the poem reinforces these notions of transtemporal continuity through perception and emotion, and the speaker repeatedly makes a point of telling the addressee how much his present is informed by the future, and how both their presents coexist in the space of the poem: It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not, I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d, Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried, Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d. (LoG 1892 308-09)

The first line folds all presents onto each other so that there is no more “distance” between them in a temporal or spatial sense, yet each still retains its distinct properties and does not fully enter an entirely abstract realm of universality. This is why the poem is anything but timeless, although one may be tempted to think of it in such terms. The folding of temporal levels occurs also with regard to semantics: this stanza is no longer using the future tense of the one that precedes it but rather presents a repeated movement from past tense to present tense in each line. The speaker places himself in the past and the reader in the present while speaking of the similarities between their respective contemporary settings; this ensures that the poem remains in a perpetual present and retains its validity no matter when it will be read, thus avoiding a certain historicity that would undermine its aesthetic and political agenda. Its community of perception is not one in which people simply see the same things and derive similar insights from that. Instead, the poem is con-

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cerned with the aspect of being “refresh’d,” with beginnings that are at the same time unique and similar. The poem is “alive with the wholehearted enthusiasm of a new beginning, a fresh start, as Whitman reclaims and repossesses what is unmistakably his world, an America that he has rescued for vision just when it seemed he might lose it” (Thomas 113; original emphasis), but it also uses this vision to offer such a new beginning to its readers by making its world unmistakably theirs as well. After a longer passage detailing the perceptions of the speaker, he once more reaffirms the continuity of experience as well as the continuity of what is experienced: These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river, The men and women I saw were all near to me, Others the same—others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them, (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.) (LoG 1892 310)

Again, these assertions are not descriptions of parallels but their production: Especially the urban space Whitman describes in such an idealized way is always characterized by change, and the poem constructs a sense of continuity that includes and embraces this perpetual renewal. It establishes identity in space and time, connecting the present moments of selves, groups and places in such a way that they are recognizably similar but also distinct. When the speaker asserts that “These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,” he is not claiming sameness in a strict sense that would belie the notion of change and flexibility the poem embraces. Instead, it is a diachronic notion of sameness that constructs an identity to connect different states of existence in their respective present moments. It does not deny change but seeks to frame it so that it can always be considered in connection to other times, and yet it avoids the pitfalls of nostalgia or conservatism by not privileging any of the respective presents it offers. It offers an imagination of equality that cannot be confined to any particular time, place, person, or group, even though—or rather precisely because—this imagination is rooted in a very particular place and time, and a very particular individual: What is it then between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

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The importance of the body for “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” can hardly be emphasized enough: it provides the major site of continuity for the poem, at once particular and universally human, and the experience of time as well as the sense of place are directly connected to it. The poem succeeds in presenting constant change because it conceives of continuity as phenomenological, knowing that neither past nor future are ever experienced like the present, and thus it aims to construct community along the lines of a multiplicity of related present moments. Yet the chronology of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” should not be taken for a linear one, even though it is concerned with identity and continuity and appears to present a progressive movement from past to present and future. In fact, the speaker makes a point of telling the addressee how much his present is informed by the future, and how both their presents coexist in the space of the poem: Closer yet I approach you, What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you— I laid in my stores in advance, I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born. (LoG 1892 311)

The reader is thus informed directly that his present is actually a future that has been prepared for, and that this poetic statement is the very act by which this preparation occurs, the performative element that creates a future. In these lines, the poem condenses past, present and future into a single moment; in telling the reader that he has already been considered

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“long and seriously” before his birth, the speaker claims a foundational position for himself, and places himself in the focus of all future retrospective considerations. This both places him in the past and at the same time in a perpetual present, which is underscored by the use of the deictic present participle form “I am as good as looking at you now” so that the future will remain founded on this mutual perception of speaker and addressee indefinitely: “The ‘I’ is with future generations because he is constantly resurrected as those generations read the poem” (LoG 1892 312; Reynolds, Beneath 522). This elaborate folding of temporal levels is what “fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you” (LoG 1892 312): the speaker claims his influential role in creating the identity of the individual he is addressing, and his present continually affects that of the reader. Yet this creativity is not one-directional but rather a dialogue that produces a group, as the changing use of personal pronouns throughout “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” indicates. While the speaker has for the most part negotiated his present and that of the reader by using I and you, he is following up on that moment of fusion by emphatically using the firstperson plural pronoun in the next line: “We understand then do we not?” (LoG 1892 312). After having established this group identity across time and space, the speaker is addressing the reader as if to assert his success; of course, the very act of reading, of following the speaker’s trajectory from the past into the present, proves that it is indeed “accomplish’d” (312) and yet always ongoing to ensure that poet and reader will remain “co-eternal with the city” (Sharpe 97). “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” retains that processual outlook as it ends, not satisfied with the accomplished result but interested in sustaining its cultivation of the democratic social space and time it keeps offering. Stepping away from the two individuals it has connected in its very own textual act, the poem turns to its sense of place again, imagining the conditions in which individuals will continue to be able to partake in the bodily experience that allows for a transtemporal conception of human community in a world that is understood to be natural and cultural at the same time. It is irrelevant if the individual feels embedded in or alienated from nature or culture in this world, since the transtemporal democratic politics of the poem are derived from a perception of the world rather than of what is perceived. The speaker asks the world to keep providing the materials for perception so that the perceiving individuals can derive a sense of commonality

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from them, each in his or her respective present, but across all time; in a way, this means deriving a democratic politics from nature, but only indirectly, yet all the more successful for it. The world still remains an irreducible element in this imagination of community, but explicitly as a set of “objects” to be perceived by subjects (LoG 1892 313). This perspective acknowledges “earthy thingishness” and retains its otherness from the human, yet it also affirms a connection to the world through perception, the possibility of which provides the ‘natural’ foundation of a transtemporal democratic politics (Killingsworth 19). The final stanza presents these “dumb, beautiful ministers” accordingly; they are both irreducibly other—“we fathom you not”—but can still be actively incorporated by humans through perception—“we plant you permanently within us”—and thus retain their uniqueness while forming part of the universal whole that Whitman imagines by way of a combined poetic performance of present and future (LoG 1892 313). The Politics of Futurity Whitman’s politics of nature is thus really a temporal politics, and the radical democracy that informs his work is to a considerable extent a consequence of his views on futurity. Instead of trying to resolve the dialectics of nature he presents in his poems—the duality of connectedness and otherness in a holistic world view—he productively evades it by finding commonality in futurity, be it the common mortality of all living things that drives his philosophy of compost or the common perceptions across time that allow for and demand an understanding of community that is not limited to the present. This last point is especially pertinent with regard to the nature of Whitman’s politics: The notion of radical democracy that informs much of his poetry is even more radical than one might think, since it expands a sense of equality among social individuals not just across different classes, races, genders, or nations, but actually also across time. Whitman’s democratic politics is always the politics of the future in the present, and it raises questions and makes demands that have only become more pertinent as his own present has receded further into the past. Instead of being satisfied to derive political notions of equality and common rights for all human beings from an observation of nature, Whitman first expanded this discourse on rights to

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non-human beings, and then further to beings who are not yet alive. While his obsession with the future may seem to be an evasive maneuver from the inequities of the present at times, it nevertheless insists on the necessity of thinking politically beyond the present, and it forces us to expand our notion of democracy into the future. Of course, at times Whitman’s view of futurity is clearly caught up in a nineteenth-century belief in progress and plenitude, in naïve optimism or hope, and even in notions of manifest destiny or imperialism. Yet at other times Whitman conceives of the future in terms of sustainability and responsibility that are perfect matches for the discourses of environmentalism and risk that became more and more prominent in the final decades of the twentieth century. His conception of transtemporal democracy certainly resonates with theories such as Hans Jonas’s ‘imperative of responsibility’ that respond to a technological age in which the narrative of progress has turned sour. Jonas phrases his futureoriented ethics in categorical imperatives such as “In your present choices, include the future wholeness of Man among the objects of your will,” and he argues that humans in the present have a duty towards those in the future even though, strictly speaking, those who do not yet exist do not have rights either, and the nonexistent “may have rights when it exists, but it does not have them by virtue of the mere possibility that it will one day exist” (11, 39). This notion of the rights of future generations and the responsibility of those alive in the present is central to much of contemporary environmentalism, and such transtemporal conceptions of community can also be thought reconsiderations of democracy. For example, when Edith Brown Weiss states that “[s]ustainable development relies on a commitment to equity with future generations,” her notion of equity is based on a sense of equality that includes these future generations within the democratic process of equal citizens alive in the present (19). As Bruno Latour, today’s most prominent champion of political actors who cannot act (yet), reminds us, unborn citizens are no different in not being represented from those who do exist but also cannot represent themselves: “Future generations are indeed mute, but no more so than the minors who have just been born, the ancestors who are already dead, the abstainers who are said to ‘vote with their feet,’ or the incompetents which have rights through various sorts of stewardships” (“To Modernize” 224-25). The democracy Latour envisions in We Have Never Been Modern and other texts is not just “a

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democracy extended to things themselves” but also a democracy whose actors “include nonhuman beings as well as—strictly speaking ‘not-yethuman’—future generations” (142; Gruber 13).8 This is the democracy Whitman derives from nature in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and other poems. He constructs a transtemporal community of individuals that is both embedded in and separate from a natural and cultural world of objects. The poem itself becomes a transtemporal democratic social space in which the common is constructed, mediated, and received, and it allows for and frames the participation in a textual performance that connects present and future and, just as importantly, includes, cultivates, and ensures within its imagination the continued possibility of such connections. Works Cited Aspiz, Harold. So Long! Walt Whitman’s Poetry of Death. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2004. Print. Bauerlein, Mark. Whitman and the American Idiom. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1991. Print. Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope. Trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight. Cambridge: MIT P, 1986. Print. Brown Weiss, Edith. “In Fairness to Future Generations and Sustainable Development.” American U International Law Review 8.1 (1992): 19-26. Web. 30 Aug. 2014. Chari, V.K. “The Limits of Whitman’s Symbolism.” Journal of American Studies 5.2 (1971): 173-84. Print. Erkkila, Betsy. “Public Love: Whitman and Political Theory.” Whitman East & West: New Contexts for Reading Walt Whitman. Ed. Ed Folsom. Iowa City: Iowa UP, 2002. 115-44. Print. ---. “Whitman and the Homosexual Republic.” Walt Whitman: The Centennial Essays. Ed. Ed Folsom. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1994. 153-71. Print. 8

See Malte-Christian Gruber’s essay “What Is It Like to Be Unborn? Our Common Fate with Future Generations” for an excellent discussion of the issue of futurity and rights from a legal perspective that includes a solid overview of the discourse in other fields.

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---. Whitman the Political Poet. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Print. Fisher, Philip. Still the New World: American Literature in a Culture of Creative Destruction. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999. Print. Folsom, Ed. What Do We Represent? Walt Whitman, Representative Democracy, and Democratic Representation. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1998. Print. Gruber, Malte-Christian. “What Is It Like to Be Unborn? Our Common Fate with Future Generations.” Efficiency, Sustainability, and Justice to Future Generations. Ed. Klaus Mathis. New York: Springer, 2011. 113-37. Print. Jonas, Hans. The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1984. Print. Kateb, George. “Walt Whitman and the Culture of Democracy.” A Political Companion to Walt Whitman. Ed. John E. Seery. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2011. 19-46. Print. Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. Walt Whitman and the Earth: A Study in Ecopoetics. Iowa City: Iowa UP, 2004. Print. Klammer, Martin. Whitman, Slavery, and the Emergence of Leaves of Grass. University Park: The Pennsylvania UP, 1995. Print. Larson, Kerry C. Whitman’s Drama of Consensus. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988. Print. Latour, Bruno. “To Modernize or to Ecologize? That’s the Question.” Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millennium. Ed. Noel Castree and Bruce WillemsBraun. London: Routledge, 1998. 221-42. Print. ---. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993. Print. Lehman, David. “The Visionary Whitman.” Walt Whitman, Where the Future Becomes Present. Ed. David Haven Blake and Michael Robertson. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2008. 8-16. Print. Parker, Andrew. “The Poetry of the Future; or, Periodizing the Nineteenth Century.” Modern Language Quarterly 71.1 (2010): 75-85. Print. Phillips, Dana. “Nineteenth-Century Racial Thought and Whitman’s ‘Democratic Ethnology of the Future.’” Nineteenth-Century Literature 49.3 (1994): 289-320. Print. Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. Print.

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---. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage, 1996. Print. Schoolman, Morton. “Democratic Enlightenment: Whitman and Aesthetic Education.” A Political Companion to Walt Whitman. Ed. John E. Seery. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2011. 310-39. Print. Sharpe, William Chapman. Unreal Cities: Urban Figuration in Wordsworth, Baudelaire, Whitman, Eliot, and Williams. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins P, 1990. Print. Seery, John E., ed. A Political Companion to Walt Whitman. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2011. Print. Thomas, M. Wynn. The Lunar Light of Whitman’s Poetry. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. Print. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. 1854. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod. New York: The Lib. of America, 1985. 321-587. Print. Whitman, Walt. Poetry and Prose. Ed. Justin Kaplan. New York: The Library of America, 1996. Print.

MICHELLE MART

Pesticides and the Transformation of the National Audubon Society Beginning in the 1960s, as many Americans questioned the economic assumptions of an industrial system that polluted the earth and harmed wildlife, organizations dedicated to taking care of the environment were remaking themselves, moving from being elite conservationist groups to mass organizations based on new principles of “environmentalism.” The transformation of the National Audubon Society illustrated this trend. Audubon long pre-dated the birth of modern environmentalism, and it moved from being a small, narrowly focused, decentralized group early in the twentieth century to a mass organization addressing a whole spectrum of environmental issues. With its growing size, influence, and diverse agenda, Audubon reflected the broad support for environmentalist values found in the public culture in the 1960s and beyond. Although the National Audubon Society was one of the preeminent conservation organizations in the United States after World War II, the organization, some later charged, appeared slow to respond to the environmental threat of chemical pesticides (Dunlap 78, 92). Soon after the civilian use of DDT began in 1945, Audubon issued a warning about the chemical. But it was not until the late 1950s, with the start of the USDA’s campaign to eradicate the fire ant, that Audubon increased its criticisms of pesticides. And even when the organization became more active in the debate over pesticides by the end of the 1950s, it still tempered its criticisms (Blu Buhs 99-121). The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 was a turning point for Audubon and for environmentalism more broadly. Carson’s book was a cultural touchstone expressing changes in public opinion that had begun in the 1950s, but it nevertheless helped to create a new cultural and political momentum. Audubon, for one, became a

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much more vocal critic of persistent pesticides and their widespread use. At the same time, the organization began growing exponentially in size and public support. It changed from what one writer in 1960 described as “the usually conservative Audubon Society” to an activist organization (Longgood 85). Thus, the National Audubon Society’s response to chemical pesticides in the postwar period illustrated the transition from cautious conservation to engaged advocacy, and raised important questions about environmentalist ideals in the postwar period. Was National Audubon mirroring widespread changes in public opinion or lagging behind? And, did Audubon’s enduring moderation reflect public attitudes or its own timidity? The National Audubon Society was well placed to help lead the opposition to profligate pesticide use. The society started as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, formed by a group of elite Boston women who began organizing against the use of bird plumage in fashion in 1896.1 The popular style had pushed some bird species to the verge of extinction and created a network of political activism on the issue. Within a few years, more than 30 state societies came together in the National Committee of Audubon Societies of America, which by 1905 had been incorporated as the National Association of Audubon Societies. The organization was decentralized in the first half of the twentieth century (not changing its name to National Audubon Society until 1940), and many of its members remained primarily concerned with issues related to birds. By mid-century, Audubon, along with other groups such as the Sierra Club, began to broaden its agenda to address industrial pollution in the chemical age. By almost any measure, Audubon was one of the most successful environmental organizations in the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. It was the second largest US conservation group in 1950: after two decades of tremendous growth, it reached 115,000 members, and then more than half a million members by the start of the twenty-first century. By 2002, the organization had an oper1

Bosso, Environment is the most helpful study of various environmental organizations in the United States and the increasingly active political role that they began playing after 1970. Also helpful is Sale. On the history of the Audubon Society, in particular, see also Graham.

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ating budget of 70 million dollars and more than 500 paid staff members.2 Audubon turned its attention to pesticides earlier than most, even before the end of World War II. It was one of the first conservation organizations to conduct a study of the military’s miracle chemical DDT. In 1945, Audubon president John Baker decided that his organization should work with the US Forest Service on experiments in Pennsylvania that measured the impact of DDT on wildlife. Audubon’s representative Dick Pough was very direct in his criticism of the possible civilian use of DDT. He described the devastating impact on wildlife the chemical was likely to have, as well as the philosophy which lay behind its adoption. Pough’s blunt condemnation was quoted in The New Yorker in May 1945: “A spray like DDT makes people think of a continent arranged like a manicured garden, but you can’t kick nature around that way. If DDT should ever be used widely and without care, we would have a country without freshwater fish, serpents, frogs, and most of the birds we have now” (Graham 186-87). John Baker’s column in the organization’s Audubon magazine was similarly negative about DDT, but more tempered in its language, saying that DDT’s “unchecked use could endanger bird life” (Bosso, Environment 34). Audubon activism on the issue of pesticides took off a decade later with the organization’s opposition to the USDA’s fire ant spray program in late 1957 and 1958. Although the fire ant had been found throughout the Southeast since early in the twentieth century, the danger from this minor pest was deemed to be limited; the USDA had concluded in 1949 that the ant would not spread out of the region. Seven years later, the agency reversed itself, announcing that the ant was a threat to crops, people, and livestock, and had to be eradicated. Along with Audubon, many conservation groups protested the USDA policy: the National Wildlife Federation, the Conservation Foundation, and the New York Zoological Society.3 The effects of the first sprays in late 1957 and early 2 3

Statistics on Audubon taken from Bosso, Environment, Tables 1.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.4. For example, Charles Callison, Conservation Director, National Wildlife Federation, before House Committee on Appropriations, Agriculture Subcommittee, 24 Mar. 1959, file Poisons, box B-26, Audubon Papers; Bosso, Pesticides 89-90.

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1958 were quickly apparent. Many wild and domestic animals were killed, including fish and birds, as well as shrimp, snakes, frogs, and lizards (Dunlap 89-90). In their opposition to the fire ant program, Audubon leaders became increasingly cynical about the justifications for it, especially from the USDA. For example, USDA statements and a press release from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare found in Audubon Society files were annotated with marginal comments about the veracity of the points made. “Nonsense,” was scrawled a number of times in response to assertions that the fire ant was harmful, that aerial spraying was used sparingly, and that only minimal, targeted spraying was used in proximity to bodies of water. Audubon files also contained a memo, “False Statements by the USDA before Subcommittee of Agricultural Appropriations Bill,” as well as an assessment and list of talking points for NAS officials to criticize the fire ant program. 4 The National Audubon Society seized the moment not only to criticize the fire ant program, but also the USDA’s broadcast spraying for the gypsy moth in the Northeast and Midwest. In a letter to President Dwight Eisenhower and a telegram to Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, John Baker called for an end to the gypsy moth campaign since no one knew the full effects or the full costs of the program. He focused his criticism on the indiscriminate, broadcast use of poisons. Baker raised the question of how the programs could impact the reproduction of quails, pheasants, and other birds, and he linked these same criticisms to the fire ant program. And, finally, he made it clear that his organization opposed all aerial spraying of extremely toxic chemicals unless there was a serious danger to people or wildlife.5 4

5

Statement from USDA, “Imported Fire Ant Control Program,” Agricultural research Service, Plant Pest Control Division (n.d.); Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service statement on Fire Ant Program, July 1958; John Cutler, Asst. Surgeon General to Secretary of Agriculture re Visit of John Baker, 18 Aug. 1958; False Statements by USDA Before Subcommittee of Agricultural Appropriation Bill, Mar. 1959; Recent Events and news From Imported Fire Ant Control Program Which Should Be Used and Stressed by NAS,” folder Poisons, box B-26, Audubon Papers. Dunlap, 91; Russell, 214-15. “The Hazards of Broadcasting Toxic Pesticides, As Illustrated by Experience with the Imported Fire Ant Control Program,”

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“The Hazards of Broadcasting Toxic Pesticides, as Illustrated by Experience with the Imported Fire Ant Control Program” was an Audubon booklet based on extensive discussions at the organization’s 1958 annual meeting and reporting on a ten-month study of the fire any spray program.6 The findings were a blunt indictment of the USDA program and the assumptions on which it was based. The report charged that not only did wildlife and livestock die immediately after the spraying, but that “claims of serious damage by the ants [were] false and misleading.” In addition, the booklet focused on the need for more study of both acute and chronic effects of pesticides before they were used, and criticized in particular the “broadcast” use of toxic chemicals. Thus, it is not clear how Audubon would have reacted to a more narrowly defined, nonaerial pesticide program against the fire ant. Finally, the report concluded with two recommendations: first, that there should be one federal agency responsible for the control and distribution of toxic chemicals— and that such an agency must keep the public informed about all dangers that might result from their use—; and second, that congress should immediately appropriate $25 million annually for a quasi-governmental agency to study the effects of toxic chemicals. Despite the increased activism of Audubon, leaders still did not completely condemn pesticides or directly confront the USDA. In comparison with Audubon’s later activism and the legislative and regulatory goals of the environmental movement after Silent Spring, the organization’s actions in the late 1950s may appear inadequate. But, the need for direct action against pesticides that later seemed self-evident among environmentalists was not yet an unquestioned imperative. From this perspective, the National Audubon Society’s pesticide policies may have

6

NAS booklet 10 Nov. 1958 presented at the fifty-fourth annual NAS convention by Harold Peters, file Pesticides, box B-453, National Audubon Society Papers, MS and Archives Division, New York Public Lib. In addition, Audubon criticized the USDA spray program against Dutch elm disease and the Bureau of Land Management’s aerial spraying of 1080 baited corn to control ants in the southwest. Harold Peters, “Dutch Elm Disease and Birds” presentation at NAS Convention, 28 Oct. 1961, file Pollution, box B-27; Telegram Buchheister to Stewart Udall, 4 May 1961 and Telegram William Carr to Buchheister, 3 May 1961, file Stewart Udall, box B-122, Audubon Papers. “The Hazards of Broadcasting Toxic Pesticides,” Audubon Papers.

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been tempered, but nevertheless showed active engagement with the issue. As discussed below, the publication of Silent Spring was a pivotal moment in the environmental debate about pesticide use—and Audubon as an organization benefited from the spotlight that Rachel Carson shone on the issue. At the same time, since Audubon personnel were investigating pesticides before Carson’s book was published, they can also be seen as instrumental in helping to shift public opinion about pesticides. Audubon, in 1960, for example, lobbied members of congress for the Pesticides Coordination Bill, and urged support from community organizations such as the Kiwanis Club.7 The organization also continued to press federal officials to lessen the broadcast use of chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides. For example, in November 1961, Executive Vice President Charles Callison contacted Robert Anderson, then chairman of the Pesticides Review Council as well as the assistant surgeon general, to ask that his council look into the proposed use of aldrin and heptachlor on stubble fields in Midwestern states. He called the use of such pesticides “an increasing hazard to a number of ground-feeding birds.”8 Audubon cultivated contacts in both the executive and legislative branches, pushing for a different mind-set about pesticides as well as for specific bills.9 In addition to lobbying on pesticide use generally, there is a record of the organization’s support for Carson and Silent Spring long before the book’s publication. Both President John Baker and his successor Carl Buchheister wrote to Carson in 1958 expressing their enthusiasm

7

8

9

Callison to Honorable Leonard Wolf, 1 Sept. 1960 and Kiwanis Club of Miami resolution, 12 Aug. 1960, file Pesticides 1960-1965, box B-211, Audubon Papers. Callison to Robert Anderson, Asst. Surgeon General and Chairman Interagency Pesticides Review Council, 29 Nov. 1961, file Pesticides 1960-1965, box B-211, Audubon Papers. For example, Callison to T. A. Thompson, chair of Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife, House Committee on Merchant Marine Fisheries, 20 June 1963 and Callison to Dr. Walter Dykstra, Research Staff Specialist, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, Department of Interior, 15 July 1964, file Pesticides 1960-1965, box B-211, Audubon Papers.

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for her project, and even “delight” as Buchheister said. 10 Carson worked with Audubon as she gathered information for her book. In 1959, 1960, and 1961, she and Charles Callison (who became Executive Vice President in 1960) exchanged information and sources, often with Carson making queries and Callison offering referrals and bits of information.11 Audubon Public Information Officer Robert Burnap in 1959 also told Carson he had many files, reports, and publications on pesticide use that he would be happy to share with her. 12 In the months just prior to the publication of Silent Spring, Carl Buchheister worked with the publisher Houghton Mifflin to help promote the book. Buchheister received a grateful thank you from Carson’s agent, who deemed his work for the book “[m]agnificent.”13 Buchheister also played a public role in debating the widespread use of pesticides, participating, for example, in a panel at Johns Hopkins Medical School where he spoke against the position of a USDA scientist who criticized Silent Spring.14 And, he used Audubon to actively defend Silent Spring against its detractors. In 1962, he reminded all branch and affiliate officers that there was a nationwide campaign to discredit Silent Spring, forwarding a reprint from a full page ad in the New York Times that “contain[ed] rebuttal material that may come in handy.”15 Similarly, Audubon responded to queries from local organizations (such as the Schenectady Bird Club) about chemical industry attacks on Silent Spring. A form letter sent out by the Audubon Society urged everyone to 10 11 12 13

14 15

Buchheister to Carson, 21 November 1958, file Carson, Rachel 1958-1962, box B-67, Audubon Papers. See file Carson, Rachel 1958-1962, box B-67, Audubon Papers. Robert Burnap to Carson, 25 Feb. 1959, file Carson, Rachel 1958-1962, box B-67, Audubon Papers. Paul Brooks to Carl Buchheister, 30 Jan. 1962 and Buchheister to Brooks, 5 Feb. 1962, folder 1493 National Audubon Society 1962-3, box 85, Series I, Carson Papers; Anne Ford to Buchheister, 16 July 1962, file Carson, Rachel 1958-1962, box B-67, B. Buchheister 1. Name/Subject (c1959-1970), Section B, National Audubon Society, New York Public Lib.—MSS. Roland Clement to Rachel Carson, 27 Nov. 1962, folder 1493 National Audubon Society 1962-3, box 85, Carson Papers. Buchheister to Branch and Affiliate Officers, file Carson, Rachel 1958-1962, box B-67, Audubon Papers.

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pressure their local media outlets into presenting “our side” of the story, making the message of Rachel Carson and Audubon synonymous.16 More than to anyone else, Audubon’s increased concern with the use of pesticides can probably be traced to the work of staff biologist Roland Clement, who was an early and strong critic of the chemicals. He had recommended that the society publish Rachel Carson’s book, and warned as early as 1958 about the bioaccumulation of pesticides, as evidenced in earthworms and birds, that was dangerous to ecosystems (Dunlap 92; Graham 225-32). Even before the publication of Silent Spring, he did not just focus on acute toxicities to criticize pesticide use. Clement argued that pesticides had to be seen in their ecological context. At the 1961 annual National Audubon Society convention, Clement argued that modern agricultural systems were based on biological ignorance: “Not only is the control efficacy of insecticides so often disappointing, but these poisons, by upsetting nature’s built-in mechanisms, often actually lead to an increase in pest numbers.” 17 Clement pointedly criticized the choice of modern efficiency and mono-cropping over nature. He argued that not only was insect resistance a serious problem caused by overuse of pesticides, but that the effects of chemical residues in the soil were not yet known. Following Carson’s death in 1964, Clement and Audubon worked with other conservationists to pay tribute to the writer through administration of the “Rachel Carson Memorial Fund,” in cooperation with the Rachel Carson Council, and by continuing to call for legal reforms in pesticide use. Clement gave his support to a new environmental organization, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which was the leading group pushing for legal action against DDT, first on Long Island, and then in Michigan and Wisconsin in the late 1960s; until the new organization was financially well established, Audubon even handled its funds. While EDF was on the front lines of the pesticide fight, Audubon worked more behind the scenes, in what author Frank Graham, Jr. called 16

17

Clement to Miss Nellie Van Vorst, president Schenectady Bird Club, 18 Feb. 1963, (Dear Friend form letter), file Rachel Carson 1963-1966, box B-67, Audubon Papers. Roland Clement, “The Failure of Common Sense,” file Conventions— Annual, 1961 (2 of 2), box B-70, Audubon Papers.

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“its characteristic pose as the ‘gray lady’ of the conservation movement.”18 Clement remained personally engaged with the pesticide issue through the 1960s. While his views were more critical of the benefits of pesticides than were Carson’s, he too asserted that he was not antichemical, but against the abuse of agricultural chemicals: “[N]one of us argue against chemicals, per se, nor against agricultural chemicals, not even against pesticides. Our principal concern is with the widespread use of persistent insecticides which will contaminate the food chains.” 19 Clement’s determination to counter the pesticide status quo meant that he as an individual sometimes pushed for more action than the moderate Audubon Society was willing to support. For example, by 1970, Clement wrote to Callison in frustration that sometimes he felt like he was taking on the National Agricultural Chemical Association alone. In a plea for Audubon to directly counter a NACA booklet by printing and distributing a rebuttal, he wrote: “I have scientific facts against them, but I don’t like butting my head against a wall unless someone will provide a helmet, back-up troops, etc.”20 Nevertheless, even if Roland Clement had led the way in calling for a broad ecological approach to agriculture and pesticide use, National Audubon as an organization, especially after the publication of Silent Spring, mainly echoed this message. At a speech in Washington in October 1962, Audubon president Carl Buchheister told his audience that the impact of pesticides must be considered as a long-term issue; the “challenge [regarding pesticides] is ecological,” he asserted, “not tech-

18

19 20

Ironically, the Ford Foundation, which had been one of the largest institutional funders for the Green Revolution, provided the initial seed money to start the EDF, which was dedicated in part to dismantling some of the chemical infrastructure championed in the Green Revolution. Graham, 226-231. Also, file Carson, Rachel, Memorial Fund 1964, box B-68, Audubon Papers. Clement to Edward Prill, 22 Jan. 1965, file Rachel Carson 1963-1966, box B67, Audubon Papers. Clement to Callison and J. Franson, 6 Oct. 1970, file Clement, Roland, 196971, box B-158, Audubon Papers.

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nological.”21 He criticized the approach of the USDA, arguing that the agency only considered the short-term economic interests of the farmer and was an “agent for the chemical industry.” Following Clement’s lead, Buchheister argued that “pest” was an economically relative concept, and that policies of eradication were “futile.” To lessen the use of harmful chemicals, Buchheister called for more testing of pesticides before they were allowed on the market, as well as research into more selective chemicals and biological and cultural methods of pest control. In addition, he called for new legal regulations, beginning with the then-proposed Pesticides Coordination Act, an act that he called “modest” but one that had nevertheless been killed in the previous congress when the chair of the Senate Agricultural Committee had prevented hearings or any consideration of the measure. Along with passage of the coordination act, he called for increased federal funding for research into pesticide effects. Charles Callison, similarly, made arguments to increase knowledge about pesticides and to think about their impact more broadly. 22 Audubon’s support for the “modest” Pesticides Coordination Act, illustrated the group’s strategy to not support overly radical measures that might backfire. Two years earlier, Callison had also supported the thenproposed Chemical Pesticides Coordination Act and the bill’s author, Leonard Wolf of Iowa, had consulted with the society. The act would require further study of pesticides prior to use, not only by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service but also by the game and fish departments in the affected states.23 Audubon submitted a statement on the proposed law to the House Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife in May 1960. The Audubon statement did not criticize all pesticide use, but overuse

21

22 23

This and subsequent citations from Carl Buchheister, “Meeting the Pesticides Problem,” 2 Oct. 1962, Washington DC, file Legislation File: Pesticides Coordination Bill, box B-129, Audubon Papers. Callison to Ward, 14 Feb. 1962, file Pesticides, 1960-1965, box B-211, Audubon Papers. Press Release from NAS on proposed bill, 6 Apr. 1960 and HR 11502 (Eighty-sixth Congress, Second session) in House of Representatives, 31 Mar. 1960, file Legislation file: Pesticides Coordination Bill, box B-129, Audubon Papers.

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and inappropriate use.24 With news that the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife was going to report the bill to the full committee of Merchant Marines and Fisheries, Callison wrote to Wolf that the progress on the bill “proves that our strategy ha[s] been sound in not trying to accomplish too much in one piece of legislation.” 25 Such a calculation did not mean that this was an ideal bill. Buchheister had written to a scientist at the Department of Conservation at Cornell University in April 1960 that, “It does not go nearly as far as we would like, but it does appear to be a sound step in the right direction. Strengthening amendments or legislative ‘teeth’ can be proposed when hearings are held.”26 Buchheister, representing Audubon, was carefully circumscribing a moderate course as the effective route, taking small steps which would be most likely to lead to the long term goal of changing pesticide use. Thus, Callison, Buchheister and Audubon as an organization, following the lead of Roland Clement and Rachel Carson, became champions of a new way of viewing the environment and the human role in it. By the mid-1960s, pesticides had become a major focus of the National Audubon Society. The leaders of Audubon, similar to Carson, chose a moderate strategy as the one most likely to yield results. And Audubon was not alone in its focus on pesticides as other conservationists also turned their attention to this issue (Dunlap 140). One strategy for leaders of Audubon was to try to change political attitudes by increasing press coverage of environmental news. In 1964, Callison wrote to state game, fish and conservation directors encouraging them to recognize the opportunities at that particular point in time: Federal, state, and local pest-control agencies, that in the past have tended to be either apathetic, disbelieving, or stubborn about the pesticides problem, are beginning to have second thoughts. I think we are on the 24 25

26

NAS Statement on HR 11502, Eighty-sixth Congress, 3 May 1960, file Legislation file: Pesticides Coordination Bill, box B-129, Audubon Papers. Callison to Hon. Leonard Wolf, 14 June 1960 and Wolf to Callison, 31 May 1960, file Legislation File: Pesticides Coordination Bill, box B-129, Audubon Papers. Buchheister to Dr. Gustav Swanson, Department of Conservation, Cornell, 6 Apr. 1960, file Legislation File: Pesticides Coordination Bill, box B-129, Audubon Papers.

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The 1960s—what speakers at Audubon’s 1966 annual meeting referred to as the “environmental decade”—began a period of tremendous growth for Audubon and other environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation.28 Audubon worked to transform itself into a mass organization, for instance by changing its flagship magazine Audubon into a general interest publication (Bosso, Environment 41). The goal of broadening its base was also reflected in its leaders’ efforts to have a moderate voice on issues such as pesticides and to not alienate potential supporters. The growing popular and political concern about pesticides in the 1960s and 1970s—and the influence of an environmental organization such as National Audubon—is well illustrated by the fight to ban DDT in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Building upon the political momentum following the publication of Silent Spring and the release of the 1963 President’s Scientific Advisory Committee Report, Audubon tried to get state and national governments to lessen DDT use—even simply encouraging the substitution of less persistent pesticides (which within a few years would be shown to have many of their own problems). For example, in 1965, Executive Vice President Charles Callison wrote to the secretary of the Department of Forests and Waters in Pennsylvania, urging that malathion or carbamate be used instead of DDT in the upcoming spraying of 100,000 acres of forest: “It distresses me and grieves me to see your otherwise enlightened Department embarking upon a

27 28

Callison to all State Game, Fish, and Conservation Directors, 17 June 1964, file Pesticides 1960-1964, box B-211, Audubon Papers. Looking at programs for the annual conventions and titles of presentations, it is not clear exactly how much attention was paid to pesticides within the presentations since “pesticides” was not an explicit term in the titles in 1965, 1966, or 1967. Convention files for these years, box B-70, Audubon Papers.

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100,000-acre spraying. . . . I urge you to get your forest entomologists out of their rut. This is 1965, not 1945.”29 Audubon also worked with people at the grassroots level to encourage local laws restricting DDT and chlorinated hydrocarbons. For example, in August 1969, the public information director at Audubon responded to a query for organizing information from Queens NY by sending back a model bill. This bill proposed the creation of a Pesticide Control Board that could lessen local pesticide use. 30 Such organizing took place across the country as Audubon worked to get bills calling for pesticide restrictions introduced in a number of states. 31 Audubon officers lobbied the USDA to reassess their existing pesticide programs and work towards an “orderly reduction in persistent pesticides.”32 By 1969, Audubon president Elvis Stahr was writing to Agriculture Secretary Clifford Hardin pressing him to support a ban on DDT.33 Meanwhile, Audubon lobbying continued outside of the USDA, encouraging members of congress to support bills in 1969 banning DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons. The arguments made by Audubon officials, in particular, focused on the demonstrated effects of these

29

30 31

32 33

Callison to Dr. Maurice Goddard, Secretary, Department of Forests and Waters, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 7 May 1965, file Pesticides 19601965, box B-211, Audubon Papers. Robert Boardman, Public Information Director NAS to Henry Rippe, 12 Aug. 1969, file DDT (1969-1971), box B-168, Audubon Papers. Memo John Franson to Callison, 4 Aug. 1969, file DDT (1969-1971), box B168, Audubon Papers. In same file, also see assorted letters from NAS, especially Callison, to local regional activists about introducing bills in state legislatures to ban DDT. Elvis Stahr, President NAS, to Orville Freeman, 13 Nov. 1968, folder F Pesticides 1/1-2/28/1968, box 4851, RG 16, National Archives II. Elvis Stahr to Clifford Hardin, 3 Nov. 1969, folder 12/1/69 (1 of 3), box 5081. Another example of Audubon lobbying was seen earlier in the year, when Stahr had written to Hardin protesting the USDA policy of spraying airports with persistent pesticides (“drenching airports with Dieldrin”) to block insects from entering the country. Elvis Stahr to Clifford Hardin, 14 July 1969, folder 8/69 (1 of 2), box 5080, RG 16, National Archives II.

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pesticides on bird reproduction at the top of the food chain.34 Audubon leaders also sought to make sure that ordinary people understood the importance of the DDT ban. Callison sent a letter to the New York Times Magazine in 1974, for example, criticizing a cover story that seemed to minimize “the dire warnings of environmentalists.” On the contrary, wrote Callison, birds like the Osprey and Brown Pelican stood a chance of recovery only due to the ban on DDT.35 Audubon had joined forces with other environmental organizations to push for the domestic DDT ban. The Environmental Defense Fund took the lead in the fight by filing suit in 1969, first against the USDA and then against the EPA, to cancel registrations for the chemical. The EDF suit was also on behalf of other organizations: the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, and the West Michigan Environmental Action Council. The fight against DDT was an increasingly public issue in the late 1960s and there were many articles in the mainstream press about it.36 The fight to ban DDT not only garnered much public attention, but also stoked anger among some farmers and those in the chemical industry who were furious at what they saw as a government intrusion into their business.37 Even after the victory of cancellation in 1972, leaders of Audubon remained vigilant in monitoring any attempts by government agencies or private companies to obtain emergency exceptions to the ban on DDT use, especially for use against forest and cotton pests; Audubon lobbied the EPA not to grant exemptions in such circumstances. 38 One case that 34

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Statement by Paul Howard, Western Regional Representative, NAS, to Senator Fred Marler, chair Senate Agriculture Committee, 18 June 1969, file DDT, box B-168, Audubon Papers. Callison to NYTM, 17 Apr. 1974, file US Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, 1974, box B-229, Audubon Papers. For example, EW Kenworthy, “Court Orders New Unit to File Notice of DDT Ban,” New York Times, 8 Jan. 1971, and “Ag Department to Press Battle for Pesticide, Hardin Aide Says,” Illinois State Journal, 30 Nov. 1970. For a brief example of the backlash among farmers and the chemical industry, see “Move to Curb E.P.A. on Pesticides Loses,” New York Times, 5 Sept. 1975. For example, see Callison to Milanne Rehor, Asst. researcher Planet Ocean Museum, International Oceanographic Foundation, 13 Dec. 1974; John Fran-

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received much publicity in the press and involvement from Audubon was the Forest Service’s request to use DDT against the Tussock Moth in the Northwest just one year after the ban had been approved. EPA officials, apparently not eager to grant the exemption, welcomed counter arguments from groups such as Audubon.39 Callison wrote about the issue in Audubon and alerted local chapters in the Northwest that this was a threat in summer 1973, warning, “We may have to fight this battle all over again.” Audubon officials wanted to prevent any reintroduction of DDT in this and any other circumstances. 40 The organization’s officials seem to have developed a good relationship with the EPA, which probably helped to make their lobbying more effective. For example, in 1974, Audubon opposed the EPA decision to halt cancellation procedures for the herbicide 2,4,5-T. The note from the EPA’s Deputy Administrator John Quarles Jr. to Audubon’s (“Charlie”) Callison included a hand-written addendum explaining that at this point their technical data was too weak to proceed, but that they might do so

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son, SW Regional Representative Audubon to Russell Train 27 Feb. 1975; Carlyle Blackeney Jr. to SC Chapter presidents, 8 Apr. 1976, file DDT, 19721976, box B-168, Audubon Papers. Audubon worked on pesticide issues at different levels of government, for example bringing suit against the state government for the use of toxaphene on rangeland in South Dakota in 1979. For example, NAS press release, 14 July 1979; Richard Madson, regional representative, NAS to Clint Roberts, Secretary, SD Dept. of Agriculture, 29 Aug. 1979; Special Report, 6 Aug. 1979 to SD members NAS from Madson; NAS press release, 3 Sept. 1979, file Issues-Toxics, box B-429, Audubon Papers. Cynthia Wilson to Stahr, Callison, Clement, 12 April 1973, file Tussock Moth 1973 (1 of 2), box B-226, Audubon Papers. For an example of praise for the EPA in the press as a bulwark against industry interests, see Charles Quaintance, “The DDT Tussock Moth Controversy: Calamity in the Forests,” in Proceedings for EPA Hearings on Request for Use of DDT to Control Douglas-fir Tussock Moth, Carton 1, 8—0048, RG 412, EPA, National Archives II. Callison to WA and OR Audubon chapters, 22 Aug. 1973; Clement to Callison, 13 Apr. 1973; Clement to Stahr, Callison, Wimmer, Boardman, Howard, Turner, Wilson, Nisbet, 19 Nov. 1973, file Tussock Moth 1973 (1 of 2), box B-226, Audubon Papers.

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in the future.41 EPA Administrator Russell Train wrote to “Charlie” in January 1976, thanking Audubon for its support of the EPA decision to ban major uses of heptachlor and chlordane. He added, “It is satisfying to know that veteran environmental groups such as yours endorse our decision, for as you know, we at EPA value highly your support.” 42 Audubon, along with other environmental organizations, remained active and vigilant on the pesticides issue throughout the 1970s. The organization, along with EDF, jointly employed a “pesticides monitor” to work on lobbying and legislative issues in Washington. The monitor, Maureen Hinkle, sent updates back to the organization to detail her work and the issues that she was actively addressing.43 Audubon and EDF were concerned not only with lobbying politicians in Washington and officials in various states. They also saw a large part of their role to be educating the public about pesticides and other environmental issues— and Hinkle was active in such efforts. For example, at the end of the 1970s, she produced a 32-page “Citizen’s Action Guide to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.” Audubon continued such efforts towards public education, for example, distributing in 1981, “Getting the Bugs Out: A Guide to Sensible Pest Management In and Around the Home.”44 This pamphlet began by trying to change people’s understanding of “pest,” asserting that it was a relative concept. Even if an insect or plant was an economic problem, “the goal must be controlled management, not eradication.”

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Quarles to Callison, 15 Oct. 1974, file Herbicides, box B-181, Audubon Papers. Train to Callison, 27 Jan. 1976, file Pesticides, 1976-1978, box B-211, Audubon Papers. Summary of Activities, Nov.-Dec. 1977 and Jan.-Mar. 1978, file Pesticides 1976-1978, box B-211, Audubon Papers. For more on NAS lobbying efforts, also see, Cynthia Wilson’s Summary of Pesticide Legislation 1972; Statement of the National Audubon Society on HR 10729, 15 June 1972; NAS Memo Cynthia Wilson to Callison, 26 Nov. 1975, file Pesticide Control Act (1 of 2), box 262, Audubon Papers. “A Citizen’s Action Guide to FIFRA,” Maureen Hinkle, file Pesticide Legislation Manual, box B-554; “Getting the Bugs Out,” 1981, file Pesticides, box B-578, Audubon Papers.

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Although there was clear evidence of Audubon activism in the 1960s and 1970s against pesticide overuse and abuse, it is worth remembering that the organization was careful not to be perceived as “anti-pesticide.” Even when the fight to ban DDT was nearing its successful conclusion, Audubon continued to assert—as summarized in one 1969 memo—that it was not against the use of all pesticides, only the very toxic, persistent chemicals such as DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, and heptachlor.45 The same memo endorsed the selective use of other admittedly dangerous chemicals (chlordane, BHC, endosulfan, toxaphene) when warranted by particular pest problems, and included a list of other acceptable agricultural chemicals. Someone with as strong a record of action against zealous pesticide use as Roland Clement, was still careful in 1973 to make sure that Audubon did not come across as anti-pesticide. He criticized the draft of an editorial for Audubon magazine on proposed USDA use of DDT against the Tussock Moth, for example. He wrote to Audubon Executive Vice President Callison and other leaders: “The barrage of emotion-laden phrases like “fear-mongering,” “chemical hucksters,” “simplistic control entomologists,” “hooked on DDT,” and “DDTaddicted” is not only intemperate but makes us look as though we too are hooked on something.”46 The National Audubon Society, then, was actively engaged in the debate over pesticides and worked closely with others, such as the Environmental Defense Fund. Nevertheless, it hued closely to the parameters set out by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring when she asserted that “It is not my contention that chemical insecticides must never be used. I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potentials for harm” (Carson 22). Carson’s argument of reasonable moderation set the tone that mainstream environmental organizations would strike in the 1960s and 1970s as they sought to establish a regula-

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Memo 25 June 1969 (on NAS letterhead; author and recipient unknown); NAS Memo 25 June 1969; and press release, “Companies Appeal Cancellation of DDT Uses”, 6 Jan. 1970, file DDT (1969-1971), box B-168, Audubon Papers. Clement to Callison, 13 Apr. 1973, file Tussock Moth 1973 (1 of 2), box B226, Audubon Papers.

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tory structure for the industry and to ban only the most toxic of the chemicals. This brings us back to the question raised at the start of this essay: did the positions of the National Audubon Society—especially its moderation on controversial issues such as pesticide use—reflect public opinion? The short answer would be yes. Just as Rachel Carson’s success was due in part to knowing how to carve out an environmental position which inspired but did not alienate, so Audubon leaders were careful not to be too radical. This caution, then, was an accurate reading of public opinion, not timidity. Thus, Audubon not only increased support for environmentalism, but also its own influence in contemporary politics. Audubon’s activism on the pesticide issue, including its decision to champion a moderate position, transformed the organization into a powerful force in American environmental debates. Works Cited Blu Buhs, Joshua. “Dead Cows on a Georgia Field: Mapping the Cultural Landscape of the Post-World War II American Pesticides Controversies.” Environmental History 7.1 (2002): 99-121. Print. Bosso, Christopher J. Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway. Lawrence: UP of Kansas, 2005. Print. ---. Pesticides and Politics: The Life Cycle of a Public Issue. Pittsburgh: The U of Pittsburgh P, 1987. Print. Carson, Rachel. Papers, Beinecke Lib., Yale U, New Haven; YCAL 46, Ser. I. ---. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Print. Dunlap, Thomas. DDT: Scientists, Citizens, and Public Policy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Print. Graham, Jr., Frank. The Audubon Ark: A History of the National Audubon Society. Austin: U of Texas P, 1990. Print. Longgood, William. Poisons in Your Food. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. Print. National Archives, II, College Park; Record Group 16, United States Department of Agriculture and Record Group 412, Environmental Protection Agency.

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National Audubon Society Papers, MS Div., New York Public Lib., NY Section B: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and General Files. Russell, Edmund. War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print. Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962-1992. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Print.

GESA MACKENTHUN

Bisoncide and Neo-Savagism: The Myth of the Unecological Indian1 The ‘greening’ of the humanities has produced a series of studies that reassess the ecological status of Native Americans (e.g., Harkin and Lewis; Schweninger; Porter; Cruikshank). This essay will focus on one particular aspect of a scholarly discourse that seeks to correct the popular image of Native Americans as ecologically concerned people: the discussion about the responsibility for the quasi-extermination of the bison and related ‘charismatic’ megafauna frequently referred to as the ‘Pleistocene overkill hypothesis’. My reading of these images and narratives will place special emphasis on rhetorical aspects, as well as discussing their present use as an addition to our knowledge archive about the relations between Native Americans and the American fauna. As I will argue, some critiques of Native Americans’ ‘ecological’ attitudes conducted by white historians and anthropologists tend to revive an earlier colonial myth—that of Indian savagism. By the same token, they ignore the presence in the colonial archive of indigenous stories and epistemologies. Moreover, in asking for the reasons of this recent phenomenon, which happens to coincide with political discussions about the global climate challenge, I will reflect on the concurrence of white scholars’ attempts to destroy the myth of the ‘ecological Indian’ and the relevance of Native American rights within the context of conflicts about land and resources in North America. Let us start by looking at a recently rediscovered novel about bisoncide. 1

I would like to thank Helmbrecht Breinig for his helpful and encouraging comments on an earlier version of this essay.

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Remembering the Butchery Fifty-five years after its first publication, the German readership has recently discovered John Williams’ western (or post-western) novel Butcher’s Crossing (1960/2007). Reviewers are fond of its familiar genre aspects—the initiation of the adolescent hero Will Andrews, the landscape descriptions and other typical generic attributes of the western novel. They also read this novel as a comment on the greed for profit in 1870s United States, as well as a reminder of how the destruction of the bison served to deprive the Plains Indians of their subsistence base.2 Interestingly, the novel hardly mentions any Native Americans, least of all as agents of the buffalo slaughter. The party of fortune hunters, who have set out from the boom town Butcher’s Crossing in Colorado to chase down and exterminate a mythical bison herd in the remote mountains of Colorado in 1873, encounter a small group of Indians on their way, but other than that Williams fully concentrates on the familiar story of white male existential quest (in the figure of the morally ‘empty’, spoiled, and not very intelligent youthful protagonist) but then continues into a less familiar narrative terrain of human failure and ecological disaster. The key passage of the novel consists of the lengthy description of how the novel’s Nietzschean hero-villain, Miller, gradually and very rationally kills off a herd of about 5,000 bison who can neither see—and thus defend themselves against—the hidden killer, nor escape from a dead end valley.3 They let themselves be killed like cows in a stockyard without giving fight. The protagonist is strangely fascinated by the methodical way by which one man, like “a mechanism, an automaton,” kills off almost the complete herd (137), but he is also somewhat affected by the killed beasts: “One bull had dropped so that its huge head rested upon the side of another buffalo; the head seemed to watch them 2 3

I am referring to a series of reviews of John Williams’s Butcher’s Crossing by the German daily press summarized on the online platform Perlentaucher. Miller acts like a sniper, killing the bison one by one from well-hidden positions. The method is called the “still-hunt.” William Hornaday, the chronicler of the nineteenth-century bisoncide, writes of a possible historical model for Miller, one Captain Jack Brydges of Kansas, “who was one of the first to begin the final slaughter of the southern herd” and who “killed, by contract, one thousand one hundred and forty-two buffaloes in six weeks” (Hornaday).

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as they approached, the dark blank shining eyes regarding them disinterestedly, then staring beyond them as they passed” (138). Andrews again is struck by the first buffalo calf he is about to skin: “He stood looking at the calf, whose open transparent eyes were filmed over blankly with a layer of dust” (143). Before he gets used to the carnage, he at one point dreams of being himself “penned . . . in a corner of blackness from which there was no retreat” (155). But such strokes of empathy with the hunted animal soon disappear and Andrews, like other young heroes of adventure literature (from Ishmael to Henry Fleming and Humphrey van Weyden), is being swept along with the events and the fascination of violence incapable of altering them. The post-heroic adventure tale—or post-adventure tale?—ends in disaster, but it is not the kind of disaster hoped for by naïve ecocritical readings of today: the dramatic volte is not caused by the last survivors of the bison finally turning against their hunters and defending themselves; rather, the weather suddenly turns, the hunters are forced to spend the winter in the mountains, and during their return journey the precious hides—about 1,500 of them—drop irretrievably into a river. Having barely escaped, the three survivors find the boomtown deserted and the buffalo hides piling up in front of the cabin of the hide trader. They soon find out the reason: the demand in buffalo hides has suddenly dropped and the trader has gone bankrupt. Miller, the buffalo killer, madly sets fire to the mountain of hides, killing his horse in the conflagration and then disappearing from the scene—a very dramatic finale (264-68). Butcher’s Crossing is a novel about machine-man’s senseless butchering of 5,000 bison. The novel offers a comparatively critical perspective on the history of the westward movement. It does not share the idealization of western life popularized in the late fifties and early sixties by John Wayne (and Ronald Reagan) style movies and myriads of western novels. The reason I introduce it here is its description of the bison slaughter, which, although not written in an ecocritical mood, lends itself to ecocritical analysis—for example for the way it refrains from slipping into a revenge plot solution à la Moby Dick. The catastrophe is announced by the remaining bison’s restlessness; yet, the cause of that restlessness is not the suffering creatures’ long-expected counter attack but the turn of the weather announced to the characters by a single snowflake (169). Animals have no agency in this novel; as it turns out,

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the decisive agents are the nontransparent forces of the weather and the market in buffalo hides—the arbitrary whimsies of nature and the fashion industry. Without pointing explicitly at a culprit for the bisoncide, the novel suggests a combination of human moral immaturity and western man’s unthinking self-subjection to the forces of the market and technology: here the railway, which facilitates the marketing of the skins, and of course the high tech rifles with their “clean” method of killing (137). First published in 1960, Williams’ novel is far from reaching the explicit ecocritical force of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), whose indictment of the chemical industry’s destruction of nature was followed only two years later, in the UK, by Ruth Harrison’s critique of mass production of meat in Animal Machines. Written at the dawn of the ecological movement, Butcher’s Crossing avoids any share in a discourse of animal rights; yet it does transport occasional empathy with the animals, their nobility and their suffering. It also shows clearly the absolute absence of any sense of modern man’s responsibility toward other creatures, as well as the hollow hypocrisy of the biblically sanctioned justification of animal slaughter (in the figure of the weakminded sidekick Charley Hoge). Neither does the novel idealize Native Americans as more ecologically minded human beings. This discourse, too, was still in its infant shoes at the time the novel was published. It would develop, in alignment with the environmental and civil rights movements, during the sixties and culminate in the first Earth Day, inspired by Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson, which took place throughout the US on April 22, 1970. One year later, the new awareness for the environment would come to be iconized in the famous anti-litter ad “Keep America Beautiful” in 1971, which features Indian actor Iron Eyes Cody spilling his famous single tear for the environment. During the 1970s, common concern for the environment forged the strongest tie between white ecologically minded citizens groups and indigenous groups struggling for political representation and participation, as well as for adherence to the treaties and the territorial rights they granted. Next to this transcultural, and soon transnational, Rainbow Coalition there existed innumerable local coalitions like the Black Hills Alliance, which in the early 1980s united environmental activists with members of the Sioux tribes in order to prevent the further exploitation

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and devastation of the Black Hills in South Dakota, a main target for coal and uranium mining. Until today the Sioux tribes refuse to accept the monetary compensation they have been offered by the Indian Claims Commission based on the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which granted them vast tracks in South Dakota and Nebraska. The compensation sum has grown from the initial amount of 100 million dollars in 1980 to 1,3 billion dollars. If they accepted the money they would foreclose any further territorial rights to the Black Hills, which for the Plains tribes is a sacred area hosting many natural shrines. Although they live in great poverty, the Sioux tribes are to this day resisting the temptation to accept the money; they rather demand a partial restitution of the land itself. They have been supported in this initiative by non-native environmentalists and white lawyers like Bruce Ellison. Zoltan Grossman refers to these “unlikely alliances”: In South Dakota in the late 1970s, Lakota communities and white ranchers were often at odds over water rights and the tribal claim to the sacred Black Hills. Yet, despite the intense Indian-white conflicts, the two groups came together against coal and uranium mining, which would endanger the groundwater. The Native activists and conservativelooking ranchers formed the Black Hills Alliance . . . to halt the mining plans, and later formed the Cowboy and Indian Alliance (or CIA), which has since worked to stop a bombing range, coal trains, and oil pipeline. (Grossman)

One of the last common causes of the ironically named Cowboy and Indian Alliance are the protests against the Keystone XL pipeline by which crude oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, would be transported to the refineries in Texas—and then shipped abroad. The oil is gained by dangerous strip mining methods that threaten to pollute the groundwater and render gigantic tracts of land organically dead zones. The pipeline would run right through Lakota treaty lands under the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty; spills from similar pipelines have created environmental disasters in the past by infiltrating the ground water (Avery 91). The CIA unites indigenous and environmental activists as well as ‘normal’ farmers (the “cowboys”). Native and non-Native activists join forces in their common concern for the protection of the environment— for example Debra White Plume and the actress Daryl Hannah, who

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express their concern with reference to an indigenous myth in a coauthored essay. They write: Legend tells of a black snake that will threaten our people. Keystone XL is that serpent, a 1,700 mile pipe that would carry toxic tar sands oil across our land and over our water. The tail of the serpent would sit in the Canadian tar sands of Alberta, where indigenous peoples have fallen victim to increased cancer rates and the deadly pollution caused by the oil industry. The serpent’s mouth opens on the Gulf of Mexico, spewing toxic emissions in refinery communities like Port Arthur, Texas, where mothers must watch their children grow up with debilitating asthma and other environmentally-related health problems. In between, Keystone XL would run through some of the country’s most vulnerable land, carrying dirty tar sands crude through the sensitive Sand Hills ecosystem and the Ogallala Aquifer―one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world―which provides clean water for drinking and agriculture to much of the Midwest. The tar sands crude that the pipeline would carry through our land is the thickest, dirtiest form of oil there is. In the case of a leak or spill, this thick crude would sink in water, making it nearly impossible to clean up and threatening the health and safety of this region for decades to come. Even worse, tar sands crude is significantly more carbon-heavy than other kinds of oil: By allowing huge quantities to reach the global market, the Keystone pipeline would do irrevocable damage to our climate, resulting in more of the extreme weather events that are already threatening our communities. Building this pipeline would create immediate dangers to the health and safety of our communities, and break our promise to leave future generations with a clean, livable planet. . . . Cowboys and Indians are often at odds in Hollywood movies. But in this fight, they are riding against a common enemy: Big Oil. Now, it’s up to President Obama to choose which side he’s on. As for us, we know where we stand: together. (White Plume and Hannah)

In February 2015 President Obama reacted by vetoing the bill that would have approved the building of the pipeline—one of his most important ecological actions so far, and one severely condemned by the Republicans. On March 4, the Senate failed to override the presidential veto; it did not reach the necessary three-third vote. Until the next presidential elections, the project is pending and the danger of the pipeline being built is temporarily banned.

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A common concern for the environment, then, was and is what binds indigenous and non-indigenous activists together; this liaison has intensified over the decades since the early 1980s. Since the 1990s, scholars have begun to reflect on these developments and associations, lifting the public protest of the previous decades into the ranks of ‘postcolonial’ critical culture studies (e.g. Stoler). The intersectional field of postcolonial ecocriticism is presently one of the most vibrant in the humanities. Yet, as will be shown in the following section, a few studies allegedly devoted to understanding the connections between colonial conflicts and the history of the environment seem to be oblivious of the impact of colonization on both human action and the environment, and perhaps latently driven by an antagonism toward present-day cross-cultural coalitions and their common environmentalist cause. Conspicuous Ambivalence: The Indigenous Art of Killing Ever since the ‘invention’ of the American Indian in the nineteenth century, indigenous people have been imagined as people with particularly strong ties to their natural surroundings—ties that Europeans had also enjoyed until the beginnings of modernity and that romantic writers and artists nostalgically invoked in response to early industrialization. Native Americans themselves, too, stressed their special stewardship for the land and criticized the destructiveness of the Euro-American industrial society, which was often coupled with an extreme hostility toward the non-human world. The quasi-extermination of the American bison is often regarded as epitomizing this attitude. We all knew, and some of us for a while believed in the historical correctness of, this iconic image of the Indian as protector of Mother Earth encapsulated in the 1971 antilitter ad, in the famous speech of Squamish chief Seattle of 1845, and in the famous “Prophesy of the Cree” globally circulated by Greenpeace and other environmentalist organizations on bumper stickers and brochures: “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.” While the speech by Seattle seems to have been at least partially edited and ‘improved’ by the American journalist Henry A. Smith, the “prophesy” seems indeed to have originated with a Native American, the Abenaki Alanis Obomsawin from the Odanak reserve about seventy

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miles northeast of Montreal (Quote Investigator).4 The convergence of early indigenous and non-indigenous discourses of environmental protection would deserve a solid historical-critical investigation in itself. In fact, it could be argued that the cross-cultural production of an ecological discourse since the mid-nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century is one of the few cases of transculturation (in Fernando Ortiz’s sense of a mutual transplantation of ideas and cultural practices) in the Americas—of the dominant colonial society having been impacted by values of the colonized societies. Given this predominance of the image, and the political performance of Native Americans as stewards and protectors of the environment— e.g. in trials for territorial and treaty rights, against nuclear pollution and resource extraction, etc.—it came as no small surprise when Shepard Krech III and other scholars began to argue in the late 1990s that Native Americans were in large part responsible for the destruction, and sometimes extermination, of American fauna. Even more, Krech argues in The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (1999), it was simply wrong to refer to Native Americans’ attitude to the environment as “ecologist” or “conservationist” because neither did they use “mathematical or hypothetico-deductive techniques” for thinking about the environment “and its interrelating components in systemic ways,” as a scientific ecologist would do, nor did they promote or practice “careful husbandry and sustainable development,” calculating “sustainable yield into the distant future” and deliberately leaving “the environment and resources like animal populations in a usable state for succeeding generations,” as a professional conservationist would do (24-26). The thesis is hard to contradict: thus narrowly defined, both ‘ecological’ and ‘conservation4

On its highly recommendable website, the Quote Investigator (QI) meticulously pursues the genesis of the quote, and it concludes: “QI would tentatively credit Alanis Obomsawin with the saying. Also, the characterization ‘Native American saying’ seems accurate in the sense that the two earliest known users of the statement were Native Americans. Yet, the phrase seems to have been crafted in relatively modern times, and thus does not have the deep historical resonance provided by age. Perhaps someone could ask Obomsawin about the expression” (Quote Investigator). See the end of my essay for a response to the smart suggestion to “ask” the Native Americans about their ecological attitudes and knowledge.

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ist’ are modern Western inventions arising from the capitalist world’s rather late, and still not fully realized, insight that something will have to be done about the environment if the next generations are to survive. Not being scientists or modern conservationist professionals, Indians— so the argument goes—cannot be regarded as ‘ecological’. One should assume that no book-length study is needed to prove such a self-confirming thesis. Indians have traditionally been no ecologists in this narrow sense; neither has anyone else. Ecological thought as described by Krech only became scientifically relevant (e.g. in the form of university departments, programs, and chairs) in the second half of the twentieth century. Having confirmed his thesis in the very act of posing it, Krech uses the rest of the book to debunk the popular image of Native Americans as environmentally aware people. Not only were they no ‘ecologists’ in the modern scientific sense, but quite the contrary, they practiced a destructive and ‘wasteful’ behavior toward nature. The chapter on the quasi-extermination of the bison is a good example for Krech’s overall thesis—that Native Americans were more or less massively involved in reducing, sometimes severely threatening the survival of, American fauna and flora.5 The chapter begins with Krech’s critique of the idealization of the cultural achievements of Native Americans voiced by the New York Times in response to the opening of the UNESCO world heritage site Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta in 1981. While Krech criticizes the site for popularizing a romanticized view of Native American lifestyle, it rather strikes me for its ideological ambivalence. HeadSmashed-In commemorates the ‘culture’ of America’s indigenous population. The Blackfoot tribe and its predecessors had been driving bison over this cliff over a period of more than 5,000 years in order to kill them and process their carcasses. No comparable site from other world areas has ever been chosen by any country as part of their cultural heritage. The killing of buffalo is exclusively associated with the ‘culture’ of 5

Due to its remarkable rhetorical ambivalence the critical reception of The Ecological Indian: Myth and History was quite mixed. For more on Krech’s rhetorical strategies and the critical reception of his book, see Schweninger 42-51. For a whole volume dedicated to discussing The Ecological Indian see Harkin and Lewis.

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Native Americans—as it is said in the Statement of Significance, it is an “outstanding illustration of subsistence hunting techniques” (“HeadSmashed-In” UNESCO). Blackfoot culture, and by extension the culture of other Plains tribes is, by the very act of choosing this particular site as an example of their cultural heritage, reduced to the mass slaughter of bison. The official UNESCO website argues for the uniqueness of this killing site whose “size . . . broadly outdistances analogous sites discovered in the 19th century in Europe, such as Solutré in France (slaughter of wild horses) or Vestonice in Czechoslovakia (slaughter of young mammoths)” (“Head-Smashed-In” UNESCO). Interestingly, though, the official websites of neither of the two mentioned places in Europe confirm that they contained prehistoric kill sites for megafauna; quite the contrary; the Wikipedia site for Solutré aggressively denies the existence of any mass slaughter of horses there, maintaining that this was based on the fantasy of a novelist, Adrien Arcelin, author of the first ‘prehistory’ novel (“Rock of Solutré”; “Adrien Arcelin”). The official website of Dolni Vestonice only records a sensational Paleolithic sculpture of a female figure similar to the Venus von Willendorf; no mammoth kill site (“Dolni Vestonice”).6 The Heritage site offers the technologically intricate slaughtering and processing of animals as a monument of civilizational progress. Given such unusual criteria for evaluating human ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’, one should expect the world heritage list to include similar cultural monuments to represent modern Western techniques of killing animals, but there is none. But we can open the pages of the muckraking writers of the late nineteenth century—the period when the recently accomplished bisoncide was still fresh in human memory—to find descriptions of the Chicago stockyards. In The Jungle (1906), for example, Upton Sinclair evokes them with the “smoke pouring from the chimneys, darkening the air above and making filthy the earth beneath,” with their “elemental odor, raw and crude,” and especially the sound:

6

These references to European sites have apparently purely strategic reasons: a global relevance has to be established in order to obtain the UNESCO status as “world heritage.”

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a sound made up of ten thousand little sounds. You scarcely noticed it at first—it sunk into your consciousness. A vague disturbance, a trouble. It was like the murmuring of the bees in the spring, the whisperings of the forest; it suggested endless activity, the rumblings of a world in motion. It was only by an effort that one could realize that it was made by animals, that it was the distant lowing of ten thousand cattle, the distant grunting of ten thousand swine (65-66).

The mass-slaughter techniques performed in the Chicago stockyards (fig. 1) were relatively new at Sinclair’s time, and the novelty is reflected in the imagery of the passage—which shifts between redeeming pastoralism (“bees in the spring”; “whispering of the forest”) and the acknowledgement of the dynamism of modernization (“rumblings of a world in motion”). But nowhere do we find praise of the cultural perfection of the fact that “steerly” cattle fed with “whiskey-malt” developed boils on their skin which would burst open and splash the workers’ faces with foul-smelling pus as the animals were killed (132).

Fig. 1: “A Busy Morning in the Great Union Stockyards in Chicago.” Robert N. Dennis Collection of stereoscopic views (1890s). New York Public Library/ Wikimedia Commons

Head-Smashed-In, with its “deep layers of bison bones” (“HeadSmashed-In” UNESCO) is comparatively clean and odor-free. But as John Dorst remarks, the Canadian heritage site does not lack a “certain titillating violation of popular sensibilities” (179). While Sinclair uses his novel to attack the inhuman treatment of the stockyard workers whose condition, he writes, “was moral, spiritual, and physical degradation, a ‘jungle’ in which humans lived barely above the level of animals” (quoted in Phelps 5), human attitudes toward animals have changed

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since then. As Dorst writes in his comment on Head-Smashed-In, the causing of injuries to animals by forcing them to run over a cliff into a terrible death would affect modern sensibilities toward animals (179). To modern minds, which have grown unacquainted to the sight of butchered cows and pigs and many of which hold tender feelings for our fellow creatures and their suffering in modern stables and stockyards, the bone pile at Head-Smashed-In may cause quite different associations than ‘cultural’ elation—namely, associations of human massacres and mass graves. But even without going to such extremes, the site remains an odd choice for demonstrating Native Americans’ cultural performance; it reinforces an earlier myth of Native American savagism rather than causing admiration for the native art of killing.7 All of this is not to say that the site did not offer evidence of real “cultural” aspects of indigenous life: the Information Guide for HeadSmashed-In mentions in passing that “archaeologists have also studied sites above the cliffs. There are petroglyph, or rock carving areas, and vision quest sites where braves would go to commune with the spirits.” But it adds: “These sites are not open to the public” (“Head-SmashedIn” Guide 6). The conspicuous absence of the petroglyphs from the display of Native American culture calls attention to the selectivity of the choice. The representation of Native American culture in Head-Smashed-In, then, is much more ambivalent than Krech concedes. The hermeneutic openness of the site is perhaps the reason why he chooses it as an overture for his chapter in which he sets out to prove that Indians were at least as wasteful as whites—‘waste’ being one thing absolutely to be avoided by true conservationists (25). To support this claim he presents 7

The “cultural” significance of the site is limited to its enabling function: it enables people to “pursue artistic and spiritual interests” and it provides them with the necessary subsistence security to allow them to develop a certain “cultural complexity.” But just what that cultural complexity consists of is not represented by the site. The site itself, we may think, is of limited, if any, “cultural” significance—just as a slaughterhouse or any other Western technique for killing animals would not be considered a “cultural” achievement. There is an ideological subtext to this choice of the killing site as a representative for Indian culture, and that has to do with traditional colonial views of Native Americans, especially Plains tribes, as savage hunters and nomads.

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a series of (uncontextualized, unverified) quotations from white observers, some of which contain gruesome accounts of how Indians hunted, killed, and consumed buffalo (130-33). Employing admittedly “crude” speculative calculations about the possible longue durée development of bison numbers he merely regards the opening of “new markets” both domestic and abroad as the last act in a continuous process towards the “ultimate . . . doom” of the buffalo (135-38).8 The “final stage” includes rising demands of the leather industry and the use of buffalo leather in “belting for machinery” (139, 141), but according to his calculations the bison would have been exterminated even without capitalist intervention due to native improvidence and preference for calves and cows, as well as various environmental factors like droughts and food competition between bison and horses. Krech utilizes the research of William Hornaday, a direct witness of the bisoncide, who in The Extermination of the American Bison (1887) reported on the destruction of the last bison herds by white hide hunters but also includes quotations by Catlin and others who describe Native American bison hunts. Hornaday, who was infatuated with America’s fauna but not a strong critic of the genocidal warfare going on, seeks to identify the “improvidence” and “wastefulness” of the native lifestyle as reasons for the decline of Native American tribes due to starvation after the buffalo were killed off (Krech 127; Hornaday 527). Yet Hornaday is also the main source for information about the systematic slaughter of the American bison in the second half of the nineteenth century. Working on the basis of contemporary military reports and sales statistics, he documents that between 1872 and 1874 about 1,5 million buffalo hides were shipped east by railway and other means; he estimates the number of buffalo “killed and wasted” at 1,780,481, and he estimates the total number of bison “slaughtered by whites” in that period at 3,158,730 (499; emphasis added). ‘Ecological’ historians like Krech employ various rhetorical means in trying to disprove the view that it was the greed of the capitalist market that caused the quasi-extinction of the bison and that Native American tribes, being themselves confronted with displacement, starvation 8

For a non-partisan summary of this argument by environmental historians such as Flores and Isenberg, which also includes historical testimony from the Native American perspective, see Zontek 19-24.

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and cultural deracination, had no choice but to collaborate with the new system. The revisionists clearly reject the notion that Indians were “corrupted by an irresistible and insatiable European-American marketplace.” Rather, “[a]ssigning blame to market forces has been a popular pastime for decades” (Krech 142). Instead of answering his question of whether the Indians had been “corrupted” by market forces, Krech employs two major rhetorical devices to dismiss this historical-critical interpretation: selective use of documentation and speculative narrative. While non-Indian sources are quoted abundantly—especially their descriptions of the bloody side of the hunt—indigenous sources are limited to a minimum. Unlike Zontek, for example, Krech avoids giving direct quotes from Native American sources or quotes included in American texts; he rather offers an anthropologist’s summary of indigenous beliefs relevant to bison, such as the belief that no member of a hunted herd should be spared because it could warn other buffalo, and the belief among some tribes that the buffalo would autochtonously reemerge from caves or a lake every spring, allowing for the conclusion that their numbers would never dwindle (146-9). He argues that the mythical superstructure of the Plains tribes did contribute to their irrational engagement in the slaughter: Plains Indian ecological spaces would not be within the parameters of a Western ecologist’s ecosystem. It is easy to see how a belief of this nature would not encourage conservation of management of a declining resource under conditions like those obtaining increasingly on the nineteenth-century Plains. (149)

The quote suggests that Indians were unable to read the signs before their eyes. While admitting the “incomplete and fragmentary nature of historical evidence” (149), Krech does not resist the temptation of sweeping and ahistorical generalizations (who believed when and where that buffalo emerged from caves and lakes?). Together with the repeated reminder of the unecological and un-ecosystemic mindset of nineteenthcentury Plains Indians, passages such as this betray the underlying ideological agenda of this revisionary tale. It is a tale of waste, supported by reference to more archaeological sites where native hunters drove a herd of bison—including “juveniles”—over a cliff some 8,000 years ago (144). The tale is supported by the fact that Indian sources do not mention their own wastefulness of the hunt (144). The wastefulness of the

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capitalistically inspired hunt, on the other side, gets lost over the drama of deep historical indigenous bisoncide.9 A note on ‘waste’ may be in place here. One of the achievements of modern industrial-capitalist society is doubtless its capacity of abstraction—of keeping hidden those elements of meat production that might touch the “hearts” and the “stomachs” of consumers (Sinclair’s famous distinction).10 Regardless of its possible impact on our hearts and stomachs, however, modern industrial meat production is very effective with a view to waste. While the most palatable pieces of meat end up neatly packaged and aestheticized in supermarket shelves (with added color or 9

10

Both Head-Smashed-In and the revisionist discourse strongly appeal to the senses—both aesthetic and moral—of modern, ecologically sensitized readers/visitors, confronting them with historical material testifying to politically incorrect violence against animals—yet without contextualizing this evidence by comparing it to historical and present-day non-Indian violence against animals. Descriptions of blood and gore (Indians smearing their faces with the warm blood of freshly killed or even not-yet-quite-dead buffalo) are likely to hit both our hearts and stomachs. But these descriptions in particular hit a cultural field filled with a vast amount of ‘dinkyfied’ representations of endangered charismatic megafauna, whether Ice Age mammoths or contemporary bison and polar bears. This includes very successful movies on Pleistocene fauna such as Ice Age and it is reflected in the fact that the pantheon of toy plush animals for children contains at least ten different bison and twenty different kinds of mammoth, including whole families, e.g. by the Swiss mountaineering brand Mammut; as well as Heunec, Erich Bohl, Sunny Toys, Carl Dick, Steiff (both a brown adult mammoth and a white baby mammoth); and “Wild Republic 10964 Cuddlekins” by the British National History Museum which invitingly appeals to the mammoth’s future foster parents to “[k]eep warm in the Ice Age by snuggling up to this soft mammoth for a fully woolly experience. This fluffy plush toy perfectly captures the strength and character of the woolly mammoth with soft thick fur, a powerful trunk and ticklish tusks.” See more at the online shop of the British National History Museum. Sinclair was motivated to write The Jungle by his desire to hit the “hearts” of his readers to commiserate with the immigrant laborers suffering from terrible living conditions. However, he had to accept that he instead succeeded in hitting his readers’ “stomachs.” His book even effected new legislation to regulate meat production.

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oxygen to make them retain their fresh color), the waste—fat, skin, pulverized hooves, horns, bones, beaks, and entrails not fit for human consumption –, rather than being thrown away to create a gigantic waste or fertilizer pile, end up themselves neatly packaged: ground to an unidentifiable paste and filled into cans and sacks of dried food for our pets, together with all kinds of waste products from the agroindustry which these pets find hard to ‘stomach’. The system of late capitalism has indeed devised ways to transform the inedible waste from one group of domesticized animals to feed (and cause health hazards for) another group. The veterinary science that should critically reflect on this process is for the most part financially dependent on the corporations that own the majority of pet food companies.11 Empirical evidence is in fact incontrovertible in the case of the bison slaughter of the late nineteenth century. As economic historian Scott Taylor shows, the killing of c. 6 million buffalo between c. 1870 and 1890 can be traced to a series of factors, but they are all related to the impact of the capitalist market. Chief among them were the completion of the transcontinental railway that brought hunters into the West and transported buffalo hides eastward, and especially the demand for buffalo hides in Europe. The beginning of the slaughter (a term Taylor uses) can be traced almost precisely to a new method in Europe (in the UK and in Germany) of turning the thick buffalo hide into patent leather. The demand for hides exploded while the American government was incapable of—and in part unwilling to—regulate the killing of the buffalo. After all the decimation of the bison was also strategically helpful in 11

Lonsdale, “Junk Petfood”. See also Grimm and Klawitter. It is no secret that pet food contains ingredients the pets cannot adequately digest—next to sugars that cause obesity and diabetes, convenience pet food contains gluten products and indigestible pork (in cat food). Meanwhile veterinary medicine trains pet owners to adjust to the fact that their animals will develop certain diseases if they reach a certain age, such as diseases of the lower urinary tract (FLUTD) (Lonsdale, “Petfood” 35). The pet food industry reacts by offering special diets for such conditions containing more of the same unhealthy stuff. But in addition to this, much industrially produced food is being thrown away: Tristram Stuart shows how producers and consumers of food in affluent societies destroy up to half the food while the citizens of developing countries are often unable to cope with Western market forces.

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bringing about the demise of the Plains Indians—there is abundant textual evidence for such ideas. While for Taylor, Native American hunting activity is no significant part of the equation and his research shows that within about a dozen years (1871-83) 6 million hides were exported to Europe (3), he—being an economic historian—leaves out descriptions of the actual scenario. Here is the witness William Hornaday’s assessment of the situation: During the years 1871 and 1872 the most wanton wastefulness prevailed. Colonel Dodge declares that, though hundreds of thousands of skins were sent to market, they scarcely indicated the extent of the slaughter. Through want of skill in shooting and want of knowledge in preserving the hides of those slain by green hunters, one hide sent to market represented three, four, or even five dead buffalo. The skinners and curers knew so little of the proper mode of curing hides, that at least half of those actually taken were lost. In the summer and fall of 1872 one hide sent to market represented at least three dead buffalo. This condition of affairs rapidly improved; but such was the furor for slaughter, and the ignorance of all concerned, that every hide sent to market in 1871 represented no less than five dead buffalo. (494-95; emphasis added)12

With regard to graphic descriptions of the situation in the killing fields themselves, the historical record is apparently more explicit about the bloody deeds of Native Americans than those of white hunters. Even photographs are more adequate for transporting a sense of the magnitude of the action than giving a sense of animal suffering—though images of skinned individuals and skulls exist (Figures 2 and 3). Even a skilled writer like Williams can only offer an approximate idea of the scene: Gradually the herd was worn down. Everywhere he looked Andrews saw the ground littered with naked corpses of buffalo, which sent up a rancid stench to which he had become so used that he hardly was aware of it; and the remaining herd wandered placidly among the ruins of their fel12

Without wanting to join the tedious numbers game engaged in by the revisionist historians, it is tempting to combine the numbers given by Taylor and Hornaday: we would arrive at about 24 million bison killed by mostly white hunters in twelve years for the hide and leather market. Krech and Flores offer the total number of 30 million bison in 1500 (Krech 126, 136).

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Fig. 2: Harper’s Weekly, “Slaughtered for the Hide” (December 12, 1874, p. 1022)

Fig. 3: “Pile of American Bison Skulls Waiting to be Ground for Fertilizer” (Unknown, 1870s)

13

The latent criticism of the passage is contained in the choice of the anthropomorphist term “corpse” instead of “cadaver” or “carcass.” “Ruin” is the other extravagant metaphor, tapping the semantic field of the burgeoning heritage culture. For a similar use of “ruin,” see Stoler, Introduction.

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Pleistocene Progenitors It is one of the privileges of the colonial power that it also widely controls the genres and media of historical representation. Such privileges pay handsome dividends in colonial cases of epistemic contest. Indeed, narrative is the main rhetorical weapon of the revisionist scholars. The anthropological narrative of the indigenous bisoncide has an archaeological progenitor. It reiterates an argument made since 1967 by an archaeologist from Arizona, Paul S. Martin, and a growing discipleship, that the first Americans, just after having arrived in North America between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago,14 began to exterminate America’s ‘charismatic megafauna’. The thesis is referred to as the Pleistocene overkill. Martin (and Jared Diamond, who sides with Martin and speaks of the “Blitzkrieg” against the mammoth) are experts at theoretically calculating—due to lack of concrete evidence—the increasing numbers of Indians and decreasing numbers of mammoth, the speed with which Indians multiplied and animals were decimated, and the incalculable ecological loss perpetrated by America’s first nomadic inhabitants. As the World War metaphor implies, they narrativize the prehistoric event as a mass slaughter carried out at the speed of lightening by hunters overrunning the continent within a few hundred years while leaving hardly a trace. Besides this well-established narrative of savagism, Martin, Diamond and their followers can produce little evidence to support their case. They refer to fourteen sites where the bones of mammoth and mastodon were discovered in conjunction with Clovis culture hunting implements.15 The absence of evidence is proof of the event having taken place in this or similar form. Their thesis, in spite of having been refuted by other scholars, has entered popular scientific discourse. Shepard Krech doubts the conclusiveness of the evidence for the Pleistocene overkill and refers to climatic factors as reasons for the extinction of the mammoth and mastodon (40). Yet, the fact that he nevertheless includes

14 15

Their argument depends on this arrival date. Other archaeologists give much earlier dates—20,000 to 30,000 years ago. These sites are regarded as insufficient proof for the overkill thesis by other scholars like Grayson and Meltzer.

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a chapter on the Ice Age extinctions in his book on the ecological sins of Native Americans is rhetorically elucidating. If evidence is lacking, the shaping of popular opinion can fully rely on the power of narrative (and visualization). In fact, the weaker the empirical evidence, the greater is the freedom of narrative, especially if that narrative can activate preexisting forms of knowledge and established beliefs. The stories about Indian overkill and Indian wastefulness can rely on the earlier narrative of Indian nomadic savagism transported throughout popular culture since the early times of American colonialism. This savagist story forms the mythical counterpart of the narrative of the ‘ecological’ Indian (and makes strange bedfellows with it in the case of Head-Smashed-In’s hermeneutic ambivalence). The myth of Indian savagism was competently analyzed and deconstructed in the 1960s by Roy Harvey Pearce and many scholars after him (e.g. Slotkin; Rogin; Drinnon).16 Pearce also understood that the myth of savagism included a performative aspect, such as depriving Native Americans of any legal claims to the land that were solved by the US Supreme Court in the 1820s and 1830s, causing domestic and international controversy. Savagism teaches that Indians were nomads—in the words of the Jacksonian James Hall, writing in 1835, a “wandering horde” with no sense of property (Pearce 72).17 As we know, Jacksonian politics enacted its 16

17

The publication history of Pearce’s book is interesting in itself (see his Postscript in the 1988 edition). While he explicitly set out to study savagism as an ideology, or in his own words, “stages in the history of an idea as it becomes part of a system of thought and action” (xviii), Johns Hopkins UP forced him to change the title to The Savages of America, which of course completely contradicts Pearce’s thesis. Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of War Lewis Cass, writing in 1830, also helped popularize the image of the Indian as nomad, although it cannot have escaped his attention that all the tribes about to be removed to areas beyond the Mississippi did practice advanced forms of agriculture. Yet he claims: “[t]he new race of men, who landed upon these shores, found that their predecessors had affixed few distinctive marks of property in the forests where they roamed” and that “[l]ike the bear, and deer, and buffalo of his own forests, an Indian lives as his father lived, and dies as his father died. . . . His life passes away in a succession of listless indolence.” Therefore, the Indian “is perhaps destined to disappear with the forests” (372-73).

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ideology by sending the tribes (most of whom were skilled farmers) on one of the most gigantic forced migrations in world history. The power of naturalizing mythical stories is to render such contradictions between moral claim and social fact invisible, to employ narrative for smoothing over ambivalence and to imaginatively solve contradictions between social reality and desire. In this regard, the Alberta UNESCO site is a good example because it succeeds in appealing to both sides—praising Indians for their ‘cultural’ skills in the art of killing (and allowing them some additional space in the visitor’s center for portraying a few more skills) and propagating the neo-savagist myth. To be sure, both claims—the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis as well as the thesis of indigenously caused bisoncide—have been seriously contested by other scholars who have likewise provided ample evidence, even on the basis of white colonial sources, of Native Americans’ strong emotional and epistemological relations to their natural environment— animals, plants, landscapes.18 Ken Zontek shows how even at the climax of the American genocidal war against the Plains Indians, individual Native American families—Lakota, Salish—read the signs of the times and started breeding little bison herds; a large amount of the gene pool of today’s bison population can be traced back to the herds of these “bison saviors” at the turn of the twentieth century (34). Yet the myth of the unecological Indian, as I propose to call it, keeps being popularized and repeated. In the contemporary conservative scientific mythology relating to the long-term native American presence in America, it joins forces, and some of the personnel, with an archaeological discourse surrounding a find that has been severely embattled since its discovery in 1996: Kennewick Man, whom the local tribes call “the Ancient One.” After the initial scientific analysis of the skeleton discovered on the banks of the Columbia River near the town Kennewick in Washington State, archaeologist James Chatters declared the 9,000-yearold skeleton to have a ‘Caucasian’ skull. This news had such strong 18

In the words of one of Krech’s critics, Harvey Feit, Krech’s book, “by consistently privileging European over Native knowledge and explanations contributes to . . . the creation of an oversimplified counter-stereotype with serious political ramifications” (Harkin and Lewis xxvi). For critical responses to the Pleistocene overkill thesis, see my essay “Night of First Ages” as well as Grayson and Meltzer.

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political implications that the Clinton government required an explanation from Stanford University’s Dean of Research (Wilcox 121). Meanwhile the scientists, who had only limited access to the bones because they were kept under protection by the US Government in execution of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990, had to give up their Caucasoid interpretation and in 2014 Douglas Owsley and Richard Jantz published a 700 page volume in which they, first, tell the exciting story of how Kennewick Man was discovered and of all the cultural battles since the discovery, and, second, they reconstruct the story of the ancient man himself on the basis of the archaeological evidence. They now promote a South Asian origin and the skull has been reconstructed with the help of 100-year-old photos of Japanese Ainu (the ‘indigenous’ population of Japan). The intention is clearly to contradict the Bering Strait thesis and to suggest an ancient migration by people not genetically related to today’s Native Americans. In addition to this somewhat manipulated evidence (the photo of an Ainu to inspire the facial reconstruction), Douglas Preston, popular author of archaeological crime and horror novels, wrote a long private story about the archaeologists, their find, and their book for the website of the Smithsonian Institution to popularize their ideas. The link with the Ainu is exclusively based on craniological evidence and on wishful thinking. The one thing that the scientists involved in the case were never ready to concede has now, in June 2015, been resolved by the Danish expert in Ancient DNA, Eske Willerslev of Copenhagen University: according to this non-partisan scholar, the DNA of Kennewick Man is indeed most closely related to the genetic material that had been provided to Willerslev by members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington State. They had visited Willerslev in his Danish lab and decided to provide their DNA in spite of their strong distrust of the scientists’ attitude toward the skeleton. As Willerslev explains, “[t]he results don’t prove that the Colville are directly descended from Kennewick Man, but they do show a strong connection […] There’s no doubt that the Colville are more closely related to Kennewick Man than are other Native American groups” whose DNA was at his disposal (Doughton, “What’s Next”; see also Preston; Holzhaider 38-39; Doughton, “First DNA”). One of the scientists involved with the theory that Kennewick Man was no relative of today’s Native Americans is Dennis Stanford, a for-

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mer chairman at the Smithsonian’s archaeology department. He propagates another trans-oceanic ancient migration theory. Based on an atypical spearhead found off the coast of Chesapeake Bay and on a lot of geographical speculation, he suggests that America’s first inhabitants did not come across the Bering Strait but from Europe: the spearhead, he claims, showed strong similarities with spearheads discovered in Southern France and Spain and may have belonged to the Solutrean culture (Stanford and Bradley).19 The rest is narrative, effectively popularized on websites and in documentaries.20 The Uses of the Myths of the Ecological and Unecological Indian Viewed in conjunction with the heated debate about the ethnic identity of Kennewick Man in the field of speculative archaeology, the neosavagist myth of the unecological Indian has two possible effects: first, it absolves us from any longer attempting to adhere to the Kyoto protocol or exchange the dependency on fossil fuels for more sustainable ways of producing energy, or indeed from saving energy, because it teaches us that, as Vine Deloria states, “at no time were human beings careful of the lands upon which they lived” (97). In other words, in the minds of politically conservative people, Americans will not have to worry any longer about Keystone XL and similar unecological projects because there is no historical antecedent for an ecologically responsible economy. Secondly, and more importantly, it rhetorically disconnects 19

20

The name is derived from the cliff of Solutré (France), the site where archaeologists found animal bones and then named a whole stone age culture after this place. The theory is that the “Solutreans” taught the Clovis people how to make spearheads. Maybe they also showed the ancestors of the Blackfeet how to throw bison over the cliff? The essential popular message is that “Stone-age Europeans were the first to set foot on North America, beating American Indians by some 10,000 years, new archaeological evidence suggests” (Stone Age Columbus, BBC Discovery Channel, 2002, cover). See also the documentaries Ice Age Columbus (German version Die Eroberer der Neuen Welt); dir. Nicolas Brown, BBC Discovery Channel, 2005; Solutreans, the First Americans (YouTube 2009), and Solutreans are Indigenous Americans (YouTube 2012).

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present day Native Americans from the land by depriving them of their claim of special stewardship. The denial of the ecology status diminishes the reputation of Native Americans in popular discourse, with possible effects on legislation and court decisions in which their intimate relatedness to the land plays an important part. The myth of the unecological Indian is, in Deloria’s words, “symptomatic of a lack of moral fiber and ethical concern for the Earth among Indians” (97). As Lee Schweninger correctly writes, this may have serious legal consequences because it entails the denial of the core of Native American religious beliefs, which strongly rest on the notion of the sacredness of the land (163). The mythical construction of the unecological Indian is therefore congenial with attempts in speculative archaeology to deny a continuity of lineage with the first settlers—a denial that can be traced back to the earliest theories about the Anazasi being ethnically and culturally unrelated to modern Native Americans. The denial of Native Americans’ special feeling of responsibility for the environment is ideologically related to denying the antiquity of their presence in America. Such anthropological and archaeological theories spring from a continuing colonial competition over ancestry, antiquity, and, ultimately, legitimacy. The indigenous struggle for political recognition is fundamentally carried out on a legal basis—on the basis of treaties and constitutional rights. But if their claims as to the cultural centrality of the sacredness of the land are weakened because of new ‘scientific’ evidence of their ecological incompetence and even destructiveness, this may have serious consequences for the future of both Indian claims for territorial and political sovereignty and the struggle for a more ecological policy in North America. In assessing the significance of ecological arguments in courtrooms, Native American scholar Darren Ranco (Penobscot) refers to Marshall Sahlins’s understanding of how indigenous agents use the cultural images of the dominant culture to fight for legal recognition (36). This is not to say that claims to ecological cosmologies and religious beliefs are merely a case of postcolonial mimicry—a form of what Spivak would call “strategic essentialism.” The claims have a strong empirical foundation. As the study of specific court cases shows, for example the case Lyng vs. Northwestern Indian Cemetery Protective Association (1980s), epistemological legitimacy is often the result of ecological credibility in the “courts of the conquerors” (Echo-Hawk 2008, quoting John Marshall 1823). And that credibility is meticulously

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tested by the concerned courts. Especially where no treaties exist, Indians have to prove their special emotional relationship to the land in question in order to obtain recognition (Echo-Hawk 46). But ultimately, the colonizer and the epistemological system he maintains define what counts as authentic evidence and what counts as sacred.21 The diverse interpretations of Kennewick Man and inventions of Ice Age migrations show how the scientific ‘truth’ can change within a short span of not even twenty years. The colonized have to play along and, if necessary, use the colonizer’s own cultural inventions, such as the myth of the ecological Indian, to fight for their interests.22 But as Ranco correctly sees, the claim of the myth-bashing anthropologists that the ecological Indian is a distortion of Indian ‘culture’ ignores the fact that that myth is culture—because it has been made so—‘invented’ according to Edmundo O’Gorman—by the colonizers themselves. The myth of the ecological Indian is “intimately a part of the culture of recognition and justice in which contemporary Indians exist” (49). Just like its counter-myth, it is also part of what Mignolo calls the coloniality of knowledge—of the discursive construction of truth under the conditions of coloniality. Modern knowledge, Mignolo argues, is “epistemically imperial”; it “devalues and dismisses epistemic differences” (205). Conclusions The myth of the ecological Indian is an invention of the colonial contact zone, emerging from the conflicted ideological field of colonial societies. At times of deepest despair, deracination, and poverty, it helped to retrospectively provide Native Americans with a nostalgic sense of an ideal past as well as with a pan-tribal collective identity. Since the 1960s and the revitalization of Native American cultural identities in the con21

22

See the conflict over the sacred site Bear Butte in South Dakota, claimed as a religious center by various Plains tribes but without any legal consequences in the American courts. The judges in this case ruled that land simply cannot be sacred (Brown ch. 4). Krech is explicit about these facts in his last chapter; in fact, his book was written at a time when some indigenous claims were confirmed by US courts in the 1990s.

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text of the civil rights movement, it has functioned prospectively, for both natives and non-natives, in producing awareness for the destruction of our natural environment. Its cultural work was to raise consciousness and to empower initiatives critical of the disastrous environmental consequences of capitalist economy. The myth of the unecological Indian, which can likewise be traced to colonial roots but reemerged in the guise of scholarship in the 1990s, seeks to undo these political successes in the name of scientific truth. Its cultural work is much less easy to grasp than that of the ‘ecology’ myth. Rather than regarding the ecology myth and the savagist myth as manifestations of ideological strife in deeply divided colonial conflict zones, the revisionist discourse critiqued here promotes a return to an ‘anthropological’, i.e. ultimately ahistorical, view of that complex colonial process which changed all concerned cultures forever. It tends to homogenize native cultures and it offers cultural essentialisms instead of historical-critical analysis. The Euro-American sources it uses were the direct products—perhaps even engines—of hostile colonial encounters. It grants no equivalent right to narrative to the indigenous side. The myth of the unecological Indian is built on, first, a rhetorically productive ignorance of historical and social processes like territorial displacement, cultural deracination, and physical genocide, combined with downplaying of the commercial pressures of a ravenous capitalist market—from bison hides in the late nineteenth century to tar sands today. The economic challenge continues in our own times as indigenous communities are again and again confronted with bad choices: either collaborating in the industrial complex at the cost of the environment and traditional livelihoods or sparing the environment at the cost of social security, education, and wellbeing. The responsibility for having to make such difficult choices, which continue to disrupt the social cohesion of many tribes, lies with the economic system imposed on them; it is not a manifestation of their ‘nature’ or ‘culture’. It is a historical problem, not an anthropological one. Secondly, the myth relies for its conclusiveness on the marginalization of the surviving knowledge archive of indigenous societies. It performs a form of cultural monologue or ventriloquism—a ‘speaking about’ instead of a ‘speaking with’. We may wonder who or what is empowered by such theories. Next to being able to identify a myth when we encounter one it is important to recognize the aspect of its cultural work: Which political

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and economic forces benefit from it? And which of the two myths—the ‘green’ myth of the ecological Indian and the ‘savagist’ myth of the unecological Indian—has proven more beneficial to humans and the environment (preservation of fauna and flora habitats, biodiversity, toxic-free existence)? Native American philosopher John Mohawk offers an answer. He concludes his review of The Ecological Indian by saying: “It will be difficult for many to understand the harm that Krech finds in an American-generated myth of an ecological Indian as a symbol of a kinder, gentler approach to nature. As with many myths, this one is likely rooted in facts, most of which are not even hinted at in this book.” The special legal status deriving from treaties and culturally supported by the knowledge that Indians entertain a special relation to the earth and its non-human creatures—a relation which parts of modern society began to salvage and re-discover, against the forces of the ruling rationalism, concurrent with the colonial encounter—is one of the best moral protections of the environment that all of us have. Now, if it is ultimately all about stories anyway, I would like to end this essay by tapping the cultural archive of Native American oral tradition, which has been treated with much contempt by rationalistic Western science. As I hope to have shown, science is sometimes itself ruled by strong political passions that take the form of more or less fanciful stories. Indigenous stories, whether oral traditions or modern fictional texts, testify to an intimate knowledge of natural processes, a close relationship between humans and the rest of creation, and a strong sense for the need of ecological equity—whatever that means in each single case. The debate, so far carried out almost exclusively on the basis of European knowledge and texts, would certainly benefit from a more visible inclusion of the indigenous oral archive and modern Native American literature as some of the most reliable expressions of Native American epistemologies. The belief among some Plains tribes that the bison originated in the interior of the earth, which Krech uses to their disadvantage, is by far not the only surviving bison story. Other stories transport a much more differentiated view of the human-bison relationship among the different tribes—stories that interpret catastrophes as the consequence of peoples’ mistreatment of animals, for example. The stories of the Plains Indians powerfully demonstrate the dependency on the bison but also a complex sense of moral obligation toward these animals. There are stories that

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ritualistically enjoin the people not to feel compassion for the animals they eat; others in which the buffalo disappear after people have violated a moral code.23 The legend on the “Yellowstone Valley and the Great Flood,” presumably of Cheyenne origin, combines ecological education with memory of a natural catastrophe. It is also a geomyth relating to the Beartooth mountains in the Yellowstone area inhabited by the Cheyenne after their migration from areas east of the Missouri caused by European expansion. The story was collected by the non-Indian oral history expert Hap Gilliland sometime in the late 1960s.24 As so often in the case of oral tradition, the origin is somewhat obscure. Whatever its percentage of ‘authentic Native American’ material, the text is the product of a long process of transculturation, documented by an agent of transculturation who spent his life collecting Native legends and stories and teaching them to both Native and non-Native groups.25 Gilliland notes that he learned the story from an “old-looking Indian” whom he incidentally met in a cafe shortly before a powwow near Lame Deer, Montana. Gilliland guessed that the man was Cheyenne, but none of his other interlocutors—Cheyenne and Crow—had ever heard of the story. The old man tells the story in response to Gilliland’s remark on the strong rainfalls. The memory of the story is called forth associatively when the old man says, “‘It looks like we need a white buffalo hide, like they had during the big flood’” (41-42). Asked what the white buffalo hide had to do with a big flood, the old man tells the story:26 Ma-heo-o, the Great Spirit, smiled on this land when he made it. There were mountains and plains, forests and grasslands. There were animals of many kinds. Ma-heo-o told the people, ‘These animals are your

23 24 25 26

My knowledge is based on the stories included in Stands in Timber and Grinnell. I derive the date from internal evidence in the text. On my use of Ortiz’s concept of transculturation, see the introduction of Jobs and Mackenthun, ed., Agents of Transculturation. The frame of the online version differs somewhat from that of the printed text (Gilliland; Clark and Edmonds). But the story is the same.

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brothers. Share the land with them. They will give you food and clothing. Live with them and protect them. ‘Protect especially the buffalo, for the buffalo will give you food and shelter. The hide of the buffalo will keep you from the cold, from the heat, and from the rain. As long as you have the buffalo, you will never need to suffer.’ For many winters, the people lived at peace with the animals and with the land. When they killed a buffalo, they thanked the spirit of the buffalo, and they used every part of the buffalo. It took care of every need. Then other people came. They did not think of the animals as brothers. They killed even when they did not need food. They burned and cut the forests, and the animals died. They shot the buffalo and called it sport. They killed the fish in the streams. Then the Great Spirit looked down, and he was sad. He let the smoke of the fires lie in the valleys. The people coughed and choked. But still they burned and killed. So the Great Spirit sent rains to put out the fires and to get rid of the people who were destroying the land. The rains fell, like they’re falling today, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded valleys to the higher land. Spotted Bear, the medicine man, gathered together his people. He spoke to them, ‘The Great Spirit has told us that as long as we have the buffalo, we will be safe from heat and cold and rain. But there are no longer any buffalo. Unless we can find buffalo and live at peace with nature, we will all die.’ Still the rains fell, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded plains to the hills. The young men went out and hunted for the buffalo. As they went, they planted trees where the forests had been cut. They made friends with the animals once more. They cleaned out the streams. Still the rains fell and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded hills to the mountains. Two young men came to Spotted Bear. ‘We have found the buffalo,’ they said. ‘There was a cow, a calf, and a great white bull. The cow and the calf climbed up to the safety of the mountains. They should be back when the rain stops. But the bank gave way, and the bull was swept away by the floodwaters. We followed and tried to get him to shore, but he drowned. We have brought you his hide.’ They unfolded a huge white buffalo skin. Spotted Bear took the white buffalo hide. ‘Many people have been drowned,’ he said. ‘Our food has been carried away. But our young people are no longer destroying the world that was created for them. They have found the white buffalo. It will save those who are left.’

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Gesa Mackenthun Still the rains fell, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded mountains to the highest peaks. Spotted Bear spread the white buffalo skin on the ground. He and the other medicine men scraped it and stretched it, and scraped it and stretched it. Still the rains fell. Like all rawhide, the buffalo skin stretched when it was wet. Spotted Bear stretched it out over the village. As the rains fell, the medicine man stretched the buffalo skin across the mountains. All the people who were left crowded under it. Each day, they stretched the hide farther. Then Spotted Bear tied one corner to the top of the Big Horn Mountains. The side he fastened to the Pryors. The next corner he tied to the Beartooth Mountains. Crossing the Yellowstone Valley, he tied one corner to the Crazy Mountains, and the other to Signal Butte in the Bull Mountains. The whole Yellowstone Valley was covered by the white Buffalo Skin. Though the rains still fell above, it did not fall in the Yellowstone Valley. The waters sank away. Animals from the outside moved into the valley, under the white buffalo skin. The people gladly shared the valley with them. Still the rains fell above the buffalo skin. The skin stretched more and began to sag. Spotted Bear stood on the Bridger Mountains and raised the west end of the buffalo skin to catch the West Wind. The West Wind rushed in and was caught under the buffalo skin. The wind lifted the skin until it formed a great dome over the whole valley. The Great Spirit saw that the people were now living at peace with the earth, with each other, and with the animals. He let the rains stop, and the sun shone once again. As the sun shone on the white buffalo skin, it gleamed with colors of red and yellow and blue. Then as the sun continued shining on the rawhide, it began to shrink. The ends of the dome shrank away until all that was left was one great arch across the valley.” The old man’s voice faded away; but his hands said “look,” and his arms moved towards the valley in front of us.

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The rain had stopped, and a rainbow arched across the valley. A buffalo calf and its mother grazed beneath it. (Gilliland 42-45)27

Works Cited “Adrien Arcelin.” Wikipedia: L’encyclopédie libre. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 1 May 2015. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. Avery, Samuel. The Pipeline and the Paradigm: Keystone XL, Tar Sands, and the Battle Defuse the Carbon Bomb. Washington: Ruka P, 2013. Print. Brown, Brian Edward. Religion, Law, and the Land. Native Americans and the Judicial Interpretation of Sacred Land. Westport: Greenwood P, 1999. Print. Cass, Lewis. “Remarks on the Policy and Practice of the United States in their Treatment of the Indians.” 1827. Concepts in American Cultural History from the Colonial Period to the End of the 19th Century. Eds. Bernd Engler and Oliver Scheiding. Trier: WVT, 2005. 370-74. Print. Clark, Ella, and Margot Edmonds. Voices from the Winds. 1989. New York: Castle Books, 2009. Print. Cruikshank, Julie. Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination. Vancouver: British Columbia UP, 2005. Print.

27

Whatever its real origins—the geographical markers and the reference to the “other people” betray a relatively late date in its present form—the story does contain elements reminiscent of the Cheyenne tradition about the culture hero Sweet Medicine who likewise performs miracles with buffalo hides by cutting and stretching them. In these cases, the people are saved from starvation because Sweet Medicine’s power makes the bison return. See Stands in Timber 29-30 and Grinnell 271-72. The figure of the white buffalo is a sacred symbol in the mythology of most Plains tribes, with many stories surrounding it. The story related here condenses elements from different periods and cultural directions. It may have been told in exactly this way. It may also have been invented by the experienced story collector Gilliland. What counts in my view is the fact that it has been appropriated as a ‘traditional Cheyenne legend/story’ by many Native American websites. It is now part of the indigenous story archive.

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Davenport, Coral. “Senate Fails to Override Obama’s Keystone Pipeline Veto.” New York Times 4 Mar. 2015. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. Deloria Jr., Vine. Red Earth—White Lies. Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact. Golden: Fulcrum, 1997. Print. Diamond, Jared. “The American Blitzkrieg: A Mammoth Undertaking.” Discover (1987) 82-88. Print. ---. “Blitzkrieg and Thanksgiving in the New World.” The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. Print. Dorst, John. “Watch For Falling Bison: The Buffalo Hunt as Museum Trope and Ecological Allegory.” Native Americans and the Environment. Perspectives on the Ecological Indian. Ed. Michael E. Harkin and David Rich Lewis. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2007. 173-91. Print. Doughton, Sandi. “First DNA Tests Say Kennewick Man was Native American.” The Seattle Times, 18 Jan. 2015. Web. Accessed 18 April 2015. ---. “What’s Next for Kennewick Man, now that DNA says he’s Native American?” Seattle Times, 18 June, 1915. Web. Accessed 19 June, 2015. Web. Drinnon, Richard. Facing West. The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and EmpireBuilding. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1980. Print. Echo-Hawk, Walter. In the Courts of the Conqueror: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided. Golden: Fulcrum, 2012. Print. Feit, Harvey A. “Myths of the Ecological Whitemen: Histories, Science, and Rights in North American-Native American Relations.” Native Americans and the Environment. Perspectives on the Ecological Indian. Ed. Michael E. Harkin and David Rich Lewis. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2007. 52-94. Print. Gilliland, Hap. The Great Flood. Billings, MT: Council of Indian Education, 2008. Print. Grayson, Donald K., and David J. Meltzer. “Clovis Hunting and Large Mammal Extinction: A Critical Review of the Evidence.” Journal of World Prehistory 16.4 (2002): 313-59. Print. Grimm, Hans-Ulrich. Katzen würden Mäuse kaufen: Schwarzbuch Tierfutter. München: Heyne, 2009. Print. Grinnell, George Bird, ed. By Cheyenne Campfires. 1926. Lincoln: Nebraska UP, 1962. Print. Grossman, Zoltan. “Unlikely Alliances.” Unsettling America: Decolonization in Theory and Practice. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.

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Harkin, Michael E., and David Rich Lewis, ed. Native Americans and the Environment. Perspectives on the Ecological Indian. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2007. Print. “Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.” Information Guide. Government of Alberta. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. “Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.” UNESCO. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. Hitchcock, Don. “Dolni Vestonice.” Don’s Maps. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. Holzhaider, Hans. “Der Mann, der über den Ozean kam.“ Süddeutsche Zeitung 28/29 Mar. 2015, 38-39. Print. Hornaday, William T. The Extermination of the American Bison. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889. Project Gutenberg. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. Jobs, Sebastian, and Gesa Mackenthun, ed. “Introduction.” Agents of Transculturation. Border-Crossers, Mediators, Go-Betweens. Münster: Waxmann, 2013. 7-22. Print. Kelly, Robert L., and Mary M. Prasciunas. “Did the Ancestors of Native Americans Cause Animal Extinctions in Late-Pleistocene North America? And Does It Matter If They Did?” Native Americans and the Environment. Perspectives on the Ecological Indian. Ed. Michael E. Harkin and David Rich Lewis. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2007. 95-122. Print. Klawitter, Nils. “Maskierter Müll.” Der Spiegel 26 July 2010: 66-68. Print. Krech III, Shepard. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. 1999. New York: Norton, 2000. Print. Lonsdale, Tom. “Junk Petfood and the Damage Done.” Nexus 14.6 (Oct./Nov. 2007): 31-35. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. ---. Raw Meaty Bones. Windsor: Rivetco, 2001. Print. Mackenthun, Gesa. “Night of First Ages: Deep Time and the Colonial Denial of Temporal Coevalness.” Crossroads in American Studies: Transnational and Biocultural Encounters. Ed. Frederike Offizier, Marc Priewe, and Ariane Schröder. Heidelberg: Winter, 2015. Print. Martin, Paul S. “Prehistoric Overkill.” Pleistocene Extinctions. Ed. Paul S. Martin and H.E. Wright. New Haven: Yale UP, 1967. 75-120. Print. Mignolo, Walter D. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke UP, 2011.

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Mohawk, John C. “Review of The Ecological Indian.” Digital Commons, U of Nebraska, 2001. Web. 28 Mar. 2015. O’Gorman, Edmundo. The Invention of America. 1958. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1961. Print. Ostler, Jeffrey. The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground. London: Penguin, 2011. Print. Owsley, Douglas W., and Richard L. Jantz, ed. Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of Ancient American Skeleton. Dallas: A&M UP, 2014. Print. Phelps, Christopher. “Introduction.” Upton Sinclair. The Jungle. 1906. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2005. 1-39. Print. Porter, Joy. Native American Environmentalism. Land, Spirit, and the Idea of Wilderness. 2012. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2014. Print. Preston, Douglas. “The Kennewick Man Finally Freed to Share His Secrets.” Smithsonian Magazine, Sept. 2014. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. Ranco, Darren J. “The Ecological Indian and the Politics of Representation. Critiquing the Ecological Indian in the Age of Ecocide.” Native Americans and the Environment. Perspectives on the Ecological Indian. Ed. Michael E. Harkin and David Rich Lewis. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2007. 32-51. Print. “Rock of Solutré.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. Rogin, Michael Paul. Fathers and Children. New York: Vintage, 1975. Print. Schweninger, Lee. Listening to the Land. Native American Literary Responses to the Landscape. Athens: U of Georgia Press, 2008. Print. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1906. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2005. Print. Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration Through Violence. Westport, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1973. Print. Stands in Timer, John. Cheyenne Memories. Ed. Margot Liberty. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1967. Print. Stanford, Dennis J, and Bruce A. Bradley. Across Atlantic Ice: The Origins of America’s Clovis Culture. Berkeley: U of California P, 2012. Print. Stoler, Ann Laura, ed. Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination. Durham: Duke UP, 2013. Print. Stuart, Tristram. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal. London: Penguin, 2009. Print. “When the Last Tree Is Cut Down.” Quote Investigator. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.

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White Plume, Debra, and Daryl Hannah. “Riding Together Against Keystone XL.” EcoWatch, 23 Apr. 2014. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. Wilcox, Michael. “Colonizing the Genome. DNA and the New Raciology in American Archaeology.” Entangled Knowledge: Scientific Discourse and Cultural Difference. Ed. Klaus Hock and Gesa Mackenthun. Münster: Waxmann, 2012. 115-29. Print. Zontek, Ken. Buffalo Nation: American Indian Efforts to Restore the Bison. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2007. Print.

LAURENZ VOLKMANN

Transcultural Learning and Ecodidactics: New Trends in Teaching English as a Foreign Language Toward Global Issues Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) has always been more than just conveying foreign language skills, specifically in the context of the German educational system. In the last decades, the rapidly evolving paradigm of intercultural communicative competence, propagated by the Common European Framework of Reference for Foreign Languages (2001), has favored a pragmatic approach to teaching foreign language ‘competences’ without seriously taking into account matters of content or educational goals. However, in German EFL research and state curricula the objective of ‘competence development’ in foreign language proficiency has still been linked to content-orientation and intercultural learning. There is a tendency to reach beyond time-honored practices of area studies, with their tradition of prioritizing ‘core’ target cultures and of conveying factual knowledge about their ‘Life & Institutions’ (Landeskunde; for a critique, see Teske). The new trends of global issues, global education, and transcultural learning all take two conditions of a globalizing world as their point of departure (see Volkmann, Fachdidaktik; Volkmann, “Transcultural”; Volkmann, “Abkehr”): (1) All social, cultural, economic, and ecological issues are increasingly interconnected and there is no such phenomenon as an isolated, merely local issue; (2) Globalization and hybridization affect all cultures, elements of culture, and all individuals. This is rooted in the insight that there are no pure, homogenous, unchanging elements of culture and that this influences the lives of all individuals and social groups (see, e.g. Welsch). These ‘transcultural’ tenets are reflected in Jürgen Einhoff’s

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remarks on the increasing significance of ‘global issues’ in the foreign language classroom: The demand for a transcultural form of education can be interpreted as an answer by didactics to the challenge of increased global interdependence. This has resulted in the concept of ‘one world’, i.e. the global village. The solution to these problems, that is global issues, is often sought within the borders of societies or cultures, as with environmental problems or genetic engineering. However, these problems are in need of being tackled in a transcultural response, one that takes into account the fundamental threats to our life on earth. If we want to prepare our students properly for the present and the future, global issues should no longer be excluded from foreign language classes. (Einhoff 9; my transl.)

Global learning denounces the idea of clearly definable ‘target cultures’ of EFL and takes on a decidedly transcultural perspective. Its goal is “to enable learners to effectively acquire a foreign or second language while empowering them with the knowledge, skills and commitment required by world citizens to solve global problems” (Cates n. pag.). It is crucial that local issues are shown to be inextricably intertwined with global issues. At first glance, the list of ‘global issues’ seems to be “depressingly long” (Hammer 62): global warming; acid rain; high population growth; the spread of global diseases; violence against, exploitation, and suppression of women and children in the production of clothing; genocide in Syria and famines in Somalia causing a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers, etc. Curricula often conceptualize clusters of ‘global issues,’ enumerating obviously interrelated and overlapping thematic fields (Volkmann, Fachdidaktik 195-96, Hammer 75): demographic aspects (mobility, migration, and immigration); social aspects (multicultural societies); peace education and terrorism; human rights, gender issues and social commitment; global pop culture, globalization and localization; socio-economic aspects such as poverty and the unequal distribution of wealth, the global financial and trade systems; digitalization and the impact of the Internet on individuals and society; health education, including issues such as drugs and food; the role of English as an international language of communication; and, finally, ecological issues (which are usually itemized further with regard to global warming and climate change).

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Teaching and learning goals can be broadly defined according to the Project LINGUAPAX, initiated by UNESCO, which suggests the following guidelines for “teaching foreign languages and literature for peace and international understanding” (qtd. in Hammer 63-64): • • •

•

Be aware of your responsibility to further international understanding through your teaching. Increase language teaching effectiveness so as to enhance mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and cooperation among nations. Exploit extracurricular activities such as pen-pal programs, video exchanges, and overseas excursions to develop international understanding. Lay the basis for international cooperation through classroom cooperation using language-teaching approaches responsive to students’ interests and needs.

Not surprisingly, ecological issues are just one item among many on such lists of ‘global issues’—and it is certainly open to debate whether they should be shifted to the top of the list and feature prominently in content-oriented teaching. They could definitely be a crucial teaching and learning goal to create an awareness of how seemingly disparate and unconnected global issues are actually interconnected and how, for example, individual consumer behavior affects ecological spheres such as animal rights, climate change, global pollution, and ‘natural’ catastrophes. From Ecocriticism to Ecodidactics Ecological issues have even found a strong pedagogical advocate in the evolving EFL direction of ‘ecodidactics.’ The term and its ecocritical background were first introduced in Mayer and Wilson’s groundbreaking collection of classroom-oriented articles, Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures (2006). To Englishlanguage readers, this term unfortunately has the connotation of preachy, direct ecological instruction under the aegis of ‘green’ ideologies. It needs to be considered that the nomenclature here is clearly linked to the German term (Englisch-)Didaktik, which appears untranslatable since it encompasses methodological, pedagogical, and educational aspects of teaching and learning. Therefore, terms such as ‘ecological pedagogy,’

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‘pedagogy of ecology’ or ‘nature pedagogy’ might appear less misleading to non-Germans. Several publications in the field of ecodidactics have created an awareness of how special attention needs to be paid to ecological matters in the classroom (see, e.g. Bartosch and Grimm; Basseler; Küchler; Mayer and Wilson; Volkmann, “Ecodidactics;” the concept is also discussed in many contributions on global learning (such as in Hammer; Volkmann, Fachdidaktik). This new direction in German EFL research partly links itself to the above-mentioned tradition of teaching global issues and global citizenship, but also directly to ecocritical approaches in the disciplines of cultural and literary studies as they have been gaining momentum since the 1990s. As sketchy and schematic as a short survey of how the ecocritical paradigm has established itself must be in this context, a few remarks are necessary to understand how ecodidactic positions evolved in close affinity to, and arguably as a strand of ecocriticism. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm’s The Ecocriticism Reader as well as Lawrence Buell’s The Environmental Imagination, and the founding of ecocritical associations such as Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) in the USA and The European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment (EASLCE) have triggered an enormously expanding theoretical discussion, which in Germany was shaped by scholars such as Catrin Gersdorf, Sylvia Mayer, Timo Müller, and Michael Sauter, and, most influentially for ecodidactics, Hubert Zapf. With regard to ecodidactics, an early definition of ecocriticism appears crucial and applicable to teaching and learning contexts, namely that ecocriticism needs to be regarded as encompassing a wide range of theories and potential objects of scrutiny. Cheryll Glotfelty defined ecocriticism as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (Glotfelty in Glotfelty and Fromm xviii). This entails, as Buell added in his own definition of ecocriticism, an ethical dimension as the “relationship” of the human production of literature implies “responsibility” for the physical environment (430). This ethical perspective is emphasized in Estok’s general definition of the field of ecocriticism: [E]cocriticism has distinguished itself, debates notwithstanding, first by the ethical stand it takes, its commitment to the natural world as an important thing rather than simply as an object of thematic study, and, secondly, by its commitment to making connections. Ecocriticism may be many other things besides, but it is always at least these two. (220)

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An enormously fast expanding area of research, ecocriticism encompasses a wide range of theories and potential objects of interest. Proponents of ecodidactic approaches have been especially drawn toward the ethical dimension, which is part and parcel of ecocriticism’s interpretative praxis—which has expanded to include non-literary ‘texts.’ This ethical and political agenda is again reflected Cohen’s definition: Ecocriticism focuses on literary (and artistic) expression of human experience primarily in a naturally and consequently in a culturally shaped world: the joys of abundance, sorrows of deprivation, hopes for harmonious existence, and fears of loss and disaster. Ecocriticism has an agenda. (13)

What, then, are the elements of ecocriticism that have been considered as suitable, applicable, and fruitful for the EFL classroom? Some ecocritical positions (e.g., Zapf) conceptualize more general, ‘holistic’ approaches by highlighting the nature of literature as a dynamic ‘living organism’ rather than a self-referential aesthetic system. By implication, such criticism looks at literature and other cultural forms as part of an intellectual ecosystem, implemented and sustained by the interactions between the natural world, both human and non-human, and its cultural representations. Most of the ecocritical publications on teaching literature and culture in EFL classes have reflected on Hubert Zapf’s triadic model of cultural ecology—notwithstanding the fact that this theoretical model is not strictly rooted in ecocritical research or in the environmental humanities but, rather, uses an ‘ecological’ model to highlight various functions of literary texts. According to Zapf, a literary text can function as a critical metadiscourse, as a counterdiscourse, and as a reintegrative interdiscourse. These three functions will be delineated in the following paragraphs, integrating examples from EFL practice. A first critical function is that of literature as “a cultural-critical metadiscourse, which identifies and exposes petrification, coercive structures, and traumatizing implications of dominant civilizational reality systems . . .” (Zapf, “Ecocriticism” 256). For example, texts from the traditional German EFL canon such as George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 would be interpreted especially with a focus on how they expose totalitarian tendencies; Margaret Atwood’s classic dystopian narrative The Handmaid’s Tale would be interpreted specifically with regard to gender exploitation and politically coercive systems; Arthur

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Miller’s Death of a Salesman, a drama which has been recommended less frequently lately in EFL circles, could find a revival in the classroom when foregrounding the corrosive and devastating effects of the American Dream as an ideology. A second function of literature, according to Zapf, would be that of “an imaginative counter-discourse, which foregrounds and symbolically empowers the culturally excluded and marginalized . . .” (Zapf, “Ecocriticism” 256). Students could detect this function of literature when focusing on discriminated, marginalized or suppressed characters in literature (from Shylock and Othello to Forrest Gump). It is also reflected in tendencies in German EFL to suggest that the paradigm of intercultural learning needs to be strongly linked to teaching ethnic minority literature. Texts such as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, whose protagonist appears as an ‘in-between figure’ and grapples with his non-mainstream cultural and ethnic background, afford multi-facetted and fascinating insights into ‘hybrid’ target cultures. They have therefore become an integral part of recent changes in the German EFL canon (see Volkmann, Fachdidaktik 254-55). Zapf defines a third function of literature with regard to fiction as “a reintegrative intercourse, which brings together the civilizational system and its exclusions in new and transformative ways, and thereby contributes to the constant renewal of the cultural center from its margins” (Zapf, “Ecocriticism” 256). Crucially, literature provides examples and case studies of cultural and individual “self-corrections and new beginnings” (256), as prominently featured, for instance, in the genre of the ‘story of initiation’ or growing up, which has been deemed specifically useful in the context of teaching literature in EFL classes. Various films such as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Juno or Kick it like Beckham, and novels such as Jonathan Safran Foer’s Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close have also been recommended for EFL use in numerous publications (discussed, for instance, in Hammer). In general, Zapf’s model of ‘cultural ecology’ establishes a strong plea for using the creative and motivating power of aesthetically valuable texts. They function as privileged contributions to cultural and pedagogical discourses. At closer inspection, this critical approach and its triadic model of the functions of literature resemble the perspective of the Frankfurt Critical School of inquiry (Adorno and Horkheimer). Not unlike Marxian interpretations of literature, culture-critical models share

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the idea of literature as a counter-hegemonic, innovative and dynamic force, which is most effective in the form of ‘great art.’ As useful as Zapf’s model may appear as a position in defense of great literature, it may need to be reconsidered when applied to teaching literature in EFL. Zapf’s very theoretical conceptualization of ‘cultural ecology’ certainly allows for a fresh look at how literature works and what to focus on in interpreting literary texts; and it highlights the culture-critical element of literary analysis, which is lost in most recent publications on how to deal with literature in the classroom. However, while literary texts of an aesthetically high order (canonized texts, as discussed in the examples Zapf uses in his publications) are valorized as particularly powerful and thus privileged voices in the cultural or literary systems, one may ask how the products of popular culture (popular literature, Hollywood films, TV series) fit into the concept of art as a culture-critical metadiscourse, imaginative counter-discourse, or reintegrative interdiscourse. Rather, it seems that many of the products of popular culture are not only encoded in multiple ways as both affirmative and subversive discourses, but can also be decoded differently by different recipients, that is EFL students who find pleasure and joy in the products of popular culture. Moreover, when assessed from a ‘stricter’ ecocritical direction, Zapf’s model of literary ecology may be regarded as too abstract, too removed from the actual, pressing concerns of an ecological pedagogy with regard to changing people’s attitudes toward the environment, environmental pollution, and the exploitation of nature. Reaching beyond literary criticism and stressing more general aspects of ecological thinking Zapf presented a different, more ‘ecological’ discussion of ecocritical issues in other publications (Zapf, “Funktionsmodell”). The essence of such approaches or insights can easily be translated into teaching goals in the context of inter- or transcultural learning. Accordingly, an ecocritical and/or ecodidactic approach would emphasize the following teaching-learning objectives (Zapf, “Funktionsmodell”): • Everything is related to everything else: This insight is part and parcel of what the teaching and learning of global issues in the sense of global education encompasses: the understanding that isolated phenomena are actually inextricably interwoven with global, planetary networks. What individuals do has its repercussions. This has been symbolically described as the so-called butterfly effect: a but-

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terfly flapping its wings in China can set off a hurricane in the USA days later. • The principle of evolution does not resemble a linear model of progress. Change and evolution comprise constant change and transformation, including cyclical processes. What is needed as global competences are flexibility, openness and the willingness to change oneself. This also entails a critique of mono-causal models of progress and a blinkered belief in rationality. • A holistic worldview. This means understanding that the world cannot be forced into a mechanistic, one-dimensional system of thought or belief. Instead, students need to understand the need for complimentary, supplementary, and interrelated perspectives. • Diversity: As with biodiversity, students need to grasp the diversity of life and the singularity of its manifold manifestations as an enriching experience; this is clearly the case with two of the key issues of EFL: first, living in a globalizing multicultural society, and, second, the loss of diversity of languages and dialects as a result of the spread of English as a ‘killer language’ (see Phillipson). • Complexity: Students need to understand that nature is all about complexity, including the fight for survival and competition, but also coevolution and cooperation. • Inner coherence: Many ecocritics understand nature as a system of complex self-organization, including complex networks of loops and feedback-mechanisms. • The position of humans within the natural system appears precarious: In recent decades, following the industrial revolution and the growth of environmental exploitation, humans have caused the complex self-regulatory mechanisms of nature to fail and get out of balance. It appears as a great challenge to find ways for individuals as well as societies and for the world society to act and find ways to redress lopsided developments. Especially the last-mentioned goals have been reflected in ecodidactic publications, which have suggested concrete teaching and learning formats for putting theoretical goals into practice (see Bartosch and Grimm; Basseler; Küchler; Mayer and Wilson; Volkmann, “Ecodidactics”). A focus on ecological issues has been suggested, including climate change, biodiversity, deforestation, water and air quality, and ecotourism. EFL scholars have stressed the crucial role of literature, but

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also of films and cultural artifacts in furthering ecological understanding, as they presuppose active reader participation and an exploratory approach to cultural texts, inviting readers to identify with characters and slip into the role of the culturally Other. Didactic publications have proposed both Hollywood blockbusters and art-house documentaries for use in the classroom. Roland Emmerich’s movie The Day After Tomorrow (2004) features the fictional scenario of great parts of the USA covered with ice and snow due to the melting of polar ice. It is recommended that the film can be used both for representations of global catastrophes caused by human behavior as well as for enhancing critical media literacy (see Volkmann et al.). However, Emmerich’s second apocalyptic offering, 2012, suggests that the director may have been more interested in orchestrating catastrophes on a grand scale than finding solutions to planetary problems. Emmerich’s The Day after Tomorrow could also be used as a fictional comment on a very suitable documentary, An Inconvenient Truth (2006), which by itself may appear too didactic and US-centered to its European audiences. Of other useful ‘eco-films’ such as Whale Rider (2002), one could be singled out in particular: the award-winning documentary Darwin’s Alptraum/Darwin’s Nightmare, directed by Hubert Sauper (2004). While its original languages are English and French, it has German subtitles (see also www.darwinsnightmare.com). It focuses on the plight of workers in the city of Mwanza at Lake Victoria, catching and processing Nile perch, a fish transported daily to gourmet restaurants in the West. This bleak documentary succinctly establishes a link between the European life of affluence and the exploitation, hunger, prostitution, and abuse in the heart of Africa, where a monoculture exists to the detriment of the Africans who provide exotic food for the rich West. In addition to ‘ecofilms,’ literature has been strongly recommended for ecodidactic concerns. Literature invites its readers to see the foreign world through the eyes of the other, to get an ‘inside perspective.’ Participation in the secondary world of fiction can “help readers to develop empathy with and solidarity for the characters portrayed. Thus, such an aesthetic response also has a strong ethical dimension” (Delanoy 57). Unbalanced or even dysfunctional ecosystems are presented in Amitav Gosh’s 2004 novel The Hungry Tide, set in a Bengali wetlands area in the years after Indian partition. Similarly suitable are T. C. Boyle’s novel A Friend of the Earth (2000) and his short story “After the Plague”

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(2001). Another favorite ‘ecological text’ is certainly Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), detailing the effects of biotechnology, particularly genetic experiments, on the future of planet Earth, and how bioengineering corrupts human ethics. Science-fiction literature, in general, appears to be a suitable genre for highlighting ecological concerns. The Example of Ecopoetry Novels and films dealing with the relationship of man and nature in a critical way fit easily into the rubrics of ‘econovels’ and ‘ecofilms,’ which are still forming. More established is the genre of ‘ecopoetry.’ Three major collections can be considered as treasure troves for suitable classroom verses. They make clear that ‘ecopoetry’ certainly has been around for many centuries, at least since the Romantic age. Yet it has only recently been defined as a genre in its own right. The three anthologies are Norbert H. Platz, Birgit Fiddelke and Anne Unfried (ed.), Sustaining the Earth: An Anthology of Green Poems in English (1998), Brian Swann (ed.), Poetry Comes Up Where It Can: An Anthology (2002), and Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street (ed.), The Ecopoetry Anthology (2013). The poetry compilations are worth purchasing by those teachers interested in raising students’ ecological awareness while simultaneously reflecting on the usage of poetic language. Ecopoetry can also be accessed online under websites such as http://www.ecopoetry.org/services.html. A brief definition of ecopoetry, as put forward by J. Scott Bryson (5-6), suggests that such poetry fits in neatly with the functions of literature in ecodidactic contexts as discussed above: 1) Eco-poetry emphasizes an ecocentric perspective that recognizes the interdependent nature of the world. 2) Such a perspective leads to a devotion to specific places and the land itself, along with the creatures that share it with humankind. 3) It stresses humility in relationships with both human and non-human nature. 4) It expresses an intense scepticism towards ‘hyperrationality,’ a skepticism that usually leads to an indictment of an over-technologized modern world and a warning concerning the looming ecological catastrophe. In the following, three different poems will be discussed briefly with regard to their possible use in EFL classes. The first example is the socalled “Cree Prophecy” (traditional; qtd. in Volkmann, Global 33):

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Only after the last tree has been cut down Only after the last river has been poisoned Only after the last fish has been caught Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

The lines here speak for themselves and should allow students to work with the poem along the lines of an emotional rather than a cognitive response. As an anti-materialist statement it can trigger various rewriting activities, using the “Only after…”-beginnings as a template for expressing similar sentiments. On a more cognitive level, students could do research on the Internet with regard to allegations that the famous ‘prophecy’ does not constitute an authentic text but was composed more recently by environmentalists or people close to the green party movement. This allegation has, of course, been disseminated by those with different political agendas. Some ecopoetry is seemingly simple and without an ecodidactic impetus. This is the case in Philip Booth’s “Bee” (c. 1990; reprinted in Swan 25), detailing how the lyrical I encounters an old ‘bumbler’ in his or her house and decides to help the animal escape, with the last lines of the poem laconically remarking: Didn’t do much this slow day in mid-spring. Did one good thing: helped an old bee go.

Here a seemingly trivial incident evolves into a lesson about a human relationship with nature, with the animal teaching the narrator a lesson in humility and the beauty of small, kind gestures, the inspiration gained from random acts of human kindness, especially with regard to animals. Ecopoetry can also be used to show the complexities behind ecological issues. A short poem by Julia Damassa, entitled “Green” (1989), points at the ecological inconsistencies and ironic contradictions consumers are faced with every day. Without a clear marker of its specific cultural context, the poem—through its use of language—highlights a number of transcultural, global issues (repr. in Platz, Fiddelke and Unfried 55): Outside the supermarket sign the petition

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Students could be asked, first, to describe the contradiction presented in the poem. Then they could reflect on the question why this incident does not appear to be a single, isolated event but rather a double-bind situation people find themselves in frequently. They can be invited to creatively write similar poems with similar contradictory moments or incidents—and discuss possible strategies of how to find solutions to problematic and self-contradictory behavior. In general, a reader-response oriented approach rather than an ‘intrinsic’ one (New Criticism) can be recommended (Benton 34-42). Such an approach stresses the interdependence of text and reader in the creation of meaning. In other words, instead of aiming at a model interpretation with a ‘fixed meaning’ of the text, such a discussion of the text’s meaning would assert the individual’s response to a text—what value the text has for a given individual in a particular context. When discussing poems, they should be seen as ‘stimuli’ for the students’ individual responses. Rather than regarding them as timeless aesthetic objects, such an approach aims at producing ‘affective’ responses in students. Of course, it could also lead to students writing their own versions of the poems, in imitation of the poems’ basic patterns. To create awareness of poetry as a text genre, teachers may ask questions such as (1) What are the differences between reading for information and reading literature such as this poem (or poetic text)? (2) What are the differences between how you read fiction and how you read a poem? Further Ecodidactic Concerns Choosing literary texts for ELF, teachers need to go beyond the traditional dichotomy of city versus country, culture versus nature. They may want to select texts that challenge traditional Western concepts of dualisms of human versus animal, man versus nature, woman versus man. While phenomena such as global media, global tourism and global catastrophes inform many of the texts presented in the transcultural and

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ecocritical classroom, there could also be a focus on nature as the inexplicable, elusive ‘Other’ on the one hand, and the need for human agency and responsibility on the other. Certainly, ecodidactic approaches can help to implement an environmentally conscious culture of teaching and learning and send a message of awareness about the rights of humans and non-humans alike. While certain literary and filmic texts have been recommended, it seems that a suggestion put forward in the field of ecocriticism has not yet reached the German EFL classroom. It is the suggestion that ‘nature’ be established as a new interpretative category besides or above already established paradigms of race, class, and gender (ideas for interpretative agendas concerning such an approach can be gleaned from Gersdorf and Mayer). In other words, one significant contribution of ecodidactics could be to conceptualize applicable interpretative categories and interpretative questions that arise from an ecocritical approach. A strong plea for such a shift in critical agendas is voiced in the following statement: In the context of the ecological crisis a single-minded preoccupation with sexist and capitalist-imperialist critical discourse analysis is rather like addressing the problem of who is going to fetch the deck-chairs on the Titanic, and who has the right to sit in them. (Goatly 277)

While there appears to be considerable debate about the nuances that distinguish the various definitions of the field of ecocriticism, the discipline crucially entails an ethical imperative regarding our relationship to the non-human world and the examination of this relationship through literature. The common ground shared by ecodidactic approaches is certainly that all aim at creating ecological knowledge, furthering a deeper and broader understanding of sustaining natural resources and the environment (Mayer and Wilson). At the center of ecodidactics clearly is the principle of sustainability. Defined in a 1987 document by the World Commission on Environment and Development, the concept connects economic with ecological issues: ‘Sustainability’ is the key political goal for the 21 st century. It means that future generations should have the same chance of leading a fulfilled life as we have had. At the same time, the opportunity to live a good life must be more fairly distributed around the world for the people alive today. Sustainable development combines economic progress with social justice and conservation of the natural environment. (Hammer 60)

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Just how far an ecocritical approach should become political and change the pedagogical agenda of German EFL teaching will remain a controversial issue. As in the case of ecocriticism, two different schools can be defined, the ‘hard approach’ demanding political action and a change of the whole curriculum (which could be aligned to positions of ‘deep ecology’), and the ‘soft approach’ opting for a general ecocritical raising of awareness (resembling the ‘light ecology position’). Proponents of the hard school may tend to propagate lists of demands and do’s and don’ts with regard to environmentally friendly behavior, and suggest topics and approaches with a clear political agenda, such as one by Harris and Moran, who as early as 1991 intended to include global ecological awareness in intercultural learning programs by demanding that the following ecological perspectives be integrated in intercultural learning: 1. Recognizing the value of genetic diversity and of species’ preservation. 2. Establishing global zoning plans to balance preservation and development. 3. Making environmental review an integral part of financial lending provisions, so as to protect habitats. 4. Increasing taxes on pollutants, as well as funding into research for alternative energy sources and tree planting. 5. Encouraging recycling of wastes, banning waste ocean dumping and export, raising costs of garbage collection and toxic-waste removal so that its production will be curbed and research on it will be expanded. 6. Promoting a North-South dialogue, so rich nations will help poor nations to curb population, improve their food production and environment, and co-operate in joint ventures to enhance the quality of human life on this planet. (6; shortened)

‘Hard ecodidactics’ rather than ‘soft ecodidactics’ would aim at empowering individual agents to deal with nature and natural resources more carefully and responsibly, to detect, assess, and prevent threats and dangers to nature. The hard approach envisions a radical change of mind, aiming at an immediate change in consumer habits, with less materialism and exploitation of natural resources both by individuals and social groups. It stresses (1) the net-like interconnectedness of all human and non-human phenomena, with ‘nature’ being the ultimate principle of "interwebbing"; (2) it favors approaches in the spirit of wholeness, sustainability, and diversity; (3) it sometimes fundamentally questions the

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Western creed of technology as the major means of progress; and (4) it stresses the complexity of biosystems and the fragile, problematic position of humans, whose invasion of natural systems causes severe negative repercussions. Such politicization of the green agenda, however, could be in danger of running counter to teaching goals of postmodern pedagogies such as fostering tolerance and coping with ambivalences. As Parham points out, this could jeopardize “a democratic classroom practice that encourages free expression and allows students to draw upon their own experiences and perspectives in adapting and critiquing their learning” (Parham 7). Environmental education may tend to be monologic by suggesting clear-cut and cut-and-dried solutions to complex problems and thus endanger the ‘project of modernity’ (see also Cohen): This fact, that environmental education is regarded by many of its practitioners as a matter of raising awareness by fostering the ‘correct’ sympathies, values and imagination, implies that humanities disciplines such as literary and cultural studies have an important contribution to make to an education founded on environmental principles. (Parham 9)

Such considerations clearly need to be kept in mind by those intending to implement measures of greening the EFL classroom (Mayer and Wilson; see also Glotfelty and Fromm). This greening of the classroom would include the following areas: • Greening textbooks: Ecocritical approaches to EFL texts are suggested, with textbooks presenting more ecologically oriented topics and texts (saving the environment, creating environmental consciousness); ecological texts should be chosen as supplementary material for textbooks. • Greening topics and texts; greening the canon: Topics and issues are to be mainly informed by ecological issues. Topics such as climate change, biodiversity, deforestation, water and air quality, and ecotourism would be high on the agenda; the literary school canon should include the classics of eco-literature (Wordsworth, Thoreau, Lawrence, Snyder, Roy), Hollywood films (The Day after Tomorrow) and documentaries (Guggenheim, An Inconvenient Truth); additional expository texts could provide background information. • Greening approaches and tasks: Ecological questions should be highlighted when dealing with texts (such as using ‘nature’ as the

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main interpretative category; tasks and activities foster ecocritical thinking and provide opportunities for solving real ecological issues and for ecologically correct consumer behavior). • Greening the classroom: All in all, this means creating an ecological awareness of the classroom and school as an ecological environment and how this influences individuals and the natural environment. • Greening the political and educational agenda: Rather explicitly, ecodidactic approaches aim at changing curricula, syllabi, and teaching goals in favor of a more ecologically minded education. As stated at the beginning of this article, ecocritical and ecodidactic perspectives must be seen as an integral and integrative aspect of the recent shift toward transcultural learning and global education. The success of these new directions in didactics and pedagogy will depend to a large degree on how they are perceived as inextricably interwoven with the other global issues vying for attention. In other words, if issues such as the economy, peacekeeping, migration, multiculturalism, etc. are tackled in a manner that makes their close interconnection with ecological concerns transparent, ecodidactic approaches can become an increasingly influential force—a force to be reckoned with in the EFL classroom. Works Cited Bartosch, Roman, and Sieglinde Grimm, ed. Teaching Environments: Ecocritical Encounters. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2014. Print. Basseler, Michael, ed. Ecodidactics. Spec. Issue of Der fremdspachliche Unterricht Englisch 129 (2014): 1-48. Print. Benton, Michael. “The Discipline of Literary Response: Approaches to Poetry with L2 Students.” Challenges of Literary Texts in the Foreign Language Classroom. Ed. Lothar Bredella and Werner Delanoy. Tübingen: Narr, 1996. 30-44. Print. Bryson, J. Scott, ed. Ecopoetry: A Critical Introduction. Salt Lake City: The U of Utah P, 2002. Print. Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995. Print.

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Cates, Kip A. “Teaching for a Better World: Global Issues and Language Education.” Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center. Hurights Osaka,. 2002. Web. 25 Jan. 2015. Cohen, Michael P. “Blues in the Green: Ecocriticism under Critique.” Environmental History 9.1 (2004): 9-36. Print. Council of Europe. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print. Delanoy, Werner. “A Dialogic Model for Literature Teaching.” ABAC Journal 25.1 (2005): 53-66. Print. Estok, Simon C. “A Report Card on Ecocriticism.” AUMLA 96 (2001): 220-38. Print. Fisher-Wirth, Ann, and Laura-Gray Street, ed. The Ecopoetry Anthology. San Antonio: Trinity UP, 2013. Print. Freudenstein, Reinhold. “Global Issues im Englischunterricht.” Praxis des neusprachlichen Unterrichts 46.3 (1999): 237-49. Print. Gersdorf, Catrin, and Sylvia Mayer, ed. Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies: Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. Print. Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, ed. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996. Print. Goatly, Andrew. Critical Reading and Writing: An Introductory Coursebook. London: Routledge, 2000. Print. Hammer, Julia. Die Auswirkungen der Globalisierung auf den modernen Fremdsprachenunterricht: Globale Herausforderungen als Lernziele und Inhalte des fortgeschrittenen Englischunterrichts—Are We Facing the Future? Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. Print. Harris, Philip R., and Robert T. Moran. Managing Cultural Differences: HighPerformance Strategies for a New World of Business. 3rd ed. Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1991. Print. Küchler, Uwe. “Linking Foreign Language Education and the Environment: Intercultural Communicative Competence and Environmental Literacy.” The Future of Ecocriticism: New Horizons. Ed. Serpil Oppermann, Ufuk Ozdag, and Nevin Ozkan. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars P, 2011, 43652. Print. Mayer, Sylvia, and Graham Wilson, ed. Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures. Trier: WVT, 2006. Print.

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Parham, John. “The Deficiency of ‘Environmental Capital’: Why Environmentalism Needs a Reflexive Pedagogy.” Ecodidactic Perspectives on English Language, Literatures and Cultures. Ed. Sylvia Mayer and Graham Wilson. Trier: WVT, 2006, 7-22. Print. Phillipson, Robert. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992. Print. Platz, Norbert H., Birgit Fiddelke, and Anne Unfried, ed. Sustaining the Earth: An Anthology of Green Poems in English. Kiel: l-und-f Verlag, 1998. Print. Swann, Brian, ed. Poetry Comes Up Where It Can: An Anthology. Salt Lake City: The U of Utah P, 2000. Print. Teske, Doris. “Cultural Studies: Key Issues and Approaches.” Cultural Studies in the EFL Classroom. Ed. Werner Delanoy and Laurenz Volkmann. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006. 23-33. Print. Volkmann, Laurenz. “Die Abkehr vom Differenzdenken: Transkulturelles Lernen und Global Education.” Transkulturelles Lernen im Fremdsprachenunterricht: Theorie und Praxis. Ed. Frauke Matz, Michael Rogge, and Philipp Siepmann. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2014. 37-51. Print. ---. “Ecodidactics als Antwort auf die planetarische Bedrohung? Zum Einsatz von Ecopoetry im Englischunterricht.” Anglophone Literaturdidaktik: Zukunftsperspektiven für den Englischunterricht. Ed. Julia Hammer, Maria Eisenmann, und Rüdiger Ahrens. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012. 393-408. Print. ---. Fachdidaktik Englisch: Kultur und Sprache. Tübingen: Narr, 2010. Print. ---. ed. The Global Village: Progress or Disaster? München: Langenscheidt, 2006. Print. Viewfinder Topics. ---. “The ‘Transcultural Moment’ in English as a Foreign Language.” Beyond ‘Other Cultures’: Transcultural Perspectives on Teaching the New Literatures in English. Ed. Sabine Doff, and Frank Schulze-Engler. Trier: WVT, 2011, 113-28. Print. Volkmann, Laurenz et al., ed. Local Natures, Global Responsibilities: Ecocritical Perspectives on the New English Literatures. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Print. Welsch, Wolfgang. “Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today.” Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World. Ed. Mike Featherstone, and Scott Lash. London: Sage, 1999. 194-213. Print. Zapf, Hubert. “Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology.” English and American Studies: Theory and Practice. Ed. Martin Middeke, et al. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2012. 253-58. Print.

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---. “Das Funktionsmodell der Literatur als kultureller Ökologie: Imaginative Texte im Spannungsfeld von Dekonstruktion und Regeneration.” Funktionen von Literatur: Theoretische Grundlagen und Modellinterpretationen. Ed. Marion Gymnich, and Ansgar Nünning. Trier: WVT, 2005. 55-77. Print. ---. Literatur als kulturelle Ökologie: Zur kulturellen Funktion imaginativer Texte am Beispiel des Amerikanischen Romans. Niemeyer: Tübingen, 2002. Print.

Ecology and Urban Environments

BORIS VORMANN

Beneath and Beyond the Sustainable City In Charlotte, North Carolina, commuters zip along a sparkling new light rail system into a booming downtown district. In Sacramento, California, construction workers hammer away at the next generation of green buildings. And in New York City, rush-hour commuters pedal across popular bike paths that have spread like kudzu across the metropolis. Those snapshots from cities across America offer a glimpse of the future. John Blake, CNN

In what has been proclaimed as the rise of an urban age by many scholars, journalists and politicians, cities are often described as harbingers of a better, more sustainable, and socially just future. Urbanists, encouraged in their craft by this euphoria, watch in amazement as the postindustrial city triumphs over nature, this time with nature (Farr). Bicycle urbanism, salvaged factories-turned-condominiums, and green rooftop gardens are presented to us by urban planners and designers as symptoms of a better city; one in which a green urbanism can be reconciled with the exigencies of economic growth and social justice. As I will suggest in this essay, this optimism is misplaced. The hopes for cities to solve the social, environmental, and economic problems of the early twenty-first century loom particularly large over discourses on urban sustainability. On a rapidly urbanizing planet, it is argued, the global challenge of creating a more sustainable kind of living can best be tackled in cities and by urban actors (e.g., Brown and Dixon; Urban Century Initiative). US lifestyle and planning, traditionally centered on the car and the highway, have come under harsh criticism. In their stead, designers propose plans for walkable, dense and

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livable cities in which changes to urban design, more efficient infrastructures and progress in information technologies hold the promise of a truly sustainable urbanism (Farr; Massengale and Dover; Speck). Besides the widespread notion of an emerging urban era, this focus on cities can be explained by the common assumption that these are the points of origin of environmental destruction and climate change as well as the best-suited locales for their potential contestation (James). Unsustainable processes of industrialization, congestion, and sprawling spatial living arrangements are associated with processes of urbanization—as are the seemingly more sustainable counterstrategies: downtown revitalization, green urbanism, and smart city projects (Townsend; Montgomery; TED Conferences). In the specific context of the United States local governance has also been regarded, in a much longer tradition, as a particularly democratic political form to hedge against an overly interventionist state and to tap into the creativity of the local populace (Vormann and Lammert). Where else to start the green revolution than in the city? In this dynamic debate about sustainable cities, two broader paradigms have become dominant among academics and practitioners. One camp emphasizes the need for technological improvements to design better and more efficient cities. Adherents of this school of thought assume that urban competition and commercial exchange foster scientific innovation and technological progress which, in turn, will help reduce greenhouse emissions and increase efficiency. Others, by contrast, highlight that cities need to build better spaces for human interaction. Planning greener, more dense, and more livable cities will contribute to a better social life—one that happens to also be more sustainable. As I would like to argue, both these views—which I call the triumphant city and the beautiful city lines of argumentation—are short-sighted. As I will show, both debates are not as new as it may seem and their historical precedents do not bode well for a more sustainable urban future. Definitions of sustainability commonly consist of an environmental, a social, and an economic component. Sustainable development is seen as that overlapping political space, where these three elements are in equilibrium. This implies more generally that the objective of environmental friendliness needs to be complemented by concerns for social justice and economic growth. Even measured against its own principles,

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this mainstream normative horizon is not accounted for in current discussions about urban sustainability. This essay formulates an immanent critique of existing discourses on urban sustainability, and provides a third analytical perspective— beyond the triumphant and the beautiful city—that seeks to shed light on problematic blind spots in these debates. Whereas urban planners and designers in the United States put their hopes for a sustainable city in technological innovation and a renewal of the public realm, these approaches are based on a two-dimensional account of sustainability that either ignores social relations altogether or shrinks them down to immediate face-to-face interactions in the city. Instead, I propose to address questions of urban sustainability through the lens of infrastructure, thereby shifting the focus to social relations that transcend, but at the same time are necessary to sustain urban agglomerations. I will make this argument in three steps. In the two subsequent sections, I will present and critique the logic of existing urban sustainability discourses. I point out historical parallels to the early-twentieth-century city-beautiful and city-efficient movements, which worked along similar argumentative lines and which came with similar shortcomings. These debates, too, focused on efficiency and aesthetics—and they also lost social questions out of sight. In the third section, I suggest a third dimension to sustainability discourses. In taking an infrastructural perspective to urban sustainability discourses, I argue, we can shed light on the benefits and costs of sustainable urban development and repoliticize debates about urban sustainability. The Triumphant City: Making the City More Efficient One school of commentators in today’s debates on urban sustainability expects cities to be the places for positive change to happen because of their potential for innovation and efficiency increases. As is argued in this debate—which I call the triumphant city debate in reference to what is perhaps the most well-known publication in this context: Edward Glaeser’s book Triumph of the City (2011)—, one of the key features of cities are agglomeration effects. Cities are sites where politicians, entrepreneurs, and researchers meet and closely interact. For that reason, cities are seen as the sites where innovations are made; innovations that

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are supposed to help us lead more efficient and productive lives and that render our societies more sustainable, or so the argument goes. This line of argumentation is not at all as new as it might seem at first glance. Its locus classicus is Adam Smith’s oft-cited book The Wealth of Nations. For Smith, too, spatial proximity and close interaction were the keys to social progress. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith argues that the division of labor, the “extent of the market,” determined the degree of labor specialization and thereby the advancement of society (Smith 21). In cities, where transportation and communication is safe and cheap, markets can extend, labor can specialize, and productivity is increased (21-22). Commercial exchange, in turn, also produces “improvements of art and industry” and “cultivation” (23). In short, in facilitating interaction between merchants—the predecessors of today’s entrepreneur, that Smith saw as the real agents of wealth and economic growth (Blyth 107)—cities are the nodal points of social progress. This eighteenth-century view of urban progress was complicit in provoking nineteenth-century urban crisis. It was embedded in the thought and rhetoric of the enlightenment era and part of a larger political argument for markets and for “capitalism before its triumph” (Hirschmann). It was expounded and repeated by liberal commentators in the course of the nineteenth century in order to legitimate the expansion of markets into all spheres of life and, more precisely, to give meaning to the social upheavals produced by the industrial revolution. In the United States, these first iterations of the triumphant city argument took a new turn around the close of the twentieth century, when the dust raised by the industrial revolution began to settle. US cities at the time provided a perfect illustration of what Karl Polanyi later described as the dangers of “disembedded” markets: Commodifying the environment, labor, and capital—thereby turning them into “fictitious” commodities—undermined social cohesion and endangered social reproduction (Polanyi 76). The central goal of state and private actors in late nineteenth-century cities was to increase the competitiveness of their city—with little consideration for the social effects of their actions. This pronounced orientation toward the market and a lack of regulatory institutions on the local scale boosted urban growth and had drastic social and environmental repercussions. In addition to rampant inequalities, freewheeling market rule led to environmental degradation. Moreover, the unprecedented

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expansion of urban populations across existing jurisdictional boundaries led to a mismatch between political capacities and responsibilities (Brenner, “Decoding”). In short, at the beginning of the twentieth century it became obvious that the institutional apparatus to guide growth was severely lacking. Cities and municipal institutions needed to be reorganized and reformed to encompass and account for a new (territorial) organization of society. Civic reactions that these multiple urban crises provoked anticipate some of today’s arguments a hundred years before the concept of the “sustainable city” became fashionable. Between 1900 and 1930, economic elites of Chicago and New York City—most affected by labor’s crisis of reproduction—attempted to develop growth plans for the entire metropolitan region. The Plan of Chicago (1909) and the “Regional Plan of New York and its Environs” (1929) bear witness to these attempts of creating more efficient cities by modernizing infrastructures and taking new approaches to urban growth on a regional scale (Fishman). While Smith’s argument had been one for the extension of markets to foster progress and improvement, the city-efficient movement was an attempt to hold on to this rationale in the light of a perfectly successful market— one so radically successful that it undermined its own conditions of possibility. The city-efficient movement of the early twentieth century, a precursor of the triumphant city argument, then, can be regarded as part of a “double movement”—to stick with Polanyi’s terminology—to try and cope with the negative outgrowths of unfettered industrialization processes, without addressing its underlying dynamics. Urban economic and political elites in the two leading US cities of the time, New York City and Chicago, argued for a more efficient exploitation of resources. Based on Taylorist forms of scientific management, the adherents of the city-efficient movement called upon specialized technocrats and experts to guide economic growth and to do away with inefficient and wasteful practices. In developing the right types of technology and design, and in creating leaner public governance structures, they argued, urbanization processes could be optimized in a way to foster business and render cities even more competitive and productive. Today’s debates about sustainability mobilize similar tropes of the efficient city. Again, these propositions are made against the backdrop of multiple crises. Over the course of the past thirty years, given a dras-

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tic expansion of markets in all arenas of social life, inequalities have steadily increased, the environmental crisis has turned global, and jurisdictional problems are no longer limited to the boundaries of the city but extend to the regional, and, as we will see, even to the planetary scale. And again, economic and political elites—in and beyond the municipality—see cities not just as the sites where these crises unfold, but also where they can be tackled. Echoing Adam Smith’s thesis that cities were the hubs of civilizing progress, contemporary proponents of the triumphant city believe that exchange between elite actors and decision-makers will benefit from their physical proximity and urban dynamism—from the possibility of matching research with capital and business-friendly policies—to come up with and implement smart technology and share best practice models through inter-city networks and thereby find solutions to render cities more sustainable. In this vein, Bruce J. Katz and Jennifer Bradley believe that a “metropolitan revolution” will lead to the technological innovations necessary to meet the environmental challenges of the twenty-first century. Like them, Edward Glaeser believes that cities are—and have been since at least the renaissance—sites of “innovation explosions” (8). Letting the free market and innovative entrepreneurs take over urban development, this is the unequivocal subtext of this argument, will create a more efficient and thereby more sustainable city. This hope in agglomeration effects is coupled with a firm belief in technological progress. Notably, big data analyses are supposed to improve resource allocation and diminish congestion in cities. Smart technology and a more accurate calculation of flows of humans and cargo are seen as a way to facilitate better land utilization and a more efficient use of scarce resources. Corporations such as Siemens or IBM, for instance, have pioneered the developments of telematics technologies to optimize urban processes. Anthony Townsend argues that this symbiosis between cities and information technologies has a long history that dates back to the ancient world and leads up to today’s cyber-city-life. According to him, rather than effacing space and making cities obsolete—a fear and hope dominant through the post-Cold War 1990s—technology makes cities thrive. “The digital revolution didn’t kill cities,” Townsend argues: “In fact, cities everywhere are flourishing because new technologies make them even more valuable and effective as face-to-face gathering places” (7). Put differently, information technologies do not just

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not destroy, they even improve city living—and have been doing so for centuries. The pervasive emphasis on efficiency might ring a not so distant bell for those who have studied changing state-market relations and neoliberalism. Indeed, eulogies on big data and better design are sometimes simply placeholders for much older debates on the superiority of the market vis-à-vis the state. We hear, there, the echoes of arguments in favor of the efficient-market hypothesis, the critique of central planning, and the democratic nature of markets as they have been formulated in the liberal tradition. It is not surprising, then, that the political right weighs in on this debate. In a book praised by Rahm Emanuel, Newt Gingrich and other conservative pundits and politicians, Goldsmith and Crawford, for instance, see the digital revolution in cities as a way to reform the federal government’s “layers of bureaucracy, inflexible rule applications, redundant multiple agency involvement in a single transaction, and tone deafness to citizens”(Goldsmith and Crawford 5). Today’s digital instruments, they argue, “can collect, analyze, and share information so efficiently, these technologies push both government and its constituents to focus on results rather than compliance” (8). Agglomeration effects, the market mechanism, and technological progress are the three pillars of the triumphant city debate—but the salutary role of technology is central to all of them. Evgeny Morozov has coined the term “technological solutionism” to describe the credulous outlook with which many discourses on social progress approach the potential of technological innovation. What he emphasizes is that technological solutionism offers solutions for problems that had not existed prior to their cure (Morozov). But there is a more dangerous aspect to the technophile vantage point as well and we see it most prominently in the triumphant city debate: technological solutionism obscures social relations and depoliticizes debates about social development. Similar to the city-efficient movement in the early twentieth century, it delegates technical questions to specialized experts and technocrats, thereby impoverishing public debate. Its moot point is its obsession with efficient technologies that leaves more deep-seated causes of unsustainable development such as economic and political inequalities or tendencies of urban splintering unaddressed.

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The Beautiful City: Hopes for a New Public Sphere If the city-efficient movement was one reaction to the crisis of reproduction in US cities of the early twentieth century, it was not the only one. Its sole focus on efficiency and its lack of a reform perspective were indeed criticized by a second movement that gathered momentum around the turn of the century: the city-beautiful movement. Proponents of this movement equally sought to attenuate the miserable conditions of the urban labor force and to address the environmental crisis in the cities. They were inspired by the reform movement of the late nineteenth century and the garden city movement and sought both smaller scale urban arrangements under a regional institutional umbrella and the beautification of cities through the construction of parks, esplanades, and monumental buildings (Wilson). Advocates of the city-beautiful movement held that this type of reform also had a political dimension. The beautification of cities would restore social peace and result in a more harmonious social order that would enhance the quality of life for urban residents. Arguably, one reason why this movement was able to leave an imprint in political decision-making—also on the above-mentioned plans for Chicago and New York City—was that it resonated with the interests of urban business elites. They, too, sought for strategies to reproduce the labor force and to pacify social relations. But it was precisely this convergence that made the potential political thrust of the city-beautiful movement vulnerable to cooptation. This is why both the city-efficient movement and the citybeautiful movement have come under attack for eliding actual social reform (Schönig). A similar argument can be made for today’s version of the citybeautiful movement. The paradigmatic site to make such an argument about depoliticized aesthetic development strategies in US cities is the post-industrial waterfront. In the US context, owed to historical patterns of colonial expansion along the rivers and coasts, waterfront revitalization has been more extensive than elsewhere (Tunbridge 88). By the 1990s, waterfront redevelopments became a “seemingly ubiquitous process in urban North America,” granting it the status of a new planning paradigm (Sieber 120). Like the city-beautiful movement, architects and urban planners who pushed for waterfront redevelopments over the course of the past three decades have sold it as a countermovement

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to the negative outgrowths of industrialization. Indeed, these developments are until today even understood by many as the complete reversal of industrialization: Where once manufacturing industries and shipyards soiled the ground and polluted air and water, today livable waterfront parks and esplanades seam the shorelines of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles (Vormann, Cities, ch. 5). Waterfront developments have become a global tool to secure capital investments in inner-city neighborhoods and to attract a new clientele of residents and visitors to these formerly “abandoned” and “unsavoury, run-down and neglected areas” (Hoyle 14). As in the early twentieth century, the hope is that revitalized parkland will lead to civic virtues—a new public sphere. “These sites, being adjacent to water, now offer us unique opportunities,” argues Richard Marshall, former professor of Urban Design at the Harvard Design School in an essay about urban space-making on the water’s edge (Marshall 7). Concurring with Marshall’s assessment, and with the assessments of many other city planners and landscape architects, President of the Friends of Hudson River Park Albert K. Butzel concludes that “[a]fter one hundred fifty years, the waterfront has become the public’s domain again—and an extraordinary one” (5). In addition to being more visible and more representative of the city, Raymond Gastil even maintains that the post-industrial waterfront, as the “paradigmatic site for the future of public life”, forestalls developments to come; for him, it is an integral part of the “history of the future” (19; 192). But these discourses of urban beautification and its civic virtues, like their early twentieth century antecedents, are incomplete and flawed. To be certain, one can argue that industrial waterfronts were highly polluted, that hiring practices on the docks of the 1950s and 1960s were corrupt, and that corruption on these sites had a tendency to breed crime (see Vormann, Cities, ch. 3 and 4). Yet, if we think that contemporary American global cities are more sustainable, less corrupt and less dangerous—or, put differently, that the pathologies of the industrial city have been overcome—we fall victim to a fallacy. Even if the postindustrial waterfront were not only commercially successful, but also sustainable, equitable, and open, a perspective limited to the postindustrial waterfront—or to any other single space, for that matter—as a litmus test for the social development of the entire city (as which it is often presented in the urban sustainability debate) is still inadequate. We

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have to move beyond and beneath existing sustainability discourses in order to grasp wider material processes that facilitate urban development, but that are much less sustainable than a focus limited to isolated, individual places might suggest. The debate about the open city constitutes a first step in this direction, even though it displays some of the weaknesses of the sustainable city debate. The Open City The notion of the open city stands in the tradition of Jane Jacobs. It comes with the same potentials and pitfalls as her work. Jacobs’s writings, too, have a socially emancipatory dimension on the level of the individual but restrict the analytical vision to individual places and people. Jacobs was an outspoken critic of the city beautiful movement, but her propositions were similarly vulnerable in this particular respect. For this reason, the perspective she took is easily absorbed in a market framework—even more so: it paves the way for unsustainable processes of marketization. I will show that the same danger exists for the open city. For Jacobs, great cities are concentrated, diverse, and attuned to the real needs of their inhabitants (15). City-dwellers of great cities can enjoy public life and sidewalk safety. Great cities account for complexity and celebrate diversity. They face this complexity not with paternalistic central planning approaches but flexible solutions on the microscale. This is because of a “ubiquitous principle”—one that Smith would have described as the division of labor and others, simply, as the market—and that is “the need of cities for a most intricate and close-grained diversity of uses that give each other constant mutual support, both economically and socially” (14). Indeed, “sprawling municipal government’s separate administrative empires” (407) do not fail to deal appropriately with metropolitan complexity out of bad faith—“there is no villainy responsible for this situation” (407). With their organizational setup, they are simply incapable of managing a qualitatively new type of complexity. This is because “[r]outine, ruthless, wasteful, oversimplified solutions for all manner of city physical needs (let alone social and economic needs) have to be devised by administrative systems which have lost the power to compre-

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hend, to handle and to value an infinity of vital, unique, intricate and interlocked details.” (408)

Jacobs dismantles the utopias of the garden city and the city-beautiful movement. But she replaces them with her own utopian vision; one that is not necessarily more emancipatory. Because planners, even if wellmeaning, cannot know the “innate, functioning order” of a place, according to Jacobs, they need to let “diversity” reign supreme (14). Rather than getting in the way of the “spontaneous . . . force of selfdiversification”, the “new aristocracy of altruistic planning experts” needs to step back. Planners need to yield to the forces of “selfdiversification” which Jacobs sees as “possibly the greatest regenerative forces inherent in energetic American metropolitan economies” (289; 290). To be sure, at her time, her caustic critique of displacement clearly followed a progressive impulse. She spoke up for a more democratic city. One not governed by self-interested officials following unquestioned, preconceived ideals of the “pseudoscience of city rebuilding and planning” in which the “dishonest mask of pretended order” was “achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served” (13; 15). But at the same time, her influential writings paved the argumentative way for the neoliberalization of cities. Her staunch position against government planning, her belief in selfhealing forces of diversification, and the focus on the micro-scale neighborhood are matched by the decentralizing tendencies of markets. Not unlike Jacobs’s understanding of urban complexity, the concept of the open city, too, understands cities as “system[s] in unstable evolution” (Sennett, “City” n. pag.). This emphasis on the becoming and on the processual nature of cities constitutes an attempt to overcome urban planning traditions dominated by overdetermined forms and closed systems, and is analogous to Jacobs’s distinction between complexity and diversification. As Richard Sennett, this position’s most articulate proponent, argues, “the closed system has paralysed urbanism, while the open system might free it” (Sennett, “Realm” n. pag.). Closed systems that serve only one specific function, in this logic, need to be opened up into multifunctional systems so as to unleash the potential for interaction, spontaneity, and the democratic use of public spaces. Open cities, in this sense, might be sustainable in a different way from what city-

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efficient and city-beautiful proponents would suggest, as Sennett goes on to argue: Buildings left incomplete, partially unprogrammed are structures which can truly be sustainable in time; the flexible building would help end the current wasteful cycle which marries construction and demolition. Asserting the value of incomplete built forms is a political act because it confronts the desire for fixity; it asserts, in steel, glass, and fiber-optic cable that the public realm is a process. (Sennett, “Realm” n. pag.)

This critique of dominant sustainability discourses highlights that the city is not a static thing. In contrast to triumphant city discourses, it shifts the focus from technology to questions of social justice and the public realm. Conceding more importance to social relations, the concept of the open city constitutes an attempt to uncover the conditions of possibility for spatial change to yield more emancipatory social outcomes. Nonetheless, the open city proposal has elective affinities with the beautiful city paradigm. Ultimately, like the beautiful city paradigm, it focuses on individual spaces and changes in the built environment as a reform strategy—and thereby tends to neglect social relations that transcend, but buttress the immediately local. Whereas the notion of the open city constitutes a much-needed corrective for mainstream technological solutionism in that it critiques the internal contradictions of sustainability discourses, then, the focus on individual sites and projects similarly tends to limit the view from broader social relations that are much less sustainable. Moreover, I see a fundamental problem in the convergent notions of the open, evolutionary system, and the market as a tool for resource allocation. The open city can easily be coopted into market-led approaches, because it is mostly directed against central planning. Its critique of rigidity resonates with a plea for marketization. Consequently, the openness that such a regime would grant is not one of individuals on equal footing, meeting in a non-hegemonic space, but essentially skewed long before these individuals enter the public realm. Political systems of redistribution might indeed be more appropriate to address the urban challenges at stake here than any kind of urban design. Finally, and perhaps most problematically in the context of urban sustainability debates, the notion of an open system defers all political decision-making: to value the incomplete nature of urban processes opens up spaces for participation,

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but if taken at face value it also bears the risk of relegating all political questions to the future or to other orders. Beneath and Beyond: The Infrastructural City Cities are not algorithms. Urban sustainability debates are steeped in social relations and cannot be fully captured or improved by mathematical models. Neither will societies become more sustainable in the full (social, ecological and economic) sense of the term, if individual sites are beautified. So far, I have argued that both the triumphant city and the beautiful city debate miss the point. These lines of argumentation are mobilized in today’s dominant urban sustainability debates as though they were innovations. But as I have shown, they have historical antecedents and, like them, they neglect an important dimension of sustainable development. By focusing on technological efficiency, urban design, and market-led private entrepreneurialism, these approaches lack a social dimension. The open city debate provides us with a helpful critique of dominant sustainability discourses but has its limitations because it, too, is readily compatible with marketization. Nonetheless, the open city debate has been productive in another way. It resonates with ongoing attempts to open up the debate of what a city really is and what, in turn, urban sustainability can mean. This can be the starting point for a new discussion that we already see forming in different contexts. As I would like to argue before coming to a conclusion, this new debate needs to go beyond and beneath existing urban sustainability discourses. I am certainly not the first one to argue that cities are more than a dense agglomeration of people in one place. Saskia Sassen, for instance, builds on the process-based understanding of the open city to criticize “an ‘urban focus’ limited to individuals and households” and tendencies to “leave out global economic and ecological systems that are deeply involved, yet cannot be addressed at the level of households or many individual firms” (251). Her call for multi-scalar governance frameworks to address the ecological crisis through a “global regime centered in cities” is warranted and also echoes recently emerging research paradigms in urban political economy (255; 239). By this, I mean the debate on planetary urbanization (Brenner, “Theses”). Hillary Angelo and David Wachsmuth, for example, have very convincingly criticized the

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perspectival shortcomings of methodological city-ism; that is, of limiting our urban (sustainability) analyses to the city-level. In an era where urbanization processes are no longer oriented toward the horizon of the city, but to the regional (Soja 679) and the planetary we need new analytical tools (Brenner, “Theory”; Brenner and Schmid). The same insight needs to be translated into our understanding of urban sustainability. What I am proposing here is in line with this recent debate on planetary urbanization. The fact that cities are nodes of different types of flows—on which the city depends and which are facilitated in it— implies that we have to extend our notion of what a city is in order to conceptualize it as more than just a bounded entity. Debates on urban sustainability need to take these flows and metabolisms that go beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of the city into account. Urban sustainability debates need a dimension that transcends local immediacy—a dimension that both triumphant city and beautiful city proposals lack. In this respect, I am very sympathetic to the idea of “blasting open” the container of the city as an analytical framework (Brenner, “Question”). But I see a methodological problem in doing so if this theoretical move is not qualified. The danger of reframing ‘urbanization’ as all processes related to the maintenance of cities is that this concept becomes indistinguishable from the old-fashioned notion of ‘civilization.’ To be fair, the moment of explosion—to use Henri Lefebvre’s term—is related to a moment of implosion: Cities and flows are not arbitrary but function according to specific spatial and social logics which stand in a dialectical relationship. But to harness the potential of this insight and to capture the precise social logics, which determine the dynamics of these moments, we need to be more specific. A debate on urban sustainability worthy of that name needs to go not just beyond but also beneath the city. What I am suggesting then, is that a perspective that turns our attention to the structures that enable social relations can help us link the two ‘moments’—of agglomeration and flow, of implosion and explosion—, by at the same time raising questions of social justice. It might seem curious and perhaps overly specific to point our attention to infrastructures as an analytical solution to the methodological city-ism of dominant sustainability debates. But these structures are literally “the underlying foundation” and “basic framework” of social systems (Merriam-Webster, “infrastructure”). Infrastructures are physi-

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cal, durable structures that create social patterns and that enable and constrain social processes (Angelo and Calhoun). Infrastructures are crystallized social relations, sunk costs, that create certain path dependencies for how cities and societies develop. As such, they are not just neutral technological assemblages, but both their emergence and their effects are political. In them are inscribed certain social power relations—and, in turn, they reproduce these relations. Two brief examples that address the beautiful city and the triumphal city’s main tenets from an infrastructural perspective should help clarify the type of research program that I have in mind. Post-industrial waterfronts in the United States might seem to validate the assumptions of the beautiful city proponents. If we restrict our field of vision to these spaces—as the beautiful city paradigm does—, it is true that they are more environmentally sustainable today than they had been only three or four decades ago. But this perspective ignores wider social processes that have made the post-industrial waterfront possible in the first place and that we can only grasp by shifting our view from the superficial spaces to their underlying infrastructures. The post-industrial waterfront has arisen as a utopian site from rearrangements in global production networks: Containerization and related technological and political innovations led to a spatial rearrangement of cities in which derelict old harbor sites could be redeveloped as utopian sites of a post-industrial era. At the same time that the post-industrial waterfront made its ascent as “paradigmatic site for the future of public life” (Gastil 19), the social and environmental costs of the new, postFordist goods-moving economy—shipping pollution from container vessels, diesel fumes from outdated port trucks, flexible working conditions for supply chain workers and other industries, to name but a few— have been externalized to the public and the environment (Vormann, Cities). The new infrastructural fix that enables production and consumption on a global scale is neither sustainable nor socially just (as I argue in more detail elsewhere) but it is the socio-technological pillar on which the beautiful city rests. On the post-industrial waterfront “the postmodern façade of cultural redevelopment” has become a veritable “carnival mask which covers the decline of everything else” (Featherstone 107). An infrastructural perspective helps us understand how urban beautification is not only a question of making some places greener and more

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sustainable than others: these places are part of a larger infrastructural fix in which costs are externalized and spatially relocated. A second example addresses a question which remains perhaps more implicit in the context of global logistics infrastructures. If we aim for more efficient flows to allocate resources within the city, we need to question the finality of that optimization: Efficiency for what and for whom? An infrastructural perspective, again, helps us to address related questions with a view to social relations. Efficiency alone does not address questions of social justice. Urban infrastructures are subject to political struggle, although their technocratic appearance might suggest otherwise. What we tend to ignore if we only address questions of efficiency, is that technological innovations and infrastructural changes through the market mechanism “enroll some people and some places to premium status” and, more than that, these restructurings “often simultaneously work systematically to marginalize and exclude others from access to even basic services” (Graham and Marvin 288). For instance, high-speed rail connections between exurban airports and revitalized downtowns provide certain segments of the global middle-classes with seamless transportation, but exclude poorer populations in neighborhoods along the tracks from access. Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin’s work on splintering urbanism illustrates how the privatization of urban transportation infrastructure creates such “premium network spaces” that allow better off populations seamless mobility at the detriment of other marginalized and segregated segments of society. “Such ‘disfigured’ urban spaces thus tend to remain excluded and largely invisible within the contemporary metropolis, beyond the secured, well designed and carefully networked premium . . . spaces” (287). This means that we cannot simply argue, as the triumphant city discourse does, that entrepreneurial innovations in the market place will help us make cities more efficient and thereby more sustainable, without specifying who benefits and who loses. Whereas the triumphant city debate focuses on technological efficiency gains and agglomeration economies, and the beautiful city planners call for greener urban design, both these lines of thinking narrow our perspective on urban sustainability to isolated sites. To take an infrastructural perspective means to shed light on how social processes are linked over different scales and spatial distances. By examining the infrastructures that are necessary for the production of (isolated)

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postindustrial and seemingly more sustainable places in US cities, we can see how social and environmental costs are shifted to other places and externalized through mechanisms that cannot be captured by a mono-scalar and uni-spatial urban analysis. Ultimately, what this means is that what we tend to call a sustainable city today rests on systemic costs that are much less sustainable than refurbished industrial parks, remediated brownfields, and green waterfronts esplanades might suggest. Divide and Conquer Not only were the city-efficient and city-beautiful movements of the early twentieth century not particularly successful: They also depoliticized debates about urban development. Leaving urban change to technocrats and experts distanced political decision-making from urban constituencies. The exclusive focus on the built form and the immediately local to create a better society—either through more efficiency or more beautiful spaces—did not and does not address larger social contexts. Both strategies are easily co-opted as governance instruments to divide and conquer. As I have suggested, an infrastructural perspective can re-politicize the debates about urban sustainability. Using infrastructure as an analytical lens helps us to overcome the fetish of the immediate and to pose the central question: who benefits and who loses from sustainable urban restructuring? I have argued that two dominant lines of argumentation in debates about urban sustainability—the triumphant city and the beautiful city discourses—have problematic blind spots and are analytically skewed. These discourses, reproduced by powerful political actors and institutions, seem to offer new solutions to our global challenges of the twentyfirst century. But they are not as new as they suggest. Like their historical antecedents, the city-beautiful and the city-efficient movement, these discourses are limited. If sustainability has an environmental, a social, and an economic component, current urban sustainability discourses fail to address these dimensions. They put too much hope in technological solutions for social problems, they focus on aesthetic questions without questioning underlying social relations, and they limit their analytical scope to proximate and direct social interaction.

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Advocates of planetary urbanization, per contra, offer us ways to get beyond methodological city-ism and use an analytical framework that is more appropriate to capture urbanization processes in the current conjuncture. In this essay, I have argued that an infrastructural dimension extends our analytical grip and purchase. It offers us a new perspective that goes beyond and beneath existing debates on urban sustainability. This infrastructural prism can reveal the systemic conditions that defer costs from one set of places to other, less visible ones. The relocation of social and environmental costs is very much a political project, emanating from political decisions on various scales—and not, as current planning and design discourses tend to emphasize, the consequence of inexorable economic processes. In this sense, a more holistic approach to sustainable urban development is equally a political endeavor; one, that cannot fully fall back on technological and architectural improvement. Works Cited Angelo, Hillary, and Craig Calhoun. “Infrastructures of the Social: An Invitation to Infrastructural Sociology.” Unpublished MS presented at a session of the NYLON Research Network, Berlin, Apr. 2013. ---. and David Wachsmuth, “Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism.” Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization. Ed. Neil Brenner. Berlin: Jovis, 2014. 372-85. Print. Blake, John. “Americans Rebuild for the ‘New Urban Century’.” Building Up America. CNN.com. Cable News Network, 7 Apr. 2010. Web. 27 Aug. 2015. Blyth, Mark. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. Print. Brenner, Neil. “Decoding the Newest ‘Metropolitan Regionalism’ in the USA: A Critical Overview.” Cities 19 (2002): 3-21. Print. ---. “Theses on Urbanization.” Public Culture 25 (2013): 85-114. Print. ---. “The Urbanization Question, or, the Field Formerly Known as Urban Studies” The Harvard GSD, Cambridge. November 1, 2011. Inaugural Lecture. ---. “Urban Theory Without an Outside.” Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization. Ed. Neil Brenner. Berlin: Jovis, 2014. 1430. Print.

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Brenner, Neil, and Christian Schmid. “The ‘Urban Age’ in Question.” Implosions/Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization. Ed. Neil Brenner. Berlin: Jovis, 2014. 310-37. Print. Derudder, Ben, ed. Commodity Chains and World Cities. Chichester: WileyBlackwell, 2010. Print. Brown, Lance Jay, and David Dixon. Urban Design for an Urban Century: Shaping more Livable, Equitable, and Resilient Cities. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2014. Print. Butzel, Albert K. “Foreword.” Lost Waterfront: The Decline and Rebirth of Manhattan’s Western Shore. Ed. Shelley Seccombe. New York: Fordham UP, 2007. 5-6. Print. Farr, Douglas. Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2007. Print. Featherstone, Mike. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage, 1991. Print. Fishman, Robert. “The Metropolitan Tradition in American Planning.” The American Planning Tradition. Ed. Robert Fishman. Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson Center P, 2000. 65-85. Print. Gastil, Raymond W. Beyond the Edge: New York’s New Waterfront. New York: Princeton Architectural P, 2002. Print. Glaeser, Edward Ludwig. Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York: Penguin P, 2011. Print. Goldsmith, Stephen, and Susan Crawford. The Responsive City: Engaging Communities through Data-Smart Governance. San Francisco: John Wiley, 2014. Print. Graham, Stephen, and Simon Marvin. Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London: Routledge, 2001. Print. Hirschman, Albert O. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2013. Print. Hoyle, Brian S. “Development Dynamics at the Port-City Interface.” Revitalising the Waterfront: International Dimensions of Dockland Redevelopment. Ed. Brian S. Hoyle, David Pinder, and Sohail Husain. London: Belhaven P, 1988. 3-19. Print. International Business Machines Corporation. “Smarter Cities.” IBM.com. International Business Machines Corporation, 2014. Web. 27 Aug. 2015.

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Jacobs, Jane. Cities and the Wealth of Nations. New York: Random House, 1984. Print. ---. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Print. ---. The Economy of Cities. New York: Random House, 1969. Print. “Infrastructure.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster Inc., 2015. Web. 27 Aug. 2015. James, Paul. Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice: Circles of Sustainability. New York: Routledge, 2015. Print. Katz, Bruce, and Jennifer Bradley. The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution P, 2013. Print. Larson, Kent. “Brilliant Designs to Fit More People in Every City.” TEDxBoston. Boston. 2012. Lecture. Marshall, Richard. “Contemporary Urban Space-Making at the Water’s Edge.” Waterfronts in Post-industrial Cities. Ed. Richard Marshall. London: Spon, 2007. 3-14. Print. Massengale, John, and Victor Dover. Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2013. Montgomery, Charles. Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. Print. Morozov, Evgeny. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York: Public Affairs, 2013. Print. Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of our Time. Boston: Beacon P, 2001. Print. Sassen, Saskia. “A Focus on Cities Takes Us Beyond Existing Governance Frameworks.” The Quest for Security: Protection Without Protectionism and the Challenge of Global Governance. Ed. Joseph E. Stiglitz and Mary Kaldor. New York: Columbia UP, 2013. 252-73. Print. Schönig, Barbara. Pragmatische Visionäre: Stadtregionale Planung und zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement in den USA. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2011. Print. Sennett, Richard, “The Open City.” Towards an Urban Age Urban Age: A Worldwide Series of Conferences Investigating the Future of Cities. Organized by the Cities Programme of the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft, 2006. Web. 27 Aug. 2015.

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---. “Quant: The Public Realm.” Richard Sennett. Richard Sennet, 2008. Web. 27 Aug. 2015. Sieber, Timothy R. “Waterfront Revitalization in Postindustrial Port Cities of North America.” City and Society 5 (1991): 120-36. Print. Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 1776. The EE-T Project. Pennsylvania State U, 2005. Web. 27 Aug. 2015. Soja, Edward. “Regional Urbanization and the End of the Metropolis Era.” The New Blackwell Companion to the City. Ed. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. 679-89. Print. Speck, Jeff. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time. New York: North Point P, 2013. Print. TED Conferences. City 2.0: the Habitat of the Future and How to Get There. New York: TED Conference, LLC, 2013. Print. Ted Books 31. Townsend, Anthony M. Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print. Tunbridge, John. “Policy Convergence on the Waterfront? A Comparative Assessment of North American Revitalization Strategies.” Revitalising the Waterfront: International Dimensions of Dockland Redevelopment. Ed. Brian S. Hoyle, David Pinder, and Sohail Husain. London: Belhaven P, 1988. 67-91. Print. Urban Century Initiative. “The Urban Century.” BU.edu. The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. Boston U, 2015. Web. 27 Aug. 2015. Vormann, Boris. Global Port Cities in North America: Urbanization and Global Production Networks. London: Routledge, 2015. Print. ---. “Infrastrukturen der globalen Stadt. Widersprüche des urbanen Nachhaltigkeitsdiskurses am Beispiel Vancouvers.” Zeitschrift für Kanadastudien 34 (2014): 62-86. Print. ---. “Toward an Infrastructural Critique of Urban Change: Obsolescence and Changing Perceptions of New York City’s Waterfront.” CITY 19, 2-3 (2015): 332-40. Print. Vormann, Boris, and Christian Lammert. “Kommunalpolitik in den USA.” Handbuch Politik USA. Ed. Christian Lammert, Markus Siewert, and Boris Vormann. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2015. 225-40. Print. Wilson, William H. The City Beautiful Movement. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1989. Print.

EMMANUEL TRISTAN KUGLAND

Artistic Negotiations of the Right to the City: Graffiti Artists and the ‘Ghosts’ of Manhattan in Brian Wood’s DMZ In his 2009 New Left Review article “How to Begin from the Beginning,” Slavoj Žižek poses the following question: “does global capitalism contain antagonisms strong enough to prevent its indefinite reproduction?” (53). The question is rhetorical, the answer is obviously ‘yes’, and Žižek consequently lists four fields of conflict in answer to his question: ecology, intellectual property, biogenetics, and “new forms of social apartheid—new walls and slums” (53). The fourth antagonism, social division in its various forms, stands out as a litmus test of sorts for the other three in so far as one fails in a substantial discussion of the first three antagonisms if the fourth is not addressed parallel to the other ones Žižek points to. The other antagonisms Žižek identifies co-relate with a set of new “commons,” a term recently re-introduced by, among others, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. In the past, the concept of “the commons” has been used to refer to communally owned lands as well as the notion of shared pastures and access to natural goods. Hardt points out that in recent discussions it has been modified to refer to “information, cultural goods and codes” in late capitalism (22-23). Thus, the concept is modified to accommodate for property and labor relations in an economic system no longer dominated by industrial structures. Žižek and Hardt/Negri together thus conceptualize a new field of politics that is best understood, as Žižek points out (54), in Rancièrian terms, one based on fundamental dissensus as the central principle of politics. Opposed to the policing of rights and titles (as in, for example, the assumption that expertise in a field can serve as legitimation of rule), politics begins with the radical acknowledgement

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of the ‘part of no part’, in finding ways to include those that are left out of communal processes and whose ‘rule’ cannot be objectively legitimized. Thus, the part-of-no-part constitutes, according to Rancière, the foundation of any truly democratic process that is political in the original meaning of the term (37-39). Žižek here claims this notion of the true meaning of politics for early Marxism, thus successfully establishing a link between the ‘new’ commons of a post-industrialized society and the classic critique of political economy (54-55). Žižek’s connection of the new commons to Communism notwithstanding, I want to demonstrate how a reading of Brian Wood’s comic series DMZ based on an understanding of politics as centered around fundamental dissensus can move beyond addressing topical issues raised in the series, which so far has been the predominant mode of reception for DMZ. Critically addressing the role of mainstream media and social and political leadership in times of conflict, Brian Wood’s DMZ traces the adventures of would-be journalist Matty Roth on Manhattan Island over the course of several years. Set in a not too distant future in which the US has been drawn into a ‘second civil war’ with a grassroots movement that calls itself the ‘Free States’, the eponymous demilitarized zone, Manhattan, has been isolated from the rest of the country and serves as a buffer zone between the Free States and the US, both of which send their military personnel into the city on a regular basis. Evoking real-life images ranging from the Iraq war to 9/11, the series offers a scathing critique of the US media landscape and current political culture, exposed here as an all-pervading entanglement of business interests media and partisan politics. The remaining 200,000-400,000 inhabitants of Manhattan Island have been all but forgotten, or, more precisely, have been eradicated from the general public’s knowledge of life in the DMZ. Left in a permanent state of emergency, they have to find their own strategies of survival. In the comic book series the question central to the concept of a commons, around which political processes and debates must be conceptualized, is addressed in a number of ways. It identifies possible fields of dissensus, two of which, ecology and intellectual property, coincide with the commons identified by Žižek. Contemporary political issues, both ecology and the relation of a ‘creative class’ to an administration as well as social and political exclusion feature centrally, both

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in the content of the series and its reception and account for the reception of the series as a ‘political comic’ and a socio-political commentary. In this essay, I will provide exemplary readings of two story arcs and their function in the overall context of the series. The way these discourses are diegetically operationalized complicates the notion of DMZ as a political comic. While such a reading is encouraged through authorial statements in interviews and reviews as well as in the blurbs on the backs, the sleeves of the individual volumes, and the series’ para- and peritexts, I argue that its actual potential for political commentary lies elsewhere. The series, and this will be my focus in this paper, depicts conflicts that can be read as comments on a number of topical issues. In the overall context of the series, however, they are seamlessly integrated into a circular narrative that depicts a return, of sorts, to conditions that structurally do not differ much from the ones prior to the outbreak of the central conflict. Thus, I argue, the series’ potential for critical political commentary lies in its dramatization of the re-integration and, ultimately, absence of, political processes and controversy of the kind envisioned by Rancière, Žižek, and Hardt. While the various sub-plots of the series are topically concerned with socio-political issues, its ending is frustratingly circular: It depicts a return to a state very similar to the one before the outbreak of the civil war during which the action is set. Thus, DMZ’s potential for political commentary lies not merely in its subject matter. Instead, I suggest reading it as a constant reminder of the necessity of re-identifying a ‘part of no part’ in order to keep politics from coming to a standstill and becoming circular. The series’ focus on contemporary politics is comprehensively summarized in a statement by its creator, Brian Wood: “I think if I’ve proved anything with ‘DMZ,’ it is that I can take a socio-political, topical issue and write both sides, and make it not at all preachy. . . . In a way, you can call it post-politics as well as post-crash” (Wood, Interview). What we encounter in the quote is an artist who seems to be both very much aware of and consenting to the reception DMZ has been getting. If, as Brian Wood stresses, the goal really was to create a comic series about partisan politics, a “socio-political, topical issue” (Wood, Interview), then most of the series’ reviews seem to suggest that this undertaking was indeed successful. A short look at a selection of the almost unanimously positive reviews of the series will suffice here.

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According to a review published by USA TODAY and cited on the back cover of Volume 5 of the series, “Writer Brian Wood and artist Riccardo Burchielli’s DMZ . . . combines the thrill of a summer blockbuster with the dire realities of war and a dose of social/political commentary” (Wood and Burchielli, Hidden). Slightly more elaborate (and overall more interesting) is Shaun Huston’s review of the series for www.popmatters.com in which he addresses the number of topical issues that the series refers to or comments upon and suggests the series could therefore could be read as a metaphor for American military occupation in Iraq, as a parable about the perils of seeing all threats to civil order as coming from ‘the outside’, as a speculation on the future of America’s ‘culture wars’, as a critical examination of leadership in social and political movements. (Huston)

Huston concludes his article with a look at the role of New York in DMZ and Brian Wood’s work in general and concludes that “the conclusion of DMZ would still define a body of work about a particular place that is as rich [sic!] evocative as anything else you could hope to read” (Huston). The series’ central narrative strategy lies in a radical (narrative) spatialization of a number of problematic issues virulent in current US politics. As Georg Drennig has pointed out in his article on the series, aptly entitled “Fallujah Manhattan Transfer: The Sectarian Violence of Brian Wood’s DMZ”, it conflates and assembles questions and images of an America fighting the ‘War on Terror’ both at home and abroad on the distinctive island setting of Manhattan. In its bleak dystopian presentation of life in the DMZ and the structures and events of the ‘second civil war’ as it unfolds on the island, it renders its title a paradox, if not an outright lie: Manhattan Island is anything but demilitarized. Visually reminiscent of earlier works of Wood’s such as Channel Zero, it effectively dramatizes, as Drennig suggests, the “end of the utopian project known as the U.S.” (75). Thus far, the outline I have given seemingly corroborates Wood’s success at fictionalizing a “socio-political, topical issue” (Wood, Interview). I would now like to focus on a selection of issues raised in the series and point out how they complicate the notion of ‘partisan politics’ in DMZ as well as that of the series itself as a political comment (as suggested by both the series’ subject matter and its reception and out-

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lined above). The series’ ending seems to point to the ultimate futility of political discussion or struggles in the face of what seems to be an overpowering administrative system in which political, societal faultlines seem eternal. However, it can also be read as a depiction of the endless nature of the political process, the constant need to identify, and engage with, dissensus. Part of what makes the series so intriguing is its faithful reproduction of statements and attitudes readers can immediately re-attach to contemporary ‘real-world’ discourses. I want to draw attention to the way it addresses topics such as ecology, here introduced as a reaction not to a possible future ecological catastrophe, but to an actual one that has already taken place. At the same time, it poses questions regarding the right to the city and relates them to notions of artistic/creative production in the ‘survivalist’ world of the DMZ. Furthermore, the spatial and social exclusion of the underprivileged in a globalized political economy is thematized, globalization politics being introduced to the series by the presence of U.N. troops who ostensibly keep the peace in the first volumes. Ecological issues make an appearance in the text in several ways: early on in the series, Matty and his new found friend and guide Zee go out for a meal in a rooftop restaurant, which, as Zee points out, is only one of a number of restaurants practicing sustainable agriculture on the roofs of Manhattan (cf. Wood and Burchielli, Ground 37). In the course of the story, we come across several other instances of sustainable urban farming: in the Chinese restaurant run by Wilson, a gangster/‘ghost protector’ of Chinatown, for example, whom Matty befriends later on and who has established a very profitable black market system in the DMZ. Sustainable urban farming thus becomes an important aide for survival in a city torn by civil war and marred by the breakdown of all official infrastructure. Out of necessity, a way of life emerges in which nature is not a refuge from the drudgery of an ever more stressful work life, not the place in the mountains that you travel to, but an integral part of existence. Ashton Nichols’s urbanature perhaps best captures this notion: [A]ll human and nonhuman lives, all animate and inanimate objects on our planet (and no doubt beyond) are linked in a complex web of interconnectedness. We are not out of nature when we stand in the streets of Manhattan any more than we are in nature when we stand above the tree-

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The way the inhabitants of the DMZ structure their lives around the production of natural goods (used as economic resources or simply to provide a means of subsistence) nicely illustrates this point. Here, the notion of a split between nature and culture is exposed as a construct. Ecology is, however, not merely a matter of immediate survival. In the ninth volume of the series, M. I. A., we see what seems to be a poster for a group of environmental activists (who, in proper DMZ-attire— machine guns and camouflage—look more like infamous eco-terrorists of conservative disdain for ecological concerns), one of whom shoves a ‘Save the Trees’ poster into the reader’s attention (Wood and Burchielli, M. I. A. 21). Narratologically highly interesting insofar as it is nearly impossible to discern a fixed narrative perspective on the page, the ‘poster’ urges the viewer to take environmental action with a classic argument, namely for the sake of posterity: “Our excuses [not to have acted in favor of the protection of the environment, despite the civil war] will sound hollow” (Wood and Burchielli, M. I. A. 21). Quoting Soames, the leader of a group of ‘eco-activists’, the poster also reads: “when the dust settles . . . we will mourn the decimation of our parks and open spaces, the tainting of the water supply, the poisoning of the air and the destruction of historical areas” (Wood and Burchielli, M. I. A. 21). I only briefly want to point out here how in this quote the division of nature and culture has been, once more, collapsed in Soames conservationist scope, which includes historical areas of the city as well as literally all of the environment—water, air, and grounds. The statement again echoes Nichols’s urbanature, a term that conceptualizes a more closely-knit relation between human beings and their environment.

1

Ashton Nichols explains his concept of urbanature in more detail in his 2011 study Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism. The entry from his blog cited above, however, is the most concise definition he gives and is used here for its brevity.

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The group led by Soames is known as ‘the Ghosts’. They are “protectors of the park, the trees, the zoo animals. Model conservationists for all of Uptown” (Wood and Burchielli, Body 149). However, they are also deserters from the US military, “rogue special forces gone into hiding,” and their leader has “absolutely got a lot of blood on his hands” (Wood and Burchielli, Body 149). There are, in the encounters with the Ghosts, two aspects to be observed that complicate the straightforward image of them as environmental activists, of which they remain the only example in the text. The first one of these is their dubious enterprise. Their self-explanation as professed “environmentalists, outdoorsmen, scientists” (Wood and Burchielli, Ground 88) which Soames delivers to Matty rings hollow and is shown to be a fabrication when the reader learns more about the background of the group’s leader. We learn that their image as ecowarriors is little more than an image to legitimize their trade in bamboo and other products grown in the former zoo and Central Park. Furthermore, the means taken by the Ghosts to protect the park from looters etc. seem out of proportion. Using drones and cluster ammunition, they take drastic measures to protect their massive mono-cultural bamboo plantations (cf. Wood and Burchielli, Ground 88). These seem to be primarily an economic resource for them (even though they do give some of it away for free) rather than a natural environment worthy of protection for its own sake. Nature here comes to mean ‘natural goods’ that are traded and form the basis of a rudimentary economic system. We witness a process of economic re-integration of ecological concerns. Thus, these concerns become not an end in themselves, but the basis of a new hierarchy of resource-holder and consumer. In the context of my argument, it is significant that this process is depicted as circular and, ultimately, futile. The ecological concern is at first motivated sociopolitically and oriented towards the future. “Our excuses will sound hollow” urges to take action for the sake of future generations, as I have pointed out above. This motivation, however, is lost in the course of the series and replaced by the struggle for economic resources that constitute the basis of a socio-economic hierarchy. Reading the series as a ‘political comic’ merely because it addresses ecology is thus, as I have suggested earlier, reductive and does not capture the actual potential of the series for political commentary. Instead, such a reading needs to be

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based on a more concrete conceptual framework of the political, provided here by Rancière’s notion of dissensus. The second aspect that makes a reading of the ghosts as a classical group of environmental activists difficult is the their leader’s very personal motivation. An abandoned Soames, deserted by his men, stumbles across Manhattan, encountering anonymous adversaries in this not-quite deserted dystopian city. On his trip, he experiences several moments of visions during which reality and a version of nature veering between a pastoral scene and its nightmarish inversion in which the ground is covered in animal bones seem to interweave seamlessly (Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 130-31). From a narratological point of view, this passage is particularly interesting in that it relies heavily on processes of closure on the readers’ behalf to “mentally construct a continuous, unified reality” (McCloud 67). In the passage referred to above we see a sequence of three panels: The first one depicts Soames apparently getting shot, as suggested by a splat of blood that seems to emerge from his face. Drops of sweat fly from his head, his eyes are opened wide and his teeth are clenched in an expression that suggests surprise and pain. As readers, we conclude that he has been shot because we have witnessed part of a fireexchange with an anonymous adversary before and, if that isn’t clear, the words “whiff” and “BLAM”—the latter in jagged blood-red lettering—are given in the panel (Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 130).

Fig. 1: Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 130.

In the second panel, the only link to the one before is Soames’s facial expression and the gun he is in the process of dropping from his hand. While this remains consistent with the shell-shocked expression we know from the previous panel, everything else has changed. Now, we

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see him, dressed in outdoor clothes, standing in an idyllic landscape: green hills, trees and snow-capped mountains in the background complete the panel (Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 131). In the third panel of the sequence, there seems to be yet another change of perspective: as readers, we look down into a valley in the same kind of landscape we have seen Soames standing in in the previous panel. Instead of the peaceful natural imagery, however, we are startled to see the valley filled with the skeletal remains of deer. As readers, we assume that we now see things through Soames’s eyes. The point of view is situated on top of the valley and framed by rocks left and right. The impression created here is of standing at the edge of the valley. Indeed, the next panel shows what we take to be Soames’s feet standing among the bones on the ground. Thus, the comic effortlessly initiates a fairly complex process of inference in which we integrate several changes in perspective into a sensible narration.

Fig. 2: Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 131.

Soames is a hunter entering a field of destruction, perhaps of his making, that echoes images of the mass slaughter of buffalo and other wild animals during the period of American territorial expansion. Together with information the reader is offered about the background of the ‘Free States’ movement that is introduced as a backwoods, rednecky and, at

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least in its early stages, grassroots movement, whose leader resides in a trailer in the woods (cf. Wood and Burchielli, M. I. A. 22-25), these images introduce a stark contrast to a contemporary post-industrial society and lend historical depth to the questions of national selfunderstanding on which the series’ conflicts are centered. Additionally, it graphically depicts the toll of territorial expansion on the environment. One of the last panels in the sequence is a splash panel that shows Soames in a derelict city in the midst of a herd of deer that, as the next panel sequence makes clear (Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 140-41), only he can see. Wounded, weakened by infection from poisoned water and gunshot wounds, standing in a post-traumatic haze amid a herd of deer, gazing at a mountainous landscape, he makes the decision not to return to the army base: “I’m staying here” (Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 142). In fact, he does indeed stay in the DMZ: the Ghosts fade away, out of the story and into oblivion. In the end, it is not their influence or Soames’s fever-vision that rebuild Manhattan, but the same kind of anonymous steel-and-glass city planning that took place before the civil war. What I want to point out here, though, is that these visions of nature are introduced as Soames’s (involuntary) reaction to exterior threats. Thus, his conservational efforts, his role as the leader of a group of ecowarriors, appear to be involuntary coping mechanisms in a traumatic environment. A second example of a classic resistance strategy is that of appropriation of urban space and artistic freedom in the series. Very similar to Soames’s vision of nature as a personal strategy of coping with the traumatic experience of the civil war, Decade is a graffiti artist who, in the way his story is integrated into the overall context of the series, defies familiar concepts of graffiti as a political statement. In ways that seem reminiscent of Banksy-style street art, Decade does not use tags, variants of his name etc., but semi-cryptic slogans (“Faithful”) and a highly aestheticized, symbolic style of painting (Wood and Burchielli, Hidden 13). His work does little to subvert public space explicitly, he does, in fact, shy away from any kind of ‘political’ slogans or activity, which in the DMZ translates as more or less violent, but definitely highly sectarian engagement in the territorial struggles dividing the neighborhoods of the ruined city. For Decade, the city—and in particular its system of

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public transportation—is a canvas for the realization of his personal artistic ambition. Following this logic, for Decade the state before the civil war and during the time in which Manhattan is a demilitarized zone is really the same: Whereas before it was the police who made his work difficult, it is now the militia whom he avoids and who, much in the same way the police in pre-war times did, beat him silly if they catch him. I would argue that it is his refusal to subscribe to a certain order of public symbolic space that makes him the enemy of those enforcing their respective versions of order in both pre- and post-war Manhattan and the DMZ, and not his fame as a ‘normal’ street artist—after all, how much damage can spray painting do in a city that is ravaged by army raids and airstrikes on a regular basis? It is within this framework that his masterpiece, the culmination of a life of making public art, a massive puzzle piece of spray painting on top of subway trains, needs to be read. It is not the sides that he paints, where his art would actually have a chance of being seen, but the roofs of the trains. It is also merely luck and the good will of a soldier that allow his finished piece to be viewed once, at the moment he is finally arrested, ironically for disturbing the public order and using too loud a voice—things he has never really wanted to do. Graffiti here is not only a way of contesting ownership of public spaces, but is, in the character of Decade, also introduced as a surprisingly private project of artistic self-fulfillment. The series draws upon the notion of the subversive, political, street artist—all the more obvious because much of the comic itself is presented in this fashion. And yet the actual project of a street artist in the story world is presented less as politically motivated, but much more as a private, autobiographical project. In this light, his imprisonment and subsequent torture by an anonymous force appear as a fatal misunderstanding: Whereas for the authorities Decade’s art is mainly a disturbance of public space and the symbolic order, to him it is much more a personal item, his property as well as an integral part of who he is. This is further stressed by his refusal to clean off a drawing he has scribbled on the wall of his prison cell (cf. Wood and Burchielli, Collective 89-90). In my reading of Decade’s role in the series, I want to move beyond his actual conflict with the authorities as depicted in the series, and focus on the way it is included in the narrative. Thus I read the conflict be-

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tween Decade and the authorities not primarily in the light of a Lefebvrian right to the city2, which is, of course, a highly appropriate reading of his role in the series. Instead, I am more interested in the way Decade’s story is integrated into it with respect to the ending of the series. It is ultimately shown to be of no lasting consequence when the city tentatively returns to civil administration in the last volume of the series. To sum up my argument so far: For both Soames and Decade, the ostensibly political activity as environmental activist and graffiti artist respectively is not primarily an engagement in a public (political) discourse. Instead, it serves the specific, private function of overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder, of making sense of the world again for Soames and, respectively, in the case of Decade, of fulfilling his life ambition as an artist. Contest for public space and resources is, I would argue, in both cases tinted with nostalgia—in Soames’s case for a period in American history in which a man, a gun, and the wild ensured peace of mind and self-realization and, in Decade’s case, for a concept of the artist that demands lifelong devotion to an exceptional project which ultimately transcends whatever reality it is a part of and becomes both ‘pure’ beauty and the artist’s lasting signature, a semi-permanent sign of his presence. However, both ‘discourses’ fade away in the series and are ultimately shown to be futile. When the city is finally rebuilt, memory of its time as the DMZ is “tucked away in quiet corners” (Wood and Burchielli, Five 131). The city is again a creature made from glass and steel in which tourists wander and wax, half amazed and half-nostalgically at the 2

A sufficiently concise summary of Lefebvre’s concept is offered, among others, by Chris Butler: “Today, one of the most well-known aspects of Lefebvre’s spatial writings is his proposition that struggles for the right to the city (le droit à la ville) are now vital to any emancipatory politics of space. Understanding this assertion requires an appreciation of the central qualities of the urban and the way they frame his conceptualisation of the right to the city. For Lefebvre, the urban is not simply a product of processes of industrial production and capital accumulation, but is more or less ‘the oeuvre of its citizens’—a work of art constantly being remade. The prevention of certain groups and individuals from fully participating in this collective, creative act constitutes a denial of the right to the city” (143; original emphasis).

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transformation it has undergone. The series’ protagonist, Matty Roth, meanwhile takes the rap for a number of crimes, not all of which he has actually committed, and is sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. In a classic move of an anti-hero redeeming himself, he has written a book about his time in the DMZ. In this book, he ostensibly tells the truth about his years in the zone. Just before his imprisonment, it is smuggled out of the DMZ. At the end of the series, it is depicted serving as a guide for tourists visiting the (rebuild) city of Manhattan. The city is again as it had been before: the ‘Five Nations of New York’, as the last volume of the series is programmatically entitled, are rebuilt as both social and political entities, and the population is happy because ultimately, and despite the fact that everything has changed, nothing has changed. While this can be read as a dramatization of the workings of cultural memory in the wake of 9/11 and the ‘War on Terror’, it also renders all potentially subversive political action in the series futile and turns it into its opposite: non-events. An anonymous system still structures life for Manhattan’s population, just as it has before. Nostalgia here is a safe, controllable way of deflating the challenge posed by the stories of the DMZ in the ‘second civil war’; in fact, nostalgia itself can be turned into a commodity in the form of tourism as the end of the series shows. Here, the nightmarish conditions of life in the DMZ are replaced, once again, by a city of glass and steel, which tourists, guided by a book Matty has authored, visit (cf. Wood and Burchielli, Five 125ff). With respect to Hühn’s definition of narrative eventfulness as a change of state after which nothing can be seen in the same light again (cf. Hühn), the little narratives of resistance of the series in which urban politics are discussed fade away into nothing. On the plot level, it is as if they never existed; the order of classification remains intact. Political participation and negotiation of the right to the city through typically subversive discourses is thus complicated and ultimately dismissed as an option and instead replaced with nostalgia in the course of the comic series. Such a reading arrives at a different perspective on the political potential of the series: instead of providing a (potentially subversive) political commentary as suggested by the series’ reception and its ‘underground comic’ aesthetics, it dramatizes the loss of actual and discursive space for (political) action. Ultimately accepting a dystopian vision of a prevailing, globalized alliance of commerce and politics that is apparently beyond the reach of individual or localized collective action,

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the series can be read as mourning a time when not only eco-criticism and graffiti, but maybe also the comic itself were actual voices to be heard and not commodities tinted with nostalgia in a post-political world. While identifying fields of political conflict in accordance with Hardt, Negri and Žižek’s concept of the new commons, however, the series moves beyond the topical. In illustrating how such discourses prove ultimately futile and are all too readily re-integrated into a given anonymous administrative system, it drives home the necessity of constantly re-identifying points of dissent. Its political potential thus lies not in day-to-day political commentary on any number of issues in particular, but becomes something much more radical: a reminder to “begin from the beginning” (Žižek 43). Works Cited Butler, Chris. Henri Lefebvre: Spatial Politics, Everyday Life and the Right to the City. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Print. Drennig, Georg. “Fallujah Manhattan Transfer: The Sectarian Dystopia of Brian Wood’s DMZ.” Placing America: American Culture and Its Spaces, Ed. Michael Fuchs and Maria-Theresia Holub. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013. 7590. Print. Hardt, Michael. “The Production and Distribution of the Common: A Few Questions for the Artist.” OPEN 16 (2009): 20-28. Print. Hühn, Peter. “Event and Eventfulness.” The Living Handbook of Narratology. 07 June 2011. Web. 09 March 2015. Huston, Shaun. “Brian Wood’s New York: The Conclusion of the DMZ Series.” Popmatters. 30 July 2012. Web. 09 March 2015. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Hidden Art. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. Print. Nichols, Ashton. “Urbanature for a New Era.” Urbanature. 23 June 2009. Web. 09 March 2015. Rancière, Jacques. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Trans. Steven Corcoran. London: Continuum, 2010. Print. Wood, Brian. “CCI Exclusive: Brian Wood Reveals The Massive. Interview with Shaun Manning.” Comic Book Resources. 22 July 2011. Web. 09 March 2015.

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Wood, Brian, and Riccardo Burchielli. Body of a Journalist. New York: DC Comics, 2007. Print. Vol. 2 of DMZ. ---. Collective Punishment. New York: DC Comics, 2011. Print. Vol. 10 of DMZ. ---. The Five Nations of New York. New York: DC Comics, 2012. Print. Vol. 12 of DMZ. ---. The Hidden War. New York: DC Comics, 2008. Print. Vol. 5 of DMZ. ---. On the Ground. New York: DC Comics, 2006. Print. Vol. 1 of DMZ. ---. M.I.A. New York: DC Comics, 2011. Print. Vol. 9 of DMZ. Žižek, Slavoj. “How to Begin from the Beginning.” New Left Review 57 (2009): 43-55.

FRANK MEHRING

Visualizing and Sounding the “Walden State of Mind:” The Urban Matrix in Henry David Thoreau’s Environmental Imagination As urban dwellers in the age of globalization, how can we read Walden today? In Ghosts, the second part of his New York Trilogy (1987), American writer Paul Auster describes a scene in which a man named Blue, a private eye and arguably the most urban figure in the literary typology of the twentieth century, buys a copy of Thoreau’s most famous texts, begins reading it, finds that experience “painful” and “boring,” but does not give up. In the “Reading” chapter of Walden he comes across a sentence that finally says something to himBooks must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were writtenand suddenly he understands that the trick is to go slowly, more slowly than he has ever gone with words before. (163; my emphasis)

Taking my cue from Auster, who quotes Thoreau in order to exemplify that reading Walden can become significant for twentieth-century urban urban dwellers because it sharpens their senses, I want to take the argument one step further and suggest that even Thoreau, an author often celebrated as the father of American nature writing, was guided by a specific urban matrix1 in order to create a bridge between his (urban) readers and the natural environment that is the object of his book. 1

I use the term “urban matrix” as a shorthand for functional geographical data in the sense of Clark. The term has gained currency in a movement known as new urbanism and taken root in American culture dedicated to the regeneration of cities and urban areas. A new emphasis is placed on the intersection of

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The consistent reference to Walden in fictional texts, popular culture, and anthologies on American literatureas a point of departure in rethinking our relationship towards nature, in questioning our way of life, and in searching for an alternative mode of reorganizing our sociopolitical conditionselevates Thoreau’s text to a paradigm of environmental studies in an international context. 2 In their anthology on Nature Writing (1990), Robert Finsh and John Elder argue that Thoreau anticipated contemporary concerns about “the natural environment” as something that “must be protected” (23) against the overpowering influence of urban forms of life. During the last 150 years, Thoreau’s autobiographic descriptions of “Life in the Woods” (the subtitle of Walden) have been adapted to the particular needs of interpreters within a largely anti-urban trajectory. Donald Worster explains that nature writers searched for a “lost pastoral haven, for a home in an inhospitable and threatening world” (16). Getting into what I call a “Walden State of Mind,” i.e., into a specific way of approaching natural environments visually, orally, and spiritually, often provided readers with an antidote

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environmental sustainability, landscape design and transportation systems to provide “a strong basis from which to conceive of cities based on integrated, green, urban infrastructure systems.” (www.urbanmatrix.com). All urban planning starts with mapping and cartography to creatively approach the area to be built, rebuilt, or modified. In Thoreau’s Walden I trace a variety of charts and accumulation of data, such as the map of the pond, for building the house in the “Economy” chapter, thereby identifying a certain practice of approaching the stay at Walden Pond based on, determined by and filtered through an urban matrix. Raymond Williams rightly deems the term “nature” to be “perhaps the most complex word in the language” (219). Of the three definitions he suggests, my essay is interested in the one that refers to nature as the material world rather than nature as the essential character of something, or nature as a force that directs the world with references to classical mythology or eighteenthcentury Deism. However, in the twenty-first century, after more than two centuries of industrialization, a global network of highways, and climate change, nature—in the sense of being unmodified by human influence—does not exist any more. However, I find the term is still useful if we liberate its semantic connotation from its anti-urban connotation. Philosopher Kate Soper suggests that nature can be used as a “lay” or “surface” concept referring to “ordinarily observable features of the world (155-56).

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to industrialism and urbanization. In this tradition, Walden Pond became a prototype of the pristine anti-urban refuge.3 We see traces of that in the work of environmental activist and founder of the Sierra Club, John Muir, in Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac, the work of cultural critic and writer Wendell Berry, and in Jon Krakauer’s highly successful Into the Wild, a text whose author substitutes Alaska for Walden Pond. Rather than approaching it as the urtext of anti-urban American nature writing, I will suggest that Walden, traditionally perceived as the textual representation of a specific natural landmark outside the urban environment of Concord, Massachusetts, can be read as a text representing the process of unpremeditated sensual sensitization towards the sights and sounds in and around urban environmentsa reading that insists on the relevance of Thoreau’s text even in the postnatural, hyperurban world of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. 4 Locating Thoreau’s Walden State of Mind Taking Thoreau’s dictum that “books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they are written” at face value involves locating the author’s “Walden State of Mind.” We might find inspiration if we step out of the framework of literature and look at how one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, John Cage, read Walden. Cage offers an unusual approach to Walden by paying attention to a visual element in the book as a means to deal with novel urban sounds: the 3

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Often, people read Walden and visit the physical space, seeking some sort of pure state of Nature. For an overview of artists and tourists at Walden Pond, see Maynard. My interest in re-reading Walden is framed by the emergence of ecocriticism as a new methodological approach to the study of literature and culture from an ecological perspective. At the turn of the millennium a number of scholars such as Michael Bennett, David MacTeague, Scott Slovic, Lawrence Buell, Andrew Ross and others have questioned the city vs. nature opposition because the natural and built environments have long been intertwined. Bennett in particular calls for a “social ecocriticism” that takes urban and degraded landscapes just as seriously as “natural” landscapes (32). See also Buell, Future, esp. 17-19.

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map of Walden Pond, which Thoreau assembled based on exact cartographic data.5 The inclusion of the map comes as a visual surprise. It forms a topographical, technical counter-point to the literary, often subjective, poetic, descriptions of life at Walden Pond.6 Most scholars are unaware that during the time of writing Walden, Thoreau created more than 140 maps as a land surveyor to facilitate the construction of houses, farms, factories, and roads. Thoreau’s mind must have, to a certain degree, become hardwired to scanning the environment in terms of technical measurements and distances. In the finished book, the precise map suspends the literary reflections and seems, at first glance, like an odd element in his spiritual quest to “wake up my neighbours”. I agree with Stanley Cavell’s conviction that “Walden is itself about a book, about its own writing and reading.”7 The visual dimension of the illustrated cover page and the map of Walden Pond should therefore not be discarded all too easily or considered to be separate from the text.

Fig. 1: Thoreau’s map of Walden Pond, reproduced in Walden.8

What happens to the written account if we consider that the first part in the process of composing Walden as a text was not a sentence, but rather 5 6 7

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It appeared opposite page 307 in the first edition of Walden. In addition, the original book features a cover image by Thoreau’s sister of the cabin with the motto of the book quoted underneath the image. Thoreau’s Walden is a dense composition, based on journal entries, which has been revised seven times, as Shanley explains in The Making of Walden between 1846 and 1854. See Cavell xiii. Unfortunately, many editions of Walden Pond omit this map.

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lines, numbers, and cartographic measurements? How can we approach Walden anew if we understand that Thoreau’s first effort to frame his stay at Walden was to find an azimuth mark to set up his tripod, use his compass to chart the territory according to the rules of surveying, and to employ a sounding line to measure the greatest depth of Walden Pond? What can we deduct from recognizing the laborious endeavor in first creating a visual copy of Walden Pond by means of merging the mathematic symbols and alphabetical letters authored, so to speak, by the compass, before turning his observations into a literary account? And even further, what can we gain from this approach to the environment to better understand the potential of Walden to inspire new approaches to seeing and hearing the sounds of our urbanized world? I argue that Thoreau’s personal and literary approach to the pond (and nature in general) is based on an urban matrix, which makes the reading experience particularly relevant to urban dwellers. I would like investigate new ways to detect with greater exactness what Sean Wilentz described as “the subterranean cultural currents that fed the imaginations of the same great American writers” of the midnineteenth century (x). Going one step further than Reynolds in Beneath the American Renaissance with his aim to explore “unsounded depths of American culture,” I will turn to the semantic meaning of “sound” in its double sense: first, as a key term for the transcendentalist writer Thoreau which helped composers such as Charles Ives and John Cage to create an innovative, unconventional musical language based on polyrhythms, electronics, chaos, silence, indeterminacy, and novel visual notations; second, I will use the semantics of “sound” as a verb to explore the depths of Walden pond which allowed Thoreau to create a crucial visual counterpart to his literary account of “life in the woods.” The sounds of the environment and the practice of measuring by means of a sounding line will open up a new way to re-evaluate the city-nature dichotomy. It requires “sound senses”, meaning it is necessary to cast off familiar expectations in favor of becoming susceptible to the sights and sounds that are unpremeditated. In a final step, I will reconnect Cage’s cartographic scores and visual grids with Thoreau’s work as a landscape surveyor. Let us first take a closer look at the way Thoreau worked the act of surveying into his book. The second to last of 18 chapters in Walden, entitled “The Pond in Winter,” features the iconographic map (fig. 1).

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This visual inclusion challenges the reader to approach Walden from a different perspective. Instead of simply reading the text and joining Thoreau in listening to the birds at the Walden shore, and the breaking of the ice in winter; instead of breathing the pine scented air and reflecting on the benefits of planting a bean field, Thoreau challenges us with a different form of topographical description, lexical systematization, and formalized data that was part of the professional work by which he earned a living. Not only are we invited to trace Thoreau’s life in the woods through words but also to see Walden Pond through a graphic chart. This visual element deserves particular attention in understanding the “Walden State of Mind.” The project of surveying Walden Pond is mentioned almost casually. The chapter “The Pond in Winter” starts as follows: As I was desirous to recover the long lost bottom of Walden Pond, I surveyed it carefully, before the ice broke up, early in ’46, with compass and chain and sounding line. . . . But I can assure my readers that Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual, depth. I fathomed it easily with a cod-line and a stone weighing about a pound and a half, and could tell accurately when the stone left the bottom, by having to pull so much harder before the water got underneath to help me. The greatest depth was exactly one hundred and two feet. (Thoreau, Walden 278-79)

The map exemplifies this account with a cross next to the number close to the intersection of the horizontal line from the measuring points A and B and the vertical line between C and D. 9 In addition to information regarding scale, size of the territory, circumference, greatest depth and length, a profile of a section by the line AB and section CD, Thoreau marks the position of his house (in the lower right corner) and the location of the Fitchburg railroad (in the upper right corner). The casual viewer might overlook a crucial detail. The map is actually upside down. The true Meridian locates north at the bottom of the map. Was this a mistake or a slip by the printer? The Concord Free Library holds the preliminary draft of the Walden Pond Survey in its archive (fig. 2). This original map forms the basis for the graphically simplified version, 9

For a detailed analysis of how Thoreau surveyed Walden Pond, see Chura.

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which appears in the final book. Here, north is also located in this unconventional configuration. In addition, we get further information about the process of its creation from which we might deduce the function of surveying within the larger project of spending two years at Walden Pond.

Fig. 2: Original drawing of Thoreau’s survey of Walden Pond with the triangle superimposed and azimuth C on the original Walden map, Concord Free Library.

The first point of reference, the azimuth C, marks the deepest point of Walden Pond (see fig. 2). While tackling the question of whether Walden was indeed a bottomless pond—a rumor, which is mentioned at the beginning of the chapter10—Thoreau follows a scientific project of demystifying such rumors. After commenting on the “regularity of the bottom and its conformity to the shores and the range of the neighboring hills” (Thoreau, Walden 280), Thoreau drew a conclusion, which he presents as a revelation. When I had mapped the pond by the scale of ten rods to an inch, and put down the soundings, more than a hundred in all, I observed this remarkable coincidence. Having noticed that the number indicating the greatest depth was apparently in the center of the map, I laid a rule on the map 10

While confirming that Walden is not bottomless, Michaels still claims that the belief in bottomlessness has its merits since it tickles the imagination and encourages people to believe in the infinite.

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The technical process of mapping becomes a starting point for a poetic metaphor, which shifts between the local and the global. After having suspended the poetic dimension by the inclusion of the map, Thoreau reintegrates the statistical data into an ethical law he deduces from the topographical map. What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics. It is the law of average. Such a rule of the two diameters not only guides us toward the sun in the system and the heart in man, but draws lines through the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man’s particular daily behaviors and waves of life into his coves and inlets, and where they intersect will be the height or depth of his character. Perhaps we need only to know how his shores trend and his adjacent country or circumstances, to infer his depth and concealed bottom. (Thoreau, Walden 282-83)

Thoreau gives examples of what kind of information one might retrieve from mapping a territory beyond the mere graphic-numerical and geostrategic information. He applies a dictum Emerson presented in the fourth part, entitled “Language,” of his transcendentalist manifesto, Nature (1836): “It is not words only that are emblematic; it is things which are emblematic. Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics” (Emerson, Nature 18). This kind of transcendental deduction suggests the synthesis of poetry and science. Despite the implication that Thoreau managed to achieve such an ideal synthesis, he goes on to lament the difficulty of mastering the different modes of thinking, arguing that we either are “conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they

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merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them”(Thoreau, Walden 283)11. The second point of reference marks the railroad. The measuring of Walden Pond relies on a triangle connecting the azimuth C and the house with the railroad. The visual and acoustic presence of the railroad at Walden Pond is a striking element for a space, which has become a pilgrim site for people who would like to follow Thoreau into the wilderness. Using the spot where the railroad comes closest to the pond for his topographical survey creates an unusual connection, which he later exemplifies in the chapter on sounds. Railroad tracks are vital links to urban centers. Thoreau does not describe but rather evokes urban life by explaining that the railroad touches on the pond. By using the tracks to take an occasional walk to Concord he makes us understand that he was, as it were, related to society by this link. This allows him to center on the axis mundi—the absolute center from which his cosmos can be explored at a safe distance from the depressive state of mind prevalent in Concord at the time—the “quiet desperation.” In comparison, his “Walden State of Mind” is one of exploration, openness, and technocratic reflections about the triangularity of pond, house and railroad. The metaphors Thoreau employs for the penetration of the railroad into the woods shift between a partridge and a screaming hawk. Once, the railroad appears as an invading discordant machine, another time it blends with the landscape around Walden Pond, providing insights into hybrid sounds, echoes, and future opportunities for American progress. Let us consider a passage from the chapter “Sounds”: When I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary motion—or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with that velocity and with that direction it will ever revisit this system, since its orbit does not look like a returning curve—with its steam cloud like a banner streaming behind in golden and silver wreaths, like many a downy cloud which I have seen, high in the heavens, unfolding its mass11

With the desire to demystify Walden and its bottomlessness comes a drive to re-mystify (in the sense expounded by Buell in The Environmental Imagination 278), which is most vividly exemplified in the lyrical description of the sandbanks on the railroad tracks in the chapter “Spring”.

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The description of the sights and sounds of technology in the form of the train, cars, steam, the rattling, and echo effects signals a shift in perspective. Thoreau offers a new aesthetic approach to the impact of the industrialization that breaks with English romantic perceptions of what William Blake identified as “dark satanic mills” (319) in the preface to his epic Milton: A Poem (1804) or William Wordsworth’s use of the imagination to turn him into a mediator and “lover of the meadows and the woods” (269) in “Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey” (1898). In the world Thoreau presents to his readers there is no escape from civilization. The railroad and his house are strong reminders that Walden is not a refuge in the literal sense. Thoreau’s map fits within a frame where the city-nature dichotomy is already obsolete. The text challenges us to rethink Walden as a holistic, “techno-organic” entity.12 The third part of the triangle points to the cabin, which Thoreau identifies on the map as a “house:” The topographical measurements allowed Thoreau to exactly place himself as an urban dweller in the landscape. Considering his close relationship to Emerson, and to Emerson’s transcendental vision of completely penetrating nature, it is crucial to understand the function of the house as a reference point. Thoreau inscribed his position at Walden Pond by turning to the symbol of the house that he had built. The beginning of all knowledge at Walden Pond is thus defined by recognizing one’s position in nature via an urban background. In Walden, the quintessential symbol of an urban matrix— 12

By revealing the urban matrix of Walden, Thoreau’s complex account of his life experiment at Walden Pond can contribute to overcoming a binary conception of nature vs. city in favor of approaching nature and city in terms of a symbiosis and what Lawrence Buell calls a “holistic techno-organic entity” (Buell, “Nature and City” 7).

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the map—and the person writing about life at Walden Pond—Thoreau— merge in the most striking manner. While the dwelling place has been remembered chiefly as a cabin, Thoreau references his abode more than 80 times as a “House” (Thoreau, Walden 1). “I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap-doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite” (Thoreau, Walden 34). The house also features prominently in the first edition on the cover page, which is remarkable for a book on “life in the woods.” (fig.3)

Fig. 3: Cover of the first edition of Walden (1854) with an ink sketch of Thoreau’s cabin.

Had Thoreau printed the map in the conventional way with north at the top of the page, his house would have appeared in the upper left corner of the page. By turning the map upside down, with the north orientation at the bottom, the position is reminiscent of paintings of the Hudson River School. Artists such as Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durant, and Frederic Church often placed themselves or a human figure in the foreground as a point of reference from which the unfolding grandiosity of the American scenery appeared ready and awaiting the imprint of a new American civilization. At the time Walden was published, the Lackawanna Railroad Company approached the painter George Inness to commission what must be

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described as an advertisement for the company (fig. 4). Although Inness was at first put off by the assignment of combining his conventional pastoral style with the depiction of a train in operation (including a repair shop, a roundhouse, and smokestacks), the result bears a striking resemblance to the triangle Thoreau described in his map—albeit lacking the complexity and ambivalence which informs the general concept of Walden. According to European pastoral traditions, Inness positions the human observer in the foreground. In the new American setting of The Lackawanna Valley, this human’s gaze does not enter Arcadian scenes. It is rather confronted with the stumps of trees leveled to lay the tracks for what Thoreau described as a “travelling demigod,” “cloud compeller,” and “iron horse” (Thoreau, Walden 113). The foreground is deceptively pastoral. The background, however, exchanges rich woods, pristine lakes, and sublime images of wild nature. Deforested landscapes filled with storage houses, and factories with smoking chimneys blend seamlessly with the hazy sky. If the map is part of a modern grid aesthetic of projecting an industrial matrix onto the environment, Thoreau actively participates in blurring the boundaries between the city-nature dichotomy. This becomes particularly visible at the beginning of a chapter that links Walden Pond with man-made environments, aptly called “The Village.” Rather than condemning the man-made environment in favor of walks in the wilderness, the chapter starts out with a surprise: As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction from my house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows. . . . I went there frequently to observe their habits. (Thoreau, Walden 163)

Catrin Gersdorf has associated Thoreau’s practice of walking as a precursor to Walter Benjamin’s flâneur, the walking spectator. From this perspective, she approaches flânerie (the art of taking a walk) as “an ecocritical practice” that can be traced from Thoreau’s mid-nineteenth century response to the urban matrix in Nature to the twenty-first century (“Flanerie as Ecocritical Practice” 51). The Lackawanna Valley reveals the urban matrix in the guise of a romantic visual vocabulary suggesting a harmonic marriage of natural abundance and technocratic visions of future cities. The painting reso-

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nates with the concept of the “Walden State of Mind.” The function of the triangle between the center of Walden Pond, the railroad, and the house, is crucial in the act of surveying. Thoreau had to position himself at each of the three points and use the other remaining two points in order to complete his perfect 180-degree triangle. This interdependence shows that at any given point, Walden can best be approached by means of technology or the key architectural symbol of urban environments, the house.

Fig. 4: George Inness, The Lackawanna Valley ca. 1855. Oil on canvas, 33 7/8 x 50 3/8 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Sounding Thoreau: John Cage’s Urban Matrix One of the striking examples of how John Cage rooted his project of sharpening the senses and exploring the future of music in an American cultural context can be found in his work on Thoreau. Since the 1960s, Thoreau has emerged as a constant source of inspiration for John Cage, both in the sense of finding new ideas for musical experiments but also in the sense of finding hitherto neglected material in Thoreau’s œuvre. Fascinated by “the twentieth-century way Thoreau listened,” Cage explained in 1968: “He listened, it seemed to me, just as composers using technology nowadays listen. He paid attention to each sound, whether it was ‘musical’ or not, just as they do; and he explored the neighborhood of Concord with the same appetite with which they explore the possibilities provided by electronics.” (Cage, M unpaginated). I would argue that

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it is Thoreau’s surprisingly technocratic approach in Walden that Cage found fresh, revealing, and particularly inspiring from a musical perspective. As a world traveler and an artist tied to metropolitan performance centers,13 Cage reads Walden through an urban matrix. Rather than continuing the familiar categorization of Walden as an escapist version of romantic musings about the healing power of “Nature” with a capital “N” and a paradigmatic example of mid-nineteenth-century literary anti-urbanism, Cage brings the urban dimension to the forefront rather than blending it out. The surveying and sounding of the pond suggest that Thoreau puts nature (Walden Pond and its surroundings) into a cartographic grid. Grid patterns play a central role in the process of turning the “wilderness” of colonial America into what might be called the “cultural space” of modern America. Grids are tools used to organize and regulate the spatial relationship between urban structures and nature. Thus, grids follow principles of efficient and “rational thinking” (Williamson 20). They also represent the “desire to gain power over nature” (Gersdorf, “Nature” 26). Thoreau, however, follows a different agenda, which is particularly appealing to Cage: Thoreau measures Walden Pond in order to deduce spiritual meaning from this process. With mapping, Thoreau renders the natural environment comprehensive in a rational sense through numbers. He looks at the “world with new eyes” in the sense of Emerson (44) and thereby makes it his own. At the same time, he is able to denounce irrational myths of the “bottomless pond” and deduces ethical laws from his surveying results. The triangular approach of mapping also links the natural environment with what I call the “urban matrix” thereby breaking with aesthetic ideals of images of nature upheld by English romantic poets such as Blake, Coleridge, or Wordsworth. In several of his works, Cage turns to maps in order to create a direct link to Thoreau, the landscape surveyor, and Thoreau, the unusually sensitive traveler of Concord, Massachusetts. Cage creates grids to which he subjects texts and drawings found in Thoreau’s diaries. He thereby remediates the literary and visual work of Thoreau. By “remediation” I mean the process of translation or trans13

Daniel Charles creates revealing opposites by referring to processes of deterritorialization in the life of Cage compared to fixation on the work of Thoreau (74).

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formation of one medium into another, in the sense of David Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin.14 In the case of Thoreau’s writings and his map, the remediation in Cage’s musical compositions undergoes several developmental stages from textual quotations in scores, literary reductions and semantic emptying out, to instructions to put Thoreau’s drawings into a compositional grid, or explore cityscapes based on maps ranging from the historical Concord to the contemporary cities of New York and Chicago. Depending on the medium, the transformation creates different effects and operates as a form of memory, interpretation, recontextualization, popularization, and upgrading, as well as reaffirmation of older media in new media. Cage became interested in finding new ways to transcribe musical ideas. Music and visual arts formed a new nexus in the process of composing. Thoreau played a crucial part in Cage’s exploration of using graphics rather than symbols in musical notation. In works such as Song Books (1970), Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) and 23 Parts: 12 Haiku (1974), or Déreau (1982), he was able, as he explained in an interview with Joan Retallack, to find “the door that opened from music, for me, back into the field of graphic—paying attention to how things are . . . to look at” (Retallack 92). When he was asked by Richard Coulter of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to compose a piece of music to celebrate the American Bicentennial, Cage seized the opportunity to link the event with his earlier work on Thoreau. He felt compelled to write a short biographical summary of the transcendentalist free thinker for those who would perform his piece Lecture on the Weather and those who would attend the performance.15 This summary is remarkable since, in addition to well-known clues about Thoreau’s intimate relationship to the woods around Concord, Massachusetts, and the influence of his main works on Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., Cage emphasizes 14

15

Bolter and Grusin argue that “media are continually commenting on, reproducing and replacing each other, and this process is integral to media”. Cage’s use, appropriation, and remediation of Thoreau’s work and ideas show how far his compositions depend on other media, refashion other media, and therefore participate in what Bolter and Grusin call a “process of reforming reality” (55, 56). For a detailed analysis of Cage’s use of Thoreau’s writings and drawings see my monograph Sphere Melodies.

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two elements of Thoreau, to which literary critics had hardly paid attention. First, even before mentioning Thoreau’s major literary writings, Cage explains that Thoreau was an inventor: “He was the first person to put a piece of lead down the center of a piece of wood” (Cage, Empty Words 3). This reference is striking in the context of Arnold Schönberg’s characterization of his student John Cage: “Of course he’s not a composer, but he’s an inventor—of genius” (Cage, Silence back). Second, Thoreau was not only interested in seeing but also hearing the world he lived in. During his lifetime, critics and journalists regularly confronted Cage because he did not conform to the traditional composers’ standards. Schönberg’s comment might also be interpreted as a reference to the fact that Cage did not hold a degree in musical composition. 16 His pride of being recognized as an inventor connects him with the rugged individualism Thoreau promoted, describing the building of his own house and outlining an alternative life style in the woods at a time when industrialization was beginning to profoundly change the American way of life. In addition, Cage identifies similar characteristics in his family history. In his “Autobiographical Statements” he notes: “My father was an inventor. He was able to find solutions for problems of various kinds, in the fields of electrical engineering, medicine, submarine travel, seeing through fog, and travel in space without the use of fuel” (Cage, “Statement” 59). Rather than situating Thoreau in line with the visual sensitivity of Emerson and his famous passage on intuitive insight, Cage points out his aural sensitivity. “Music, he said, is continuous; only listening is intermittent” (Cage, Empty Words 3). Cage established a way to create structured space in the notation of music that does not correlate with structured time in a performance. This structured space can be productively linked with Thoreau’s surveying of landscapes around Concord and his emphasis of walking as a means to sharpen his sense of sight and sound in the immediate environment. One of the most striking examples can be found in Cage’s Song Books from 1970. In “Solo for Voice 3,” the composer provides instructions on how to use the map, which Herbert Gleason prepared for the 1906 edition of Thoreau’s journal, as a means to create a musical score (fig. 5). 16

See in this context Bormann, in particular p. 88.

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Using the map of Concord given, go from Fair Haven Hill (H7) down the river by boat and then inland to the house beyond Blood's (B8). Turn the map so that the path you take suggests a melodic line (reads up and down from left to right). The relation of this line to voice range is free and this relation may be varied. The tempo is free. Change electronics at intersections and/or when mode of travel changes. Use any of the following words by Henry David Thoreau as text (Journal Volume III, page 143). The different type/faces may be interpreted as changes in intensity, quality, and dynamics. Space on the page is left for the performer to inscribe the vocal path chosen from the map. (Cage, Song Books 2)

Cage adds: “This solo may be accompanied by a tape recording of hawk sounds” (Cage, Song Books 2).

Fig. 5: Concord Map for “Solo for Voice 3” in John Cage’s Song Books (1970).

The score reflects an imaginary walking trip in and around Concord. Combined with the entry from Thoreau’s Journals, the solo sends the musicians (and the audience) back to the transcendentalist world of inspiration. The musician participates in the act of walking by creating a score, which will then form the basis for a performance and offer an aesthetic experience. The resulting musical piece is new at any time and in any space it is performed. The excerpts of the journal on the hawk “circling over a pine wood” are both an expression of what Thoreau calls “poetry of motion” and an invitation to rediscover one of the canonized American dissenters as a precursor to an unpremeditated under-

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standing of sounds. The musicologist Helga de La Motte-Haber sees the map as a simplified form of instruction compared to Cage’s earlier textbased instructions or the visualizations of musical signs such as, for instance, his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra from 1958. Cage achieves an intensification and paradoxical simplification by presenting “a landscape as a text” (de la Motte-Haber 210). The map is, however, more than just a text. As was the case with Thoreau’s publication, the map represents a counterpart to the text that has its own spiritual truth encoded in the triangle between the house, railroad tracks, and the deepest point of the pond. For Cage, it is both a text and a tool to remap what I described earlier as the “Walden State of Mind.” A similar link to maps can be found in later compositions such as A Dip in the Lake: Ten Quicksteps, Sixty-two Waltzes, and Fifty-six Marches for Chicago and Vicinity from 1978.17 Here, Cage used a commercially printed map of Chicago as the basis to send musicians to the actual places at which the color lines intersect in order to produce field recordings (fig. 6). A Dip in the Lake is part of a larger concept called “city pieces,” the first being 49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs (1977) based on maps of New York City. Cage explains that the “city pieces” can be transcribed for other cities by assembling new lists of local addresses. Cage finds innovative ways to use maps as grid patterns in the act of composing/performing and to make them relevant to the present. The focus on beginnings and newness, which the transcendentalists described as a central element of American culture, becomes remediated in the instructions to wander and explore sights and sounds based on maps.18 Thus, Cage adds to the complexity of Thoreau’s urban matrix of approaching the environment at Walden Pond. He asks the

17

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When A Dip in the Lake premiered at a gala event at Navy Pier in Chicago on July 7, John Cage’s Song Books was performed at the Chicago Public Library Cultural Center. Two days earlier, members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra interpreted Cage’s Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) and 23 Parts (for any instrument and/or voices and Twelve Haiku followed by a Recording of the Dawn at Stony Pint, New York, August 6, 1974 /1974). Ulfried Reichardt speaks of a “continuous present” in Cage’s concept of time, space, and American newness. See also Mehring, Sphere Melodies 312 and Shultis, esp. 36.

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audience to return to the canonized classic of nature writing to discover its relevance for urban dwellers.

Fig. 6: John Cage, A Dip in the Lake, 1978. Permanent Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.19

The city pieces and the map of Concord in Song Books explore the aesthetic dimension of sounds. Just as Thoreau became alert to unusual sounds, such as the humming of telegraph wires, the sound field of the railroad, and distant bells at Walden Pond, Cage asks performers and audiences to rethink their pre-conceptualized understanding of aural sensitivity and musicality. An explicit visual link between this agenda and the inspiration Cage drew from Thoreau can be found in the black 19

Cage’s Chicago map was part of a recent exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago entitled MCA DNA: John Cage which ran from September 1, 2012 to March 31, 2013 on the occasion of the artist’s centenary year.

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and white image of Thoreau published in Song Books (fig. 7). The instruction for “Solo for Voice 5” reads: “Wander over a provided portrait of Thoreau, such that the path resembles a melodic line. Each of the eight parts is given a set of time units, the length of which is determined by the speed with which Part 2 can be performed. The texts are letters and syllables from Thoreau. Electronics should change with the facial features. Accompaniment may include sounds of wind, rain, thunder, etc.” The remediation that Cage asks his interpreters to engage in is to make Thoreau’s traveling, surveying, and sounding relevant to urban dwellers, who are usually not traveling on foot but rather use modern means of transportation.20 Thoreau’s face (based on a modified Daguerreotype of the writer in stark black and white) becomes thus a kind of map for modern day musicians and interpreters.21

Fig. 7: John Cage, “Solo for Voice 5,” Song Books, 1970.

Just as Thoreau produced a grid in the shape of a map to take control over nature and deduct ethical laws from it and to press on with a new aesthetic approach fusing nature, urban structures and technology, Cage explored the possibilities of grids for his musical experiments. In Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) and 23 Parts: 12 Haiku (1974) and Renga (1975-6), he turned to the often neglected sketches which Thoreau added to his diary at the margins of various pages. Cage explored how he could 20

21

Jannika Bock has worked extensively on the theme of wandering and travelling in Thoreau and Cage. See in particular chapter five entitled “Cage and Thoreau: Two Wanderers” in her monograph. See in this context my book on Sphere Melodies 351 and Kathan Brown.

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translate and remediate Thoreau’s observations at Walden Pond into music. The visual dimension of Thoreau’s work seemed particularly persuasive for Cage’s project to overcome preconceived notions of what parameter define “music” in the classical western context. In the mid1960s, Cage explained his particular interest in the way Thoreau experienced his environment both visually and acoustically. The passage is worth quoting at length: And that’s what links me the most closely with Duchamp and Thoreau. In both of them, as different as they may be, you find a complete absence of interest in self expression. Thoreau wanted only one thing: to see and hear the world around him. When he found himself interested in writing, he hoped to find a way of writing which would allow others not to see and hear how he had done it, but to see what he had seen and to hear what he had heard. He was not the one who chose his words. They came to him from what there is to se and hear. You’re going to tell me that Thoreau has a definite style. He has his very own way of writing. But in a rather significant way, as his Journal continues, his words become simplified or shorter. The longest words, I would be tempted to say, contain something of Thoreau in them. But not the shortest words. They are words from common language, everyday words. So, as the words become shorter, Thoreau’s own experiences become more and more transparent. They are no longer his own experiences. It is experiences. And his work improves to the extent that he disappears. He no longer speaks, he no longer writes; he lets things speak and write as they are. I have tried to do nothing else in music. Subjectivity no longer comes into it. (For the Birds 233-34)

The work uses a grid in order to derive a musical experience from the drawings thereby blurring the lines between texts, visuals, and sounds. Echoing his explorations to emptying out language of meaning, transforming it into sounds, noise and silence in Empty Words (1973) and letting the sounds from outside enter the performance in the final part (by opening the windows), he asks the performers of Score to play back a recording of dawn made at Stoney Point. The grid offered Cage a way to structure time by controlling the duration of different performances, to add dynamics, and to create parts for different musicians. The grids are, similar to the surveying data in Thoreau’s lines on the outline of Walden Pond, superimposed over the images, which Thoreau selected by means of chance from Thoreau’s Journal. The score consists of

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twelve rectangular units that are grouped in grids consisting of five, seven, and five sub-sections. Thus, Cage uses the Haiku structure in order to superimpose a grid over Thoreau’s drawings as a means to empty the composer’s mind from pre-conceived musical expectations in the process of writing the score and leaving it to the performers to turn the visual score into a musical performance.

Fig. 8: John Cage, Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) and 23 Parts: 12 Haiku (1974).

Conclusion What the American landscape architect and theorist Charles Alexander Jencks describes as “double-coding,” namely the “hybridization” and “complexification of modern elements with other ones” to identify a post-modern agenda (Jencks, (ed.). The Postmodern Reader 12) can be productively linked to John Cage’s remediation, appropriation, and remapping of Thoreau’s œuvre. Thoreau’s ventures into the sounding of nature are also double-coded: first, as the chapter “Sounds” in Walden shows, Thoreau sharpened his aural sense to discover the remarkable richness of sounds usually dissociated from the sphere of nature (such as humming telegraph wires, echoes of distant bells, or the sound field of the railroad); second, by measuring and sounding the depths of Walden Pond Thoreau used his expertise as a landscape surveyor to lay a grid of lines and numbers over the visual experience of his sojourn at Walden Pond. The resulting map features prominently as a visual counterpart to

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the literary account of living for two years and two months at a little pond outside of Concord Massachusetts. Cage responded to this doublecoding by stylizing Thoreau as a precursor to his avant-garde experiments with sounds, sights, scoring, and performance culture. He explained that Thoreau’s remarkable attention to sounds—no matter whether they were “musical” or not—resembled the way twentiethcentury avant-garde composers sharpen their senses and creatively use electronics. In many of his visual scores ranging from Song Books, Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau), and 23 Parts: 12 Haiku to A Dip in the Lake, Cage asks musicians to become cartographers themselves in order to perform music. Thus, we have come to a surprising answer to the question: What happens to the written account of Walden if we consider that the first part in the process of composing its text was not a sentence, but rather lines, numbers, and cartographic measurements? Remapping Cage’s remediation shows that Cage discovered and productively appropriated those elements of Thoreau’s oeuvre that hardly fit the traditional definition of “romanticism.” The “Walden state of mind” cannot be understood or entered without considering the urban experience. When asked about whether Cage was following Thoreau’s example of becoming a man of the woods considering Cage had moved from New York City to Stony Point, he pointed to the misconception that personal alliances relied on rural or natural environments. Quite the opposite was true when it came to thinking about the special bond, which connected Cage to Thoreau: When “I recently recognized the parallel [between himself and Thoreau living in Concord and Stoney Point], I started reading Thoreau’s Journal and couldn’t put it down. Yet, the community we formed doesn’t exactly conform to the life Thoreau imagined and practiced. To parallel Thoreau’s attitude today, we would have to construct urban communities.” (For the Birds, 186) Thus, we have come to a surprising conclusion: By forging urban communities in the sense of John Cage we are best equipped to read Walden today. Cage sends musicians and audiences back to critically and aesthetically engage with the nineteenth century patron saint of nature writing. He thereby asks them (and us) to take on a “Walden State of Mind.” This means that we have to activate a decidedly urban matrix to map the

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environment—an astounding revelation that shows how old media can be refashioned to answer the challenges of the presence in new media. 22 The urban matrix of Thoreau’s environmental consciousness places nature not opposite to developments of the industrial revolution. Rather, the “Walden state of mind” is both complicit with industrial progress and holds the promise for urban dwellers to find inspiration in manmade environments. Works Cited Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy, New York: Penguin, 1987. Print. Bennett, Michael. “From Wide Open Spaces to Metropolitan Spaces.” ISLE. 8.1 (2001): 31-52. Print. Blake, William. The Selected Poems of William Blake. Ed. Bruce Woodcock. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 2000. Print. Bock, Jannika. Concord in Massachusetts, Discord in the World: The Writings of Henry Thoreau and John Cage. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2008. Print. Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT P, 1999. Print. Bormann, Hans-Friedrich. Verschwiegene Stille: John Cages performative Ästhetik. Paderborn: Fink, 2005. Print. Brown, Kathan. “Visual Art.” The Cambridge Companion to John Cage. Ed. David Nicholls. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 109-27. Print. Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing and the Formation of American Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995. Print. ---. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Malden: Blackwell, 2005. Print. ---. “Nature and City: Antithesis or Symbiosis?” Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. Ed. Stefan L. Brandt, Winfried Fluck, and Frank Mehring. Tübingen: Narr, 2010. 3-20. Print.

22

This article builds on ideas first explored in my essay on “Romantic Remediations.”

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Cage, John. “An Autobiographical Statement.” Southwest Review 76 (1991): 5976. Print. ---. Empty Words. Writings ’73-’78. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1979. Print. ---. M: Writings ’67-’72. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1973. Print. ---. Silence. Lectures and Writings by John Cage. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1961. Print. ---. Score (40 Drawings by Thoreau) and 23 Parts: 12 Haiku. New York: Henmar Press, 1974. Print. ---. Song Books. Solos for Voice 3-92. New York: Henmar P, 1970. Print. Cage, John, and Daniel Charles. For the Birds. Boston: M. Boyars, 1981. Print. Cage, John, and Joan Retallack. Musicage: Cage Muses on Words, Art, Music. Ed. Joan Retallack. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1996. Print. Cavell, Stanley: The Senses of Walden. An Expanded Edition. San Francisco: North Point P, 1981. Print. Charles, Daniel. Musketaquid: John Cage, Charles Ives und der Transzendentalismus. Berlin: Merve, 1994. Print. Chura, Patrick. Thoreau the Land Surveyor. Gainesville: UP of Florida, 2011. Print. Clark, David: Urban Geography: An Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1982. Print. de la Motte-Haber, Helga, ed. Musik und Religion. Laaber: Laaber, 1995. Print. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature, Addresses, and Lectures. Ed. Robert E. Spiller and Alfred R. Ferguson. Cambridge: The Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1979. Print. Finsh, Robert and John Elder, ed. The Norton Book of Nature Writing. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990. Print. Gersdorf, Catrin. “Flânerie as Ecocritical Practice: Thoreau, Benjamin, Sandilands”. Ecology and Life Writing. Ed. Alfred Hornung und Zhao Baisheng. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. 27-53. Print. ---. “Nature in the Grid: American Literature, Urbanism, and Ecocriticism.” Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. Ed. Stefan L. Brandt, Winfried Fluck, and Frank Mehring. Tübingen: Narr, 2010. 21-40. Print. Jencks, Charles, ed. The Postmodern Reader, New York: St Martin’s P, 1992. Print.

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Keck, Michaela. Walking in the Wilderness: The Peripatetic Tradition in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Painting. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006. Print. Maynard, W. Barksdale. Walden Pond: A History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Print. Mehring, Frank. “Romantic Remediations: John Cage and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden State of Mind.” Fluxus Made in USA: Die Revolution der Romantiker. Ed. Gerhard Graulich and Katharina Uhl. Schwerin: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2014. 75-99. Print. ---. Sphere Melodies: Die Manifestation transzendentalistischen Gedankengutes in der Musik der Avantgardisten Charles Ives und John Cage. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2003. Print. Michaels, Walter Benn. “Walden’s False Bottoms.” Glyph, vol. 1, 1977: 132-49. Print. Reichardt, Ulfried. “Sounds in Time-Space: John Cage und die Komposition als Prozess.” Dialoge zwischen Amerika und Europa: Transatlantische Perspektiven in Philosophie, Literatur, Kunst und Musik. Tübingen: Francke, 2007. 257-72. Print. Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Oxford: Oxford UP 1988. Print. Shanley, J. Lyndon. The Making of Walden with the Text of the First Version. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1957. Print. Shultis, Christopher. Silencing the Sounding Self: John Cage and the American Experimental Tradition. Boston: Northeastern P, 1998. Print. Soper, Kate. What Is Nature? Culture, Politics and the Non-Human. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Print. Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions and Poems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1906. Print. ---. Walden. An Annotated Edition. Foreword and Notes by Walter Harding. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1995. Print. Wilentz, Sean. “Foreword.” David S. Reynolds. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Oxford: Oxford UP 1988, ix-xii. Print. Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. Print. Williamson, Jack H. “The Grid: History, Use, and Meaning.” Design Issues. 3.2 (1986): 15-30. Print.

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Wordsworth, William. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. 11 vols. Ed. William Knight. Edinburgh: William Patterson, 1882-1889. Vol. 3. Print. Worster, Donald. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. Second ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.

NASSIM WINNIE BALESTRINI

Hip-Hop Life Writing and African American Urban Ecology The focus of this essay presupposes three recent developments in ecocriticism regarding race, location, and genre. First, critical approaches focused on environmental factors have been expanding from reliance on expository discourse to the analysis of literary texts in the widest sense. Second, ecocriticism has started to become inclusive of urban landscapes, which is crucial for the African American experience in the northern states more than in the comparatively less urbanized southern states. Third, ecological and ecocritical thought in the US has, for the longest time, privileged white experience. Only recently have scholars begun to contemplate the intersections between racism and ecological Othering, between various forms of oppression and attitudes toward specific material environments. Broadening the scope of ecocriticism regarding the people, places, and forms of self-expression concerned has led to the inclusion of hitherto ignored source materials. Among these materials is life writing by African American hip-hop artists. Rather than viewing these texts as mimetically documenting socioeconomically struggling inner-city environments, recent ecocritical perspectives encourage studying hip-hop life writing as an emerging form with specific aesthetic features that are rooted in urban environments associated with predominately African American populations. Central to the opening of ecocritical thought toward non-expository discourse and toward urban landscapes is a growing emphasis on the aesthetic intricacies of literature and their power to bridge gaps between seemingly disconnected areas of interest. Patricia Yaeger argues that literature is predestined to contribute to “space-mapping” cities (22): according to her, “a poetics of infrastructure, or a metropoetics, should describe the flow of literature as it pours into and out of the life of cit-

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ies” (21). In contrast to maps that specialize on representing a small set of an area’s features, literary texts are “layer[ed],” “plaited,” and full of “overdetermination” and can thus result in highly complex renderings of environments (24). Lawrence Buell concurs with Yaeger’s appreciation of literary mappings of spaces when he stresses the benefits of studying “the immersive power of the fictive: the power to draw its readers into its imagined scenes, affectively and even sensuously” (5). Through uncovering communicative strategies designed to trigger certain responses, researchers can demonstrate how the binary opposition between city and ecology relies “upon embedded, often unacknowledged, tropes” that do not only provide a repertoire of expressions and phrases, but that are fraught with preconceived notions that should be questioned (17). As one of myriad “discourses of mediation” between humans and their environments, literary texts dealing with specific spaces thus need to be scrutinized in terms of their poetics and their reception histories (17). Like Yaeger and Buell, Catrin Gersdorf surmises that the “double function of language” permits literature “to simultaneously represent and produce a reality” (24). Thus, the perceived facticity of a real-world environment can be contemplated and complemented through invented storyworld-realities. Various scholars who have been pursuing ecocritical studies of literary texts have been simultaneously concerned with considering the role of race within these same works. 1 Among the central issues addressed is the legacy of science-based racism, particularly the consequences of associating non-white people with nature rather than culture. Kimberly N. Ruffin argues that African Americans have been depicted as criminally inclined environmental Others, both in so-called natural and in man-made environments, that is, in locales associated with ostensibly untouched nature, with rural life, and with cities. Such “[i]ncidents of environmental othering exemplify one-half of what” Ruffin designates “an ‘ecological burden-and-beauty paradox,’ which pinpoints the dynamic influence of the natural and social order on African American experience and outlook” (2). Whereas, according to Ruffin, enjoying environmental beauty means doing so without being subjected to preju1

See Newman and Finley for references to such studies and for a discussion of new developments in this area of inquiry.

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dices and discrimination, the “social order” focuses on excluding nonwhites from specific locales and their benefits. Many literary texts by African Americans provide avenues towards understanding a long history of discrimination in environmental contexts (such as lack of access to clean water or recreational spaces, zoning and housing policies, racist notions of animal instincts characteristic of certain groups) and towards understanding “a desire for environmental belonging” (10).2 An ecocritical perspective on such texts facilitates “discern[ing] the interconnectedness of social and natural systems” (20). In the context of this essay, it is crucial to link Ruffin’s approach to Kimberly K. Smith’s focus on American cities as the dominant setting for African American experiences as of the 1930s (158). She argues that, while artists have necessarily had to deal with slavery and rural settings in terms of historical awareness, cities have figured as alternative spaces for creative selfinvention (177). Nevertheless, urban social structures based on whites dominating the economy and the cultural sector continue to make it difficult for African American artists to assert themselves on their own terms. Perspectives on ecocriticism, literary artifice, and race converge in debates about a realist aesthetic that provides an artistic vehicle for making sense of a specific environment. Smith connects the Harlem Renaissance dilemma of African American artists’ subordination by white sponsors and white audiences to the literary style of “urban realism” (178, 179). Since then, the upheavals of the Second World War, the skepticism of postmodernist thinking, and the concomitant diversification of literary self-expression have called realist writing into question. Realism as a literary style has, nevertheless, not vanished. It has rather evolved into an array of competing concepts of referentiality, verisimilitude, and aestheticization. Interestingly, the complexity of contemporary literary realist practices is frequently linked to non-mainstream writers who deal with anything but utopian visions of the world (Esty and Lye; Saldívar). Ramón Saldívar describes “speculative realism” as characteristic of various ethnic writers’ texts that reinvent previous forms of “realism” and of non-realist genres (3, 13). This particular hybridization, then, both critiques traditional literary realism and facilitates re-thinking 2

Also see Smith 189.

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race (5-6). The seeming contradiction in terms (speculation versus verisimilitude) takes up postmodernist thinking on multiple realities and encourages the analysis of representational strategies in new forms of literary realism (13-14). But why does the issue of representation in a realist or non-realist mode matter when contemplating life writing by hip-hop artists? It matters precisely because hip-hop’s insistence on “keeping it real” has often been tragically misunderstood as pointing toward a documentary positivism that denies hip-hop’s artistic basis and thus its specific poetics and aesthetics. Lyrics of rap songs have been misrepresented—not as poetry and thus fictional, but as hard facts about the respective rapper’s character, actions, and life experience.3 As Jay Z argues, many listeners assume that rap lyrics do not have the kind of depth that requires repeated, attentive listening and interpretation (54). They do not see that rap is an art form rather than “just a bunch of niggas reading out of their diaries” (56). Reductionist views of hip-hop self-expression as a sort of twenty-first-century urban verismo cannot do justice to hip-hop lyrics and hip-hop life writing, which deserve more holistic readings. Jay Z’s monograph Decoded, for instance, can be read as an artefact in which he presents autobiographical details and song lyrics within a complex matrix. This matrix expresses not only his artistic credo but also his understanding of the urban ecology within which this art has originated and has continued to evolve.4 Reducing Decoded to an anthropological resource would be akin to reading Benvenuto Cellini’s celebrated and artistically inspiring autobiography merely as a guide to the art industry in sixteenth-century Europe.5 3 4

5

For an extended discussion of this issue and on an intermedial poetics of hiphop life writing, see Balestrini. When Shawn Carter, a.k.a. Jay Z, published his monograph, he still hyphenated his stage name. In 2013, his label announced that he had decided to drop the hyphen. In this essay, I will use the current spelling without the hyphen, unless the name occurs in a passage quoted from his monograph. In contrast to that and in accordance with Jay Z’s book, I will hyphenate hip-hop as a noun and as an adjective throughout this essay. I chose Cellini as an example here because his autobiography has been alluded to and adapted in myriad contexts in both European and North American culture and art. The fact that Cellini was known as a murderer is not meant to

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Jay Z’s autobiographical monograph exemplifies intricately layered artistic discourse on the intersections between a city’s locale(s) and socioeconomic predicaments. Verbal and visual elements complement and mutually enhance each other in Decoded. The power and agency linked with visual and verbal representations become especially poignant when the verbal is part of a visual image or when words are superimposed on visual images. The metropoetics, to use Yaeger’s term, that emerge from Jay Z’s monograph about himself and about the art and community of hip-hop to which he belongs, are based on the following principles and insights: first, the multimedia urban practice of hip-hop allows Jay Z to interlace visual perception and verbal self-expression. Second, inscribing urban sites with words provides a source of empowerment (partially associated with and derived from related artistic gestures in graffiti).6 Third, artistic renderings of cityscapes convey and confirm the contradictory nature of the metropolis while they also imply the powerful position of the artist as an interpreter of realities. Fourth, the gap between those who gain an audience and those who do not—that is, between successful artists and those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder—remains immense. Visual Perception and Verbal Self-Expression Decoded begins with a recollection set in the Marcy Projects of Brooklyn. Nine-year-old Shawn Carter, not yet known as Jay Z, observes children who are circled around a solitary and seemingly entranced kid who is incessantly “spitting rhymes” (to use a hip-hop expression). Complementing this swift performance of verbal art and rhythm above ground, kids like this rapper expertly wend their way through the “laby-

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imply here that rappers are criminals; at the same time, it is crucial to observe that Cellini made it into works by artists as diverse as Hector Berlioz and Mark Twain without second thought about his criminal past, whereas hip-hop artists seem to operate under racism- and class prejudice-based stereotypes. See Zukin, who claims that the power to distribute certain images through specific channels is “a way of controlling both knowledge and imagination, a form of corporate social control over technology and symbolic expressions of power” (299).

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rinth[ine]” Marcy Projects, the housing development where Jay Z grew up. They navigate “[t]he shadowy bench-lined inner pathways that connected the twenty-seven six-story buildings of Marcy Houses [that] were like tunnels we kids burrowed through” (3). The description of children in tunnel-like pathways evokes the image of rapidly moving moles, who manage life in a dark environment through other skills than visual perception.7 These tunnels appear menacing to non-residents, but insiders move comfortably within this network: “Housing projects can seem like labyrinths to outsiders, as complicated and intimidating as a Moroccan bazaar” (3). This striking simile evokes a North African urban phenomenon and thus carries the baggage of exoticization and Othering. By disor re-locating the inner-city metropolitan context and its emotional impact from the United States to a different continent and culture, the Marcy Projects appear culturally remote from the American mainstream. Jay Z does not complement these verbalized figurative references to an insider or outsider status with matching visual images. Instead, a photograph of a 1980s boom box in pristine condition stresses his recollection of the rapping kid. Visually foregrounding the significance of creating lyrics pushes the other tropes into the background. Closeness of words and images recurs in Jay Z’s comments on the impact of this recollection on his young mind. The incessantly rapping kid, whose rhymes respond to what he sees in the vicinity, appears to be fighting an invisible enemy: “It was like watching some kind of combat, but he was alone in the center. All he had were his eyes, taking in everything, and the words inside him” (5). The inextricable link between a particular outside environment and the tools of artistic self-expression inside the rapper is unmistakable. Hip-hop thus internalizes the city and subsequently externalizes individual aesthetic responses to the same urban scene. According to the narrative, mastering an art form equals power. Young Shawn Carter thus reads his experiments with rhyming and with 7

Although the book cover of Decoded implies that Jay Z authored the entire volume, his roundabout thanks to Dream Hampton in the acknowledgments indicate that the narrative was ghost-written (325). The lyrics and annotations are presumably Jay Z’s alone. On the back of the book, he is listed as the artistic director of the volume. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to Jay Z as the author of the entire book.

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recording his voice “as an opening, a way to re-create myself and reimagine my world” (5). Creativity thus becomes constitutive of an individual’s self and world. It also defines aesthetic self-expression as non-mimetic and as not geared towards verisimilitude. Rather than following a Marxist approach in which an environment determines a person’s character and experience, the visual on the next page also implies that art can override the ‘reality’ of environmental factors. The photograph shows hand-written verses on a hugely enlarged paper bag that is superimposed on Marcy buildings (fig. 1). The discernible parts of the buildings simply frame the oversized bag. The verses express Jay Z’s claim to artistic sovereignty: “I’m the king of hip-hop.” Implicitly, his kingship derives from the ability to provide insights or maybe even solutions, as indicated by the image of the “key in the lock.” Readers/listeners can locate such keys because the lyrics are “rhymes so provocative” that they cannot but elicit a response; this response, in turn, leads them to opening whatever mental door may have been closed beforehand. In this section and towards the end of the book, Decoded posits a particular sequence of events as pivotal when discovering and developing a budding artistic self: a lyricist first becomes an attentive spectator in a particular place and then verbally projects his observations onto this particular locale (7-10). Based on “close observation,” lyrics contain “social commentary” intended to trigger social change (203, 255). Adding to this incentive, Jay Z’s text inscribes his artistic work of renewal into mainstream American traditions by dubbing rap “a new frontier” with which rappers “[strike] oil” (255). In other words, rappers follow Ur-American cultural models and reap the monetary rewards of their hard work and ingenuity in a realm characterized by constant battles for survival. Ironically, the necessity to fight for survival does not rest on natural predicaments, but rather on social, man-made conditions. What remains the same is the rhetoric of overcoming adverse circumstance and of triumphing through material success. As indicated, art lies at the center of the rapper’s power to change socioeconomic conditions and particularly attitudes. Observation per se does not suffice, but artists do have a heightened ability to “see patterns and details and connections” and to deal with contradictions (205). In other words, they figure out the inner workings of an ecological system, artistically transform these workings, and expect recipients to retrieve the patterns woven into their condensed artistic representations. For

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instance, in the lyrics of “Meet the Parents,” the lyrical I raps about a young man who is murdered on the street by his own father, not knowing that he killed his son. In the twenty annotations to the lyrics as they are printed in Decoded, Jay Z explains how the aesthetics of the text, particularly the act of playing with double meanings and of depicting the tragic results of coincidence in an environment characterized by fear and violence, imitate the complexities of family relationships for the innercity hip-hop generation (211). Not only do the lyrics and the annotations point out the pitfalls of glorifying the sex appeal of gangsterism and of things not being what they seem to be, but they also place hip-hop within a historical trajectory of brittle family structures that grew out of exploitation, poverty, and emasculation. Jay Z’s perspective on how his lyrics work thus both coheres with Yaeger’s focus on complex literary/aesthetic structures and with new approaches to realist aesthetics informed by postmodernist skepticism, and it allows analysis along the lines of Buell’s notion of an aesthetics of mediation between the artistic and the ecological. The intricacy of Decoded is heightened by transcending the oscillation between textual narratives and images as found throughout the volume and in particularly condensed form in the presentation of his rap lyrics, which he supplies with copious annotations that unravel both his poetics and the sociohistorical underpinnings of his stylistic feats.

Fig. 1: Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design. Marcy House Beneath Paper Bag. Jay-Z. Decoded 6.

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Inscribing Urban Landscapes: The Artist’s View as Defining a Place The visual and verbal discourse related to power and to the creation of patterns surfaces in one of the most straightforward structuring devices in the monograph: each of the four parts of the book begins with a visual image of an urban environment onto which words are written. These figure as the respective section headings. “Part I: ONE EYE OPEN” is inscribed onto Union Square photographed from a bird’s-eye perspective (fig. 2). In terms of their sheer size, the words overwhelm the square and the people on it. The individual letters dwarf the equestrian statue of George Washington and thus distract the viewer’s eyes from what might otherwise be the focal point of attention. Strikingly enough, the individuals walking across these words seem unaware of the text onto which their bodies cast shadows. One open eye may imply that the second eye is still closed but will be opened eventually, thus possibly indicating the autobiographer’s personal growth; or it might hint at the inability to close both eyes for fear of missing something either dangerous or otherwise important; or it might imply that the passersby only partially take in and understand the implications of urban landscapes.

Fig. 2: Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design. “One Eye Open”; “Union Square.” Jay-Z. Decoded xvi–1.

Rather than adding a layer to a horizontal plane such as a square, the opening visual of “Part II: I WILL NOT LOSE”, shows an inscription on black cloth suspended vertically from a building. The building covered in fabric vaguely evokes Christo’s artwork, or maybe a curtain in a

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theater. Either way, it is again an example both of obstructing vision through veiling and of words inscribed on an urban site—in this case of an emphatic statement in the first person singular which participates in the visual-verbal discourse of empowerment. Semantically, the title phrase “I will not lose” connects with the subsequent narrative about how survival requires being a leader who never gives up (74-75). When regarding the two chapter openings as part of a sequence or pattern, it is remarkable that they combine the horizontal and vertical planes, an equestrian statue of the first US president on a square located in a section of New York City not primarily associated with hip-hop culture, and a photograph of a non-descript industrial environment in which black cloth conceals a construction site. As the artistic director of Decoded, Jay Z strategically weaves a narrative of contrastive visual and verbal details that confirm his claim to possessing and exercising the superior power of world-making. This life-writing monograph thus transcends notions of simplistically documenting life in housing projects (if such a thing were possible without dealing with issues of representation) and rather devises an intermedial form of realism, in the sense of combining visual and verbal text, that plays with instances of recognizing and defamiliarizing urban environments. The opening visual of “Part Three: POLITICS AS USUAL” does without the cloth and simply presents a brick wall with black writing on it. It looks like an amateur’s work—with broad brushstrokes that express dismay at the lack of positive change in a dilapidated environment. The factory-style brick building connects back to the title pages of the previous chapter and thus confirms the impression of patterning in the designs chosen for the chapter beginnings. These images of industrialized areas, void of human beings, not only contrast with the photograph of the lively Union Square, but also go along with Jay Z’s subsequent analysis of the US political system and its effects on black people: “Housing projects are a great metaphor for the government’s relationship to poor folks: these huge islands built mostly in the middle of nowhere, designed to warehouse lives. People are still people, though, so we turned the projects into real communities, poor or not”– albeit communities that remained “invisible to the larger country” (155; emphasis added). The act of interpreting a social environment as expressive of ideology-based public policies (creating “islands” not connected to the main land and “warehousing” people as if they were chattel) again creates awareness of

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how specific social spaces need to be read through their relations to other spaces and to the ideas of the people who devise and maintain the perimeters and conditions of such social environments. Repeated references to invisibility in the tradition of W. E. B. Du Bois and Ralph Ellison serve to remind readers of hip-hop’s involvement in achieving visibility beyond race and class restrictions. On the one hand, the visual elements in Decoded stress acts of conscious visual perception in the strict sense. At the same time, visibility also serves as a trope for creating public awareness of how individuals live and suffer in socioeconomically disadvantaged urban areas. Most importantly, hiphop manages to reverse the outlook of Du Boisian double consciousness by replacing the dominant white perspective that has been overshadowing black self-perception. Hip-hop provides eye-opening performative self-depiction from within: “Hip-hop, of course, was hugely influential in finally making our slice of America visible through our lens—not through the lens of outsiders” (155; emphasis added). This claim makes clear that what is usually made visible about black people is mis-used to discredit them and that this also holds true of rap artists who have moved out of the projects. While some media representatives prefer to dwell on financially successful rappers’ outward signs of material wealth, Jay Z counteracts such media coverage by publicizing charity projects such as his efforts to provide water to villages in Angola (221). Continuing the pattern of words inscribed onto the city, “Part IV: COME AND GET ME” also opens with letters that appear to be printed on a brick building. This title obviously challenges the viewer and reader, particularly because of its ambiguity. Upon reading the narrative in the fourth chapter, this phrase may be understood as referring to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, during which African American victims appealed to observers to be rescued from a disaster site. Similarly, the phrase recalls Jay Z’s description of rappers being systematically harassed by the New York Police Department (162). On a more positive note related to hip-hop as art, the phrase encourages listeners to try to understand Jay Z’s work, to get a sense of what he is trying to convey. This endeavor to ‘get him’ presupposes the listener’s willingness to observe closely and think open-mindedly. As a result, the listener emulates the artist in repeating the steps Jay Z characterized as the basis of his work: attention to detail results in the ability to grasp and comment on phenomena and, ideally, to trigger social change.

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All in all, the motif of writing-on-the-wall that connects the visual openers of the four chapters stresses that the artist etches his understanding of his environment and of himself literally onto the material world of the city. The biblical implication of using inscriptions as warnings of a dire future renders the strategy employed in Decoded similar to that of the jeremiad tradition, which juxtaposes current misdemeanors as forebodings of inevitable doom. The purpose of such warnings is to counter challenges with the possibility of change and renewal. While Jay Z is not a graffiti artist, the act of adding a visual layer to the urban palimpsest and of thus claiming symbolic ownership of urban spaces resembles the world of street art and thus ties in well with the multi-medial characteristics of hip-hop self-expression. Metropoetics and Urban Ecology As the visual openers of the four parts of Decoded and their integration into the verbal narrative demonstrate, the images in this monograph can be read as commentaries on particular types of urban experiences. For instance, a photograph of a system of train tracks in a moderately graffitied environment is part of Jay Z’s account of the social toll of crack cocaine in New York (14). In the narrative, trains and their routes are associated with the movements of dealers and addicts, with violence and death in the course of such travels, and—on a figurative level—with the inability to leave a specific track or to take the ‘right’ (in the sense of wholesome, morally sound, or life-preserving) turn at the right time. Similar to the dead metaphor of the right track proverbial train tracks also represent urban segregation according to socioeconomic criteria. In the context of music, track—of course—refers to specific songs on an album and to the grooves on a record. Not only do the words “track” and “crack” rhyme, but their association recurs in further word play through which Jay Z equates the urban environment with the psyche of its inhabitants. For instance, he superimposes the following words onto a black-and-white photograph of a cracked sidewalk: “The deeper we get into those sidewalk cracks and into the mind of the young hustler trying to find his fortune there, the closer we get to the ultimate human story, the story of struggle, which is what defines us all” (19; original emphasis). The word “crack[s]” can be

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read as referring to the drug, to broken asphalt, to the disintegrating social environment, and to the crumbling psyche of drug users and dealers. Jay Z emphatically uses this notion of externalized psyche and internalized environment, which I have discussed in the context of his seminal childhood experience of observing a rapping kid in his neighborhood, to claim universal validity for hip-hop’s mission rather than restricting the art form to a minority’s concerns. Jay Z again spells this out when discussing artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), a painter who began his career as a graffiti artist and subsequently became one of Andy Warhol’s protégés. Besides his link to hip-hop through graffiti, this New York artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent frequently included words and phrases in his largescale mixed-material works. Jay Z quotes the painter as having claimed that his art focuses on “[r]oyalty, heroism, and the streets”—a rather incongruous triad, to say the least, but one that encapsulates Basquiat’s signature motif of a crown along with his thematic focus on discrimination against the disadvantaged (92). Extrapolating from this triad, the rapper argues that the metropolis creates internal links even among people without close personal associations: New York has a thousand universes in it that don’t always connect, but we do all walk the same streets, hear the same sirens, ride the same subways, see the same headlines in the Post, read the same writing on the walls. That shared landscape gets inside of all of us and, in some small way, unites us, makes us think we know each other even when we don’t. (92)

The “writing on the walls,” ambiguous as it is through its biblical allusion to Belshazzar, emphasizes the possible impact of publicly displayed verbal statements like the section openers in Decoded. Although it is an illusion to think that people “know each other” simply by inhabiting shared spaces, seeing the same wall inscriptions at least connects people “in some small way.” While he does assert this possibility of connecting people, Jay Z subsequently tempers his assertion by focusing on himself as the one person he can safely claim to know. He does so in order to demonstrate how rap copes with contradictions: One of “Basquiat’s painting[s] sits on [his apartment] wall like a warning” (95). As the painter died from a heroin overdose, Jay Z sees his Basquiat painting as a reminder that even a highly successful and materially secure artist can

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lose his or her bearings. With his memoirs, Jay Z is, as he says, “trying to rewrite the old script” inherent in “the curse of being young, black, and gifted in America”: this essentializing and prescriptive view posits “that falling is inevitable” (95). At the same time, as a rapper and hiphop artist he engages in transforming the narrative of black life in Brooklyn and the ominous writing on the wall(s) into more optimistic alternative textual possibilities. As if in immediate response to this statement, the following double page shows Basquiat writing something onto a brick wall as part of the film Downtown 81. This depiction of a person in the act of inscribing and thus interpreting a publicly discernible place drives home the activist perspective of Jay Z’s notion of hiphop. By emphasizing the actual process of engaging in this activism through re-appropriating urban sites, this image complements the visuals that focus on the product of artistic engagement. The possibility of an artistic perspective that competes with (and may supersede) more common perspectives also emerges in the visual images that depict cityscapes dominated by buildings. Again, layering and superimposition are part of the poetics here. One example is a collage of a body of water, a view from a bridge onto New York City, and a photograph of the Jay Z album “Negative Space” (fig. 3), the title of which recalls a phrase known within graphic design (52-53). The collage indicates the effect of negative space: Empty space near the subject of the painting attracts the viewer’s eyes and thus distracts from what is usually understood to be central. If the album is the subject, then its title ironically comments on the feeling of being drawn into the cityscape or, more strongly, the rippling water, rather than toward the sound disc. The perspective from the bridge, possibly from a moving vehicle, reconnects with the verbal autobiographical discourse on motion, on the possibility of falling, on trains as traveling danger zones or murder sites, or on liminal spaces of illegality. Most importantly, the artistic work is situated within a matrix of competing signifiers.

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Fig. 3: Andreas Ackerup/Gallery Stock, “Water”; Corral Design, Negative Space album art; Myriam Babin/Corral Design, “View from Bridge.” Jay-Z. Decoded 52–53.

A companion piece to this visual shows a distorted bird’s-eye view of skyscrapers with another superimposed LP (fig. 4). The title, “The Voice in Your Head Is Right,” encourages trusting one’s intuition; the blackand-white wavy pattern on the LP sleeve mixes the representation of water in motion with a rebellious squiggle that seems to parody visualizations of electromagnetic waves in one’s brain. If the inner voice is right, then the subject may assume the power to transform what he or she sees, as the cityscape indicates. Upon closer examination, the out-offocus sections of the photo depicting skyscrapers invite two associations. First, the perceived lack of camera focus suggests high-speed motion. Second, the arrangement of the buildings in the picture recalls the patterns in a kaleidoscope that transforms a single image into a circular bouquet of segments. As soon as one moves or jiggles the kaleidoscope, the image changes. Visuals are thus determined by the eye of the beholder and by minute adjustments, both of which demonstrate their dynamicity and thus their instability.

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Fig. 4: Myriam Babin/Rodrigo Corral Design. “The Voice in Your Head Is Right Album Art.” Jay-Z. Decoded 258–59.

The ludic impulse in this collage, which is linked with perspective, speed, distortion, and layering, does not easily overcome the contradictions within the urban landscape, as seen in a two-page photograph of high-rise apartment buildings in the foreground. These dwarf the usually more prominently displayed iconic Empire State building, which can be vaguely discerned in the photograph’s hazy background (114-15). This image prepares the reader for Jay Z’s contemplations regarding the inherent ambiguities of the music video “Empire State of Mind” (129). In his reading of this song, he points out the discrepancies between “the regular guidebook stuff (the Yankees, the Statue of Liberty, et cetera)” and the criminal underworld of drug dealing and prostitution (129). He then characterizes rap lyrics as necessarily combining superficial meanings with subtle subtexts. Thus, it becomes clear that the poetics of ambiguous or even contradictory layers applies to his lyrics, his music, the visuals in his autobiography, and the collaboration between the visual and verbal—all of which become manifestations of the contradictory social environment within the city. In terms of Jay Z’s metropoetics of combining visual and verbal discourse in Decoded, the last three examples demonstrate the aestheticized, figuratively oriented, anti-realist mode that underscores the rapper’s artistic manifesto. In addition to large-format Olympic perspectives on cityscapes or landmarks, snapshots of social situations reinforce the verbal discourse. A photo by renowned hip-hop photographer Jonathan Mannion provides the background for Jay Z’s musings on Barack Obama’s first presiden-

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tial election (171). The photograph shows children in the Marcy Projects. In the foreground, an African American boy is popping a wheelie on his bicycle. Rather than spelling out the positive benefits of Obama’s election, the superimposed narrative discusses the topic ex negativo: But if he’d lost, it would’ve been an unbelievable tragedy—to feel so close to transformation and then to get sucked back in to [sic] the same old story and watch another generation grow up feeling like strangers in their own country, their culture maligned, their voices squashed. Instead, with all the distance yet to go, for the first time I felt like we were at least moving in the right direction, away from the shadows. (171)

The desired direction is then shown in the subsequent pages; first through the New York Times cover story of Obama’s victory (172); then through an image of the crowd at the inauguration (173). In the space of a short sequence of pages, Decoded juxtaposes African American architectural and multiracial American experiences through images and words. The discrepancies between a child living in the projects and a newly elected president twist the nation’s internal contradictions into a tentative optimism. Significantly, the book does not end on this note but rather focuses the final third of its pages on further elucidating the clash between hopes and failures. Despite its detailed visual and verbal portrayal of the Marcy Projects and of larger perspectives on New York City, Decoded is not a singlecity book. In addition to the section on Washington, D.C., and the presidency, Jay Z demonstrates hip-hop’s claim to universal significance by including an extended visual and verbal rendering of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, particularly its political implications in terms of race and class (218-21). Hurricane Katrina channeled an enormous amount of media attention towards urban conditions in New Orleans and, in particular, documented the inadequacy of government dealings with the largely underprivileged flood victims. Besides an aerial shot of the flooding and of a funeral and a picture of destroyed homes, the sequence of visuals includes a photograph of six African American survivors of Katrina, two of whom are waving American flags—as if it were necessary for them to confirm their identity as American before being worthy of rescue efforts (216-17, 222-23, 225). The desperate hurricane victims have also scrawled the word “HELP” onto their roof, as if observers might not otherwise notice their sense of urgency.

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This photograph drives home the point that urban graffiti messages of a non-artistic nature often remain unheeded in practical terms. Although Jay Z’s section titles—superimposed on Union Square and on buildings—are part of his artistic concept and are printed in innumerable copies of his book, individuals or groups without the necessary financial backing and media visibility will not be able to make their writing on the wall seen. Successful artists are heard (even if their wishes will not necessarily be implemented), but the people about whom these artists may sing are tuned out by the majority. 8 Embedding this photograph within his memoir appeals to Jay Z fans to realize the discrepancy between their interest in him as an individual rapper and the plight of unknown Katrina victims who tried to be heard but were reduced to a spectacle. That Jay Z perceives a pattern in policies that disadvantage specific groups of people within American urban society is already clear in part three of Decoded. Here, he contextualizes Hurricane Katrina and other historical events within the notion that historiography affects African Americans’ self-image. A few pages into part three, entitled “Politics as Usual,” a two-page reproduction of a segment of Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox’s 1992 photograph “The Wall: They Say a Mad Man Wrote This” zooms in on the following inscription: “They never taught Marcus Garvey in our school[;] Christopher Columbus is their golden rule” (156-57). This close-up of Cox’s photograph is featured within an extended discussion on censorship, exclusion, and particularly invisibility. It thus stresses Jay Z’s sense of his responsibility as an artist to point out that public censure of hip-hop goes back to deeply rooted traditions of white privilege.

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This also applies globally, as Jay Z makes clear when referring to his abovementioned charity work in Angola (221). This project poignantly demonstrates the dichotomy of water as a life-giving force (as desired by the villagers that he helps in Africa) versus water as a destructive force (as demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina).

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Conclusion Decoded provides an interface where ecocriticism, life writing, and artistic self-expression meet. The text conveys the coexistence of stimulating and destructive environments within urban landscapes, particularly within housing projects and other socioeconomically problematic locales. It thus demonstrates that, as Smith argues, the city has been a protean concept for black writers, carrying multiple and conflicting meanings. . . . The city can be a frontier promising individual freedom, a jungle bursting with primitive energy, an organic community growing naturally out of the lives of its inhabitants, a homeland embodying the common consciousness of the race, or a modern-day plantation withering—or exploding—under the pressure of racial oppression. (158)

Through his metropoetics, Jay Z redefines the individual life writer as primarily a socially embedded individual. 9 But he does not stop at shrewdly characterizing race and class relations in New York City and beyond. His intermedial monograph creates webs of intricately related signifiers that—although they reference historical facts—are meant to counterbalance pseudo-factual news-media depictions of rappers, Hurricane Katrina victims, and black people inhabiting specific urban spaces in general. The interrelated verbal and visual narratives of Decoded result in subtly designed texts whose metropoetics are grounded on the expressive possibilities of sophisticated layering and braiding. The monograph intertwines realist verbal descriptions and visual images of lives revolving around discrimination, drugs, and violent struggle, with figurative language and artistic collages that offer interpretations and metadiscourse. The ambiguous inscriptions of words onto cityscape photographs, for instance, provide a visual-verbal instance of the kind of hybridity Saldívar finds in novels whose style he regards as “speculative realism.” In addition to the autobiographical narrative, the style and contents of Jay Z’s rap lyrics as well as their presentation in conjunction 9

Regarding unconventional autobiographies that address the relation between place and self, see also Oppermann 353, 356.

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with visual images (whose discussion would require an extended essay in its own right) add further strands and levels to this emotionally charged aestheticized discourse. Finally, Jay Z—as lyricist, autobiographer, and art director of his monograph—acknowledges that artists, particularly those who are successful, are in an advantageous position. Their writing is noticed, received, and possibly reacted to, whereas writing per se does not provide the empowerment that necessarily yields social improvement. And yet, the urban sociotopes evoked in Decoded become springboards for reflections on the urban ecology of American race relations. The jungle or wilderness evoked through the image of the Marcy Projects as a system of tunnels that frightens and alienates outsiders is counterbalanced with depictions of its streets as potential venues for budding rappers and for graffiti artists expressing their ideas. The inherent contradictions of this African American urban ecology characterize the entire narrative and aesthetics of Decoded. Even though Jay Z superimposes a paper bag with braggadocio rap lyrics onto a photograph of projects housing, his verbal art addresses what the paper bag cannot and does not want to obscure. For the same reason, Basquiat is featured as both a celebrated painter whose works firmly belong to the high-prized segment of the art market and as a graffiti artist who re-claims urban environments through graffiti. The sociotope from which hip-hop emerged and the artistic concept behind Decoded can thus be read through what Ruffin describes as the “beauty-and-burden paradox”: the history of violence, discrimination, and exclusion from specific environments coalesces with the creative power of aesthetically intricate narratives whose combination of words and images invite emotional immersion as much as rational engagement with discourse and form. Works Cited Balestrini, Nassim. “Strategic Visuals in Hip-Hop Life Writing.” Popular Music and Society. Eds. Daniel Stein and Martin Butler. Spec. issue on Musical Autobiographies. 38. 2 (2015): 224-42. Web. 19 Jan. 2016. Bose, Rana. “Art IS Democracy.” Montreal Serai. Montreal Serai. Web. 19 May 2014.

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Brandt, Stefan L., Winfried Fluck, and Frank Mehring. Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 26 (2010). Tübingen: Narr, 2010. Print. Buell, Lawrence. “Nature and City: Antithesis or Symbiosis.” Brandt, Stefan L., Winfried Fluck, and Frank Mehring. Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 26 (2010). Tübingen: Narr, 2010. 3-20. Print. Esty, Jed, and Colleen Lye. “Peripheral Realisms Now.” Modern Language Quarterly 73.3 (2012): 269-88. Print. Gersdorf, Catrin. “Nature in the Grid: American Literature, Urbanism, and Ecocriticism.” Brandt, Stefan L., Winfried Fluck, and Frank Mehring. Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. REAL: Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 26 (2010). Tübingen: Narr, 2010. 21-40. Print. Jay-Z [Shawn Carter]. Decoded. Expanded Edition. New York: Virgin Books/Spiegel & Grau/Random House, 2011. Print. Newman, Lance, and James Finley. “Race and Nature in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: A Conversation with Joshua Bennett, Brigitte Fielder, Ian Finseth, Jennifer James, and Others.” Journal of Ecocriticism 5.2 (2013): 1–21. Oppermann, Serpil. “An Ecology of a Surfictional Self: Raymond Federman’s Inventions.” Ecology and Life Writing. Eds. Alfred Hornung and Zhao Baisheng. Heidelberg: Winter, 2013. American Studies: A Monograph Series 203. 353-74. Print. Ruffin, Kimberly N. Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2010. Print. Saldívar, Ramón. “The Second Elevation of the Novel.” Narrative 21.1 (Jan. 2013): 1-18. Print. Smith, Kimberley K. African American Environmental Thought: Foundations. Lawrence: UP of Kansas, 2007. Print. Yaeger, Patricia. “Introduction: Dreaming of Infrastructure.” PMLA 122.1 (2007): 9-26. Print. Zukin, Sharon. “Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World.” The Blackwell City Reader. Eds. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 293-302. Print.

Visualizing Nature

HEIKE SCHÄFER

Nature, Media Culture, and the Transcendentalist Quest for the Real I say the question of Nature, largely consider’d, involves the questions of the esthetic, the emotional, and the religious—and involves happiness. Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas

American romantic writers perceived nature as an emblematic text. The material forms and biological processes of the natural world manifested spiritual, moral, and political principles, and it was the poet’s task to decipher these. From Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dictum that “particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts” to Walt Whitman’s assertion that nature’s “lessons of variety and freedom” provide the original model for American democratic politics, American romantic thinking and writing frequently pivot on a transcendentalist exegesis of nature’s “Higher Laws” (Emerson, Complete Works 1: 17; Whitman, Complete Poetry and Collected Prose 929; Thoreau, Walden 140). The transcendentalist inquiry into the material properties and spiritual significance of nature is best understood in the context of the transcendentalist commitment to self-culture and cultural and political reform. The transcendentalists cultivated an attentive engagement with the natural world because they felt that it opened up the possibility of apprehending the world’s fundamental order. For them, the natural environment was a privileged space because the detailed observation of and immersion in nature could facilitate first-hand experiences of a foundational divine reality, of Nature in the Emersonian sense. “It suggests what kind of laws have prevailed longest and widest, and still prevail” (Thoreau, Essays 188). The immediate experience of Nature provided the basis first of the individual’s self-actualization and then of society’s social and

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political reform. Writers performed a pivotal function in this process, the transcendentalists maintained. As Emerson defines the cultural role of literature in “The Poet”: poets were to develop an organic mode of expression that allowed them to communicate their first-hand experience and original reading of Nature to their readers and thus serve as spiritual and social guides for their less introspective and articulate peers (CW 3: 30). Critics widely agree that the romantic study of nature is fuelled by converging religious, epistemological, sociopolitical, and poetic concerns. To date, comparatively little critical attention has been paid, however, to the media cultural context of the transcendentalist effort to develop organic poetics that could express nature’s spiritual, moral, and political lessons. This essay argues that the development of Emerson’s and Whitman’s transcendentalist poetics of Nature was influenced to a significant degree by their reflections on the representational powers of a new medium that was establishing itself at the time and whose claims to cultural relevance derived from its conception as a natural mediumnamely photography, ‘the pencil of nature.’ As Emerson and Whitman experimented with literary form to express their experience of Nature, they adopted photography as a material model for their ideal of immediate perception and natural representation. By considering the transcendentalist quest for the real from an intermedial perspective, this essay aims to broaden our understanding of romantic poetics of nature, while it seeks to demonstrate, in more general terms, the productive contribution that a media cultural approach can make to the study of literary practice—especially when it adopts immediacy as a central category of analysis. Emerson’s and Whitman’s use of photography as a poetological model reminds us that innovations in the literary field often respond to the emergence of new media and the changes in perceptual habits and representational practices they bring about. Central to such intermedial negotiations are the competing appeals to immediacy that the new and established media stage. Hence, the analysis of immediacy effects can enrich our understanding of the dynamics of literary history and of media cultural change. The essay begins with a brief consideration of the transcendentalist conception of nature as emblematic text, before it delineates the ideal of natural representation at the core of early photographic discourse and

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practice and discusses how photography shaped Emerson and Whitman’s transcendentalist poetics. Reading Nature “What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity—who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority,” Henry David Thoreau contends in “Slavery in Massachusetts,” as he closes his abolitionist jeremiad with an emblematic reading of nature (Essays 184). In the concluding passage of his essay, Thoreau moves in a radical shift of register from an assertion of his political outrage and disgust at the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law in Massachusetts to an extensive exegesis of the symbolic import of a plant he observed: “My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her. But it chanced the other day that I scented a white water-lily, and a season I had waited for had arrived. It is the emblem of purity” (Essays 188). Thoreau portrays the natural world in this passage as a realm untainted by politics. Since “Nature has been partner to no Missouri Compromise,” it has remained morally uncompromised and can provide ethical guidance (Essays 188). In Thoreau’s reading, the fragrant white flower rising from the muck of the pond symbolizes the possibility of overcoming social injustice. “The foul slime stands for the sloth and vice of man, the decay of humanity; the fragrant flower that springs from it, for the purity and courage which are immortal” (Essays 189). Positing an analogy between biological phenomena and social realities, he presents nature as a model for self-culture and social reform to his readers. The study of nature issues into a moral imperative: “So behave that the odor of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere, that when we behold or scent a flower, we may not be reminded how inconsistent your deeds are with it; for all odor is but one form of advertisement of a moral quality” (Essays 188-89). Thoreau’s explication of nature’s moral lesson in “Slavery in Massachusetts” exemplifies the pragmatic trajectory that transcendentalist metaphorical readings of nature frequently follow. The transcendentalist translation of natural processes and principles into ethics, politics, and poetics typically entails an experiential process in which the observer moves from the contemplation of the natural environment to a compre-

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hension of the world’s foundational order, then uses the intuited spiritual insights to reform his life, and, moreover, seeks to communicate the gained knowledge to others so that they also may reorient their lives. It is a process that is motivated by ontological and epistemological questions: What is Nature? How can we know it? These lead to the ethical question, Which implications does this knowledge have for our way of living? And that question in turn raises the problem of representation: how can spiritual insights be expressed so as to instruct others and thus further the transcendentalist reform of American society? For this is the mission mapped out for the transcendentalist poet: it is the poet’s task to first apprehend and then create an accurate transcript of nature’s emblematic text, so as to teach his contemporaries and thus advance the development of a genuinely democratic society. Emerson delineates the ideal in “The Poet”: It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy . . . by abandonment to the nature of things; that, beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power, on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then he is caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible as the plants and animals. The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or, “with the flower of the mind;” . . . with the intellect released from all service, and suffered to take its direction from its celestial life. (CW 3: 26-27)

Emerson’s argument suggests that for the transcendentalists, the experience of nature assumes political significance because it enables spiritual experiences of immediacy that allow the individual to move beyond the constraints of social norms and conventions as well as beyond the limitations of individual consciousness and subjectivity. It is by selfabandonment, by relinquishing both conscious control, directed striving, and the sense of having a distinct, stable, separate identity, that the poet realizes his participation in a unified reality that traverses posited divides of materiality and immateriality, variety and unity, appearance and being, form and flux. His social and poetic authority rests on this participation. Because he speaks as part of foundational reality, or rather because he becomes a medium through which Nature speaks itself, his

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insights and words cannot be disputed but need to be reckoned with. The poet thus becomes a natural force himself and can play the role of a “liberating god” for others (“Poet”, CW 3: 30). Obviously, this is an enabling self-definition for any writer who wishes to impress his mark on literary tradition and to effect social change. It is also a difficult ideal to realize, however. In seeking to translate the spiritual experience of Nature into poetic and sociocultural practice, into self-culture and sociopolitical reform, the transcendentalists inevitably had to come to terms with their conflicting recognition that knowledge and experience are always mediated. “We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorting lenses which we are, or of computing the amount of their errors,” Emerson acknowledges in “Experience.” “Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative power; perhaps there are no objects” (CW 3: 74-75). While self-abandonment carried for Emerson the promise of immediate contact with Nature, he felt that the self-conscious preoccupation with the processes of perception, cognition, and signification through which we generate our sense of identity and reality tends to confine us to the limited sphere of subjective consciousness and distances us from the world we inhabit. “Once we lived in what we saw; now, the rapaciousness of this new power, which threatens to absorb all things, engages us” (CW 3: 76). The continual delay of immediate connection and the attendant sense of isolation and unintelligibility that Emerson describes in “Experience” complicate the hopes of both accessing Nature and of achieving an accurate and indisputable representation of “Contact! Contact!” with the real (Thoreau, Maine Woods 95). Although they recognized that their knowledge and experience were inevitably mediated, the transcendentalists continued to grapple in their writing with their longing for a direct contact with the natural world and foundational reality. They searched for conceptual frameworks that would allow them “To exalt the present and the real / To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade” (Whitman, Leaves 202). One strategy that the transcendentalists used to tackle the problem of experiential and representational immediacy was to compare the representational powers of literature to those of photography which was hailed as giving nature “the power to reproduce herself” (Daguerre 13). Due to the emphasis early photographic discourse placed on the sup-

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posed naturalness, immediacy, and truthfulness of photographic representation, it provided the transcendentalists with a material model for their ideal of organic, direct, and authentic poetic expression. The Pencil of Nature In its early years, photography was considered a natural medium as the very names attributed to the new photographic technologies indicate: ‘photography’ or light writing, ‘heliography’ or sun writing, ‘the pencil of nature.’1 The terms were used interchangeably. The first American book-length treatise on photography as an art form, for instance, carries the title The Camera and the Pencil, or the Heliographic Art (Root). Its early users regarded photography as the result of nature’s collaboration with technology. Since photography was chemical and mechanical in character, it seemed to offer a record of reality that was independent of human vision and cognition. Although there was of course a photographer who placed the camera and arranged the sitters, who framed the shot and developed the plate, people did not think of him as the artist who created the images. The artist at work in the daguerreotype studio was the sun. The common conception of the new medium as sun painting is illustrated in the sketch below (fig. 1). The drawing captures the idea of photography as a natural art. The image does not represent the new medium through the figure of a photographer wielding a camera but instead depicts photo- or heliography literally as sun painting: the sun as portrait painter produces an image of the world. Photography initially was conceived of this way because it is the light falling through a lens onto a chemically treated plate (or later film) that initiates the chemical reactions that create the photographic image. 1

Heliography was the term Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, one of the inventors of photography, used for his technique. Although the expression “the pencil of nature” is usually associated with Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature (1844), which was the first book to use actual photographs for illustration, the phrase was in circulation from photography’s beginning. An article on the invention of the daguerreotype was titled, for instance, “French Discovery—Pencil of Nature” (William Jerdan, Literary Gazette (Feb. 1839), qtd. in Henisch 199).

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Fig. 1: An early representation of photography. From a handbill issued by Southworth & Hawes (Collection George Eastman House, rpt. Newhall 111).

Emerson’s first journal entry on photography in October 1841 expresses this common perception. He states: “The Daguerrotype is good for its authenticity. No man quarrels with his shadow, nor will he with his miniature when the sun was the painter. Here is no interference and the distortions are not the blunders of an artist, but only those of motion, imperfect light, & the like” (JMN 8: 106). Emerson equates photographic images with objective vision, impartial knowledge, and an unmediated access to the world. His comment is representative of the initial response to the daguerreotype. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre himself set the tone when he proclaimed that “the Daguerreotype is not merely an instrument which serves to draw Nature; on the contrary it is a chemical and physical process which gives her the power to reproduce herself” (13). While from today’s perspective it may strike us as odd that early commentators would construe a technologically produced representation as a natural product and ignore the control that the photographer exerts over the production of the image, the emphasis on the chemical and mechanical rather than imaginative and creative aspects of photography helped early observers to mark what was truly novel about the medium and thus to distinguish photography from earlier forms of visual representation. In their accounts, it is the extent to which the creation of the images relies on unintentional processes rather than creative effort that sets photography apart from other arts. While a painting was subject to the skills and shortcomings of its maker, to “the blunders of an artist,” as Emerson noted, the collaboration of machinery and nature was thought to produce exact records of what was.

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For the first viewers, the quantity and quality of detail that photographs could record made them not only more accurate but also more natural. “The photograph has this advantage,” Whitman maintained, “it lets nature have its way: the botheration with the painters is that they don’t want to let nature have its way: they want to make nature let them have their way” (Traubel 125). Created by light and chemicals, natural agents that imprinted the image without subjecting the composition to processes of intentional selection and manipulation, photographs were considered part of the natural world. Although photographic images obviously were not identical with the objects they depicted, they were seen to exist on the same plane of reality. “[P]ainted by Nature’s self with a minuteness of detail, which the pencil of light in her hands alone can trace,” the artist and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse explained in an address to the National Academy of Design in 1840, “they cannot be called copies of nature, but portions of nature herself” (qtd. in Rudisill 57). Since lightinitiated chemical processes produced the photographs, the images were thought to possess an immediate relation to the visual world. Instead of being considered an unmediated object and its mediated representation, the photographic image and its referent were considered two elements of nature that existed in unbroken connection. In Emerson’s words, “Here is no interference” (JMN 8: 106). Of course such an immediate relation between sign and referent can only be posited, if the processes of mediation are ignored that the creation of a photograph entails. This denial of mediation finds its most extreme expression in the erasure of the figure of the photographer: The most accurate and authentic writing is done by “Dame Nature” wielding her pencil of light. This trope was astonishingly long-lived. In 1889, fifty years after the invention of the daguerreotype, a writer on photography still mused: “No human hand has hitherto traced such lines as these drawings displayed; and what man may hereafter do, now that Dame Nature has become his drawing mistress, it is impossible to predict” (qtd. in Marien, Critics 24). An exaggerated sense of the new medium’s organic character thus provided the basis for its claims to veracity. Since photographic images seemed to naturally imprint themselves and to develop independent of human manipulation, they were considered an authentic slice of life.

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The Pencil of Nature as a Poetological Model The desire for natural, accurate, and reliable records of unmediated reality that ran rampant in early photographic discourse was shared by the transcendentalists. As the ‘pencil of nature,’ photography offered an attractive model of representation to Whitman and Emerson because it set new standards for the naturalness and truthfulness of representation. It redefined what counted as impartial, adequate, and valid observation and proof. Both writers experimented with adopting the new medium as a model for literary practice. Emerson drew on the vocabulary of early photographic discourse to describe processes of perception, cognition, and signification. The intermedial comparison between photographic and literary representation helped him to clarify his ideal of intuitive insight and immediate expression. If we re-read his essays in the context of early photography, an intriguing congruence emerges between the popular conception of photography as the most precise recorder of the visible and Emerson’s vision of the poet as “an exact reporter of the essential law” (“Poetry and Imagination,” CW 8: 39). In both cases, an immediate connection of the representation to what is represented is posited. In both cases, this immediacy can be postulated only because intentional creative agency and deliberate acts of mediation are bracketed. The sun rather than the photographer is seen to record through camera, plate, and chemicals the play of light on objects. Similarly, in full expression, the poet relinquishes conscious control over the creative process. Only if he abandons himself to larger forces and takes dictation can he perceive ultimate reality and speak “with the flower of the mind” (CW 3: 27). In “Poetry and the Imagination,” Emerson uses a striking image to illustrate this idea: “The poet is representative, . . . in him the world projects a scribe’s hand and writes the adequate genesis” (CW 8: 71). The metaphor casts the poet as the pencil of Nature. While early photographic discourse hailed the daguerreotype as a medium that allowed nature to reproduce itself, Emerson portrays the poet as a tool that allows foundational reality to represent itself. The poet “is not to speak his own words, or do his own works, or think his own thoughts, but he is to be an organ through which the universal mind acts” (“Art”, CW 7: 48-49). Selfrelinquishment enables the poet to express Nature. Like a camera, he seeks to copy down rather than make up. Emerson argues in “The Poet”:

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Heike Schäfer For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem” (CW 3: 8).

The poet here seems to function as a recorder who strives to produce an accurate, precise, and reliable transcript of nature’s original text. As the pencil of Nature, the poet’s primary task is to avoid any interference with the immediacy of representation, since this would turn the poem into “a corrupt version of some text in nature, with which [it] ought to be made to tally” (CW 3: 25). Although photographic and literary immediacy are generated in radically different ways, the former relying on the indiscriminate precision of mechanical recording, the latter on perceptual receptiveness and selfabandonment, and although early photographic discourse can easily be identified with an objectivist agenda while the transcendentalists championed contemplative knowledge, there are significant similarities between the common perception of the daguerreotype as the pencil of nature and the transcendentalist conceptualization of the poet as the “wild” speaker of Nature. The photographic analogy offers a helpful conceptual tool for Emerson. It allows him to think through the possibilities of immediate literary representation and to stake claims for literature’s indisputable significance. In “Shakspeare, or The Poet,” for instance, Emerson appraises Shakespeare as an ideal poet by describing his accomplishment in terms of photographic immediacy and precision: “Things were mirrored in his poetry without loss or blur; he could paint the fine with precision, the great with compass; the tragic and the comic indifferently, and without any distortion or favor,” Emerson observes. “He carried his powerful execution into minute details, to a hair point; finishes an eyelash or a dimple as firmly as he draws a mountain; and yet these, like nature’s, will bear the scrutiny of the solar microscope” (CW 4: 213). The passage catalogues all the qualities that popular discourse attributed to photography: neutral vision, complete and accurate mimetic representation, absence of distortion, impressive minuteness of details, naturalness. Also, because the daguerreotype was thought to duplicate the natural world, the idea was popular in photography’s first years that a photograph could be interrogated with a microscope to reveal further details

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of empirical reality (Rudisill 77). Emerson attributes the representational power of a photographic camera to Shakespeare. He ‘mirrors’ the world accurately, without distorting its details or reducing its variety. Emerson adopts the vocabulary and the standards of immediacy, verisimilitude, and veracity of early photographic discourse to define poetic achievement. The intermedial comparison provides him with a model for truthful and reliable representation. The photographic analogy also has its drawbacks, however. It leaves little room, for instance, for a discussion of the writer’s creative ingenuity because it reduces literary representation to the transcription of a given reality that precedes the poet’s perception and writing process. Also, early photographic discourse is committed to a mimetic ideal that conflicts with the processual poetics of the transcendentalists. For Emerson, the poet, in contrast to the camera, records not only what already exists but realizes the potential of things and situations. He creates what could be. His expression “adorns nature with a new thing” (“Poet”, CW 3: 10). Because the poet’s wording of reality freshly enacts the emergence of form out of undifferentiated being, the process of poetic expression exemplifies creation. Emerson argues that poetry should be productive rather than mimetic because he thinks of reality as fundamentally dynamic. For him, meaning is as transient as material form. Although we tend to perceive reality as made up of discrete objects and situations and although our observations, ideas, and designations imbue the world with a certain solidity, what seems stable and distinct from a distance turns out at closer inspection to be fluid and unbounded. “There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees” (“Circles”, CW 2: 302). Flux is the basal condition of objects as well as of ourselves. When Emerson considers the relative representational powers of literature and photography, then, his reflections frequently revolve around the question whether they encourage both an ongoing exploration of the flow of life and recognition of the incessant sliding away of reality from our intellectual grasp. This capacity determines the medium’s cultural significance for him. Hence, when he realizes that photography generates stabilized records of reality, freezing moments in time and rendering the absent permanently present—which is precisely what makes the medium magical for many of his contemporaries—Emerson grows disenchanted with the new medium. He now thinks of photography as

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threatening to cement our illusory perception of reality as stable and permanent. Literary representation, by contrast, he hopes possesses the capacity to acknowledge the inevitable mismatch between the distinctness and finality of its achieved form and the unbounded and incessant flow of reality. “The poet did not stop at the color, or the form, but read their meaning; neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects exponents of his new thought” (CW 3: 34). Rather than try to find one appropriate expression, Emerson’s ideal poet knows that naming is provisional and tentative. He continually restates his observations, allowing meaning to emerge, change, and disappear again, thus gesturing towards what lies beyond the limitations of language and rational thought. For Emerson, poetry at its best is a creative force that counters our tendency to fragment and freeze the flux of life. It resonates with the awareness, born out of self-abandonment, that an unbounded reality animates the forms of the natural world, moving through and beyond the individual consciousness of writers and readers. Hence poetry defies our established, petrified notions of reality, keeping meaning afloat. Although Emerson’s attitude towards the new medium was conflicted, comparing the representational truth claims of photography and literature was a useful conceptual tool for him as he sought to understand the significance that immediacy effects held for the cultural function of literature. Whether he touted photography as a model for poetic expression because he associated the camera’s capacity to record reality without distortion with the promise of an immediate experience and direct expression of fundamental reality, or whether he dismissed photography as a representational practice because he thought that it concealed the instable nature of reality and reinforced our illusory belief in the permanence and separateness of things—in either case, the reflection on “the pencil of nature” helped Emerson to conceptualize processes of perception and communication and to develop his processual poetics of immediacy. The Politics of Paying Attention Like Emerson, Whitman was fascinated by the reality effects of photography. He incorporated the new aesthetic literally into his poetry by

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including photographic portraits of himself in his books, and he sought to emulate in his poetry the directness, precision, and inclusiveness of photographic representation. “In these Leaves everything is literally photographed,” he asserted about Leaves of Grass. “Nothing is poetized, no divergence, not a step, not an inch, nothing for beauty’s sake, no euphemism, no rhyme” (“Notes on the Meaning and Intention of Leaves of Grass,” Complete Prose Works 21).2 Whitman links his free verse poetics to photography to claim for his poems the same degree of exactness and truthfulness that he associates with the new medium. Stressing the accuracy and straightforwardness of his writing, he aligns his poems with photography and distinguishes them on the same count from conventional poetry, which he identifies with embellished and prettified representations of reality. Whitman describes his poems as literary equivalents of photographs because he equates (in a by then familiar argumentative move) the verisimilitude of photographic images with veracity and because he recognizes (in a new twist on the established theme) that the transfer of the new photographic standard of realism to poetic practice signals a break with literary tradition that guarantees his work’s originality. “That such a course gives offence to many good people—that it violates the established conventions of poetry is certain,” he notes, only to ask rhetorically: “But is there not something secretly precious to the soul in this awful adherence to the truth?” (Complete Prose Works 22). Whitman appropriates the truth claims of the new medium, in other words, to claim for his poetry an equally innovative power and to boost the authority of his poetic project of renewing the democratic ethos of American literature. While this move certainly is part of Whitman’s selffashioning as iconoclastic rebuilder of US American culture, it is not merely an act of self-authorization but also an assertion of the continued significance that the writing and reading of literature holds for the development of American culture in a time of accelerating industrialization. Whitman assimilates the new visual culture into his writing be2

My understanding of the formative effect of photography on Whitman’s poetic development is indebted to Ed Folsom’s and Miles Orvell’s insightful analyses in Walt Whitman’s Native Representations (99-177) and The Real Thing (3-29).

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cause he apprizes the novel ways of seeing and representation that photography instigates as part of the modern technological restructuring of American society, which literature also has to engage if it is to remain a relevant cultural practice. For him, “the true use for the imaginative faculty of modern times is to give ultimate vivification to facts, to science, and to common lives, endowing them with the glows and glories and final illustriousness which belong to every real thing, and to real things only” (“A Backward Glance o’er Travel’d Roads”, Leaves 564). What links Whitman’s democratic poetics to the photography of his time is a concern with the particulars of the world, with the sensory abundance of the present moment as it unfolds in our perceptual experience. His poems connect literary, spiritual, and political practices to the attentive observation of life’s details on ground level. In Whitman’s poetry, the focus of a single stanza may shift, for example, from the contemplation of the divine, to the assertion of brotherly love as a universal value, to the perception of patches of moss on a fence. In the memorable section five of “Song of Myself” a spiritual epiphany returns the speaker to the world with a keener appreciation of its social fabric and material details: Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love, And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed. (Leaves 33)

Whitman’s poems pay close attention to the specifics of optical reality. They often portray experiential states in which the careful observation of details, which ordinarily may strike us as insignificant, gives rise to compassionate insight (and vice versa). Thus they ground ethics in firsthand experience. In Whitman’s poetry, democratic politics take the form of an embodied engagement with the world that honors the unique and particular, the individual, at the same time that it cares for its participation in a larger whole, the common and collective.

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Given Whitman’s apparent delight in the attentive physical exploration of the material shapes and textures of reality, it is hardly surprising that he was fascinated by photography. The new medium opened up the possibility to represent the world in all its minute details. Moreover, the camera itself was nonselective in its focus; it had the capacity to record a given scene in all of its particulars, rendering each facet with equal precision, regardless of the relative importance that the parts carried for the effect of the picture as a whole. The specificity and inclusiveness of photography appealed to Whitman, who discovered in the new medium a model for democratic representation (in the poetic as well as political sense of the word). Whitman’s poetry shares with nineteenth-century photography the interest in creating a precise inventory of the world. Extensive and inclusive in scope, the poems depict contemporary life in specific detail. They are “stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine” (“Song of Myself”, Leaves 44). Frequently, they describe the look and feel of objects, people, and events that had been considered irrelevant or inappropriate for poetry and pre-photographic forms of visual representation. Whitman’s poems present these particulars as something that is to be enjoyed on its own terms, appreciated in the concrete material form it offers to our senses, rather than reduced to the symbolic meaning we may also attribute to it (the grass always exceeds its human readings, section six of “Song of Myself” reminds us). Whitman’s word choice and sound effects combine to render palpable everyday scenes, such as Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shuddering of their hides, Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddle the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters; Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders, Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs. (Leaves 62)

Moving seamlessly from specific to general aspects and from rural to urban spaces, public to private spheres, and across the divides of race, class, gender, sexual preference, region, education, age and the like, Whitman’s poetry creates the same effect of inclusiveness as the photog-

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raphy of his time. The lists incorporated into “Song of Myself” epitomize this tendency. While the infinite amount of detail that photography recorded tended to impress contemporary viewers, as we have seen, the transfer of this strategy to literary representation did not necessarily intrigue Whitman’s readers. While his expansive vernacular free verse catalogues indeed seemed realistic, spontaneous, and natural to many readers in comparison to the elevated diction and the regular meter, rhyme schemes, and stanzaic structure of the poetry they were accustomed to, they frequently did not appreciate the immediacy effects of his poems. Instead, they experienced the inclusive subject matter, irregular form, and colloquial language of Whitman’s poetry as a lack of selectiveness, organization, and refinement. The realism effect they cherished in photographs was irritating to them when it was produced by poetry because they associated this literary genre with delicate feeling and a concern with the ideal, with the mediation and sublimation of experience through the use of cultured language, measured prosody, and regimented form. One contemporary reviewer complained, for instance, that higher seeing of Nature would have shown Walt Whitman that all things in Nature are not alike beautiful, or to be loved and honored by song. . . . With a wonderful vigor of thought and intensity of perception, a power, indeed, not often found, Leaves of Grass has no ideality, no concentration, no purpose—it is barbarous, undisciplined, like the poetry of a halfcivilized people, and, as a whole, useless, save to those miners of thought who prefer the metal in its unworked state. (“Studies”)

Although the anonymous critic concedes the intellectual and emotional force of Whitman’s poetry, he finds fault with Whitman’s perceived lack of focus and sophistication. The poems seem found rather than composed to him, raw matter that the poet has neglected to process, polish, and integrate into a metaphysical scheme. The effect of immediacy that led many of Whitman’s peers to privilege photography and its seemingly “spontaneous reproduction” of reality over other forms of representation seemed inadequate and undesirable to them if encountered in a poetic text. While some readers mistook Whitman’s effort to write poetry that would strike the readers as immediate as a lack of cultivation or propriety, his poems obviously are carefully composed and not as spontaneous

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or unselective as they seemed to his contemporaries. The catalogues cohere, for instance, through the use of repetition, syntactic parallelism, and such sound effects as alliteration and assonance. Whitman’s use of anaphoric parallelism, to cite the most conspicuous example, is a stylistic device that allows him to inscribe his democratic values into the structure of the poem, enabling him to describe the particulars of the world in their diversity while relating them to a common unity (Buell 166-87; Johnstone 526-27). Whitman deliberately broke with poetic tradition to emulate photographic immediacy effects. Just as the detail driven and inclusive character of Whitman’s list poems was inspired by nineteenth-century photographic practice, his method of structuring images and vignettes into catalogues was derived from the visual culture of the time—particularly from the format of the photographic gallery. In the daguerreotype gallery, “Whitman learned not merely the art of observation, but the art of organization as well” (Orvell 16). Whitman used vernacular language and created flexible poetic forms like the catalogue, which could contain the contradictory “multitudes” of experience in nineteenth-century America, because he hoped that this style would strike his readers as unaffected and natural (Leaves 88). Taking up the photographic model of the pencil of nature, Whitman regarded naturalness as a desirable quality of representation because it could create an effect of media transparency and thus produce the impression that world, text, and reader directly cohere. Like a photograph for its viewer, the poem was to serve for its reader as a transparent window onto the world. His free verse catalogues direct the attention of the readers away from the workings of language and poetic composition and encourage them to concentrate on the particulars of the described scenes to the extent that they forget that they are reading a poetic representation of the portrayed people, events, and things rather than witnessing them first-hand. Whitman describes his intended effect: “You do not read, it is someone that you see in action, in war, or on a ship, or climbing the mountains, or racing along and shouting aloud in pure exultation” (Complete Prose Works 22). Ironically, the numerous negative reviews and contemporaneous parodies of Whitman’s “barbarous, undisciplined” verse attest to the success of his strategy. His readers indeed had difficulty recognizing the literary quality of Whitman’s catalogues because his unconventional style put minimal emphasis on the acts of mediation that produced the

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poem. Hence the list poems appeared, in the words of Whitman’s critic, to be studded with things in their “unworked state” (“Studies”). In historical context, the privileging of immediate experience, intuitive knowledge, and organic expression in American romantic culture can be understood as a reaction to the sense of instability and isolation that the modern restructuring of American society—through such factors as industrialization, urbanization, population growth, and territorial expansion—produced in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the face of dislocation, fragmentation, and the threatening political dissolution of the United States, a need arose to both validate subjective experience and to define an intersubjectively dependable basis for cultural exchange and social interaction. For writers like Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau, it was the immediacy of perception, emotion, and expression that vouched for the reliability of knowledge, the validity of representation, and the legitimacy of values and actions. By cultivating intuitive and apparently spontaneous forms of thinking and writing, they sought to resist social conventions, to counter the increasing commercialization of literary culture, and to renew the democratic ethos of American literature. The development of Emerson’s and Whitman’s poetics was influenced by their intermedial reflections on photography. Considered ‘the pencil of nature’ in its early years, the new medium set new standards for the lifelikeness and truthfulness of representation. In their published and private writings, Emerson and Whitman repeatedly compared literature and photography to describe the dynamics of creative expression and to define the cultural role of literature. At first, both writers held that the camera’s capacity to record optical reality without distortion realized their ideal of intuitive insight and of immediate, original, and natural poetic expression. While Whitman continued to enthusiastically invest his free verse with a directness and authenticity as well as specificity and inclusiveness that he considered characteristic of photography, Emerson’s attitude towards the new medium grew more ambivalent as his commitment to a philosophy and poetics of process deepened. Seeking to represent a world in flux, Emerson was wary of the stabilized records of reality that photography produced. Still, photography provided both writers with a terminology and material model that allowed them to theorize processes of perception and signification.

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By comparing the immediacy effects and truth claims of photography and literature, Emerson and Whitman gauged the spiritual, cultural, and political function of literature. The concern of the transcendentalists with the possibility of coming into direct contact with Nature, of participating in a world in which self and other as well as material and immaterial reality are experienced as integrated at base, reflects their efforts to ground literary practice in religious practice and self-culture, to make art relevant to the concerns of everyday life, and to forge a genuinely democratic society. As Whitman announced this multifaceted project in “Democratic Vistas”: “I say the question of Nature, largely consider’d, involves the questions of the esthetic, the emotional, and the religious— and involves happiness” (Complete Poetry 983). Words Cited Buell, Lawrence. Literary Transcendentalism: Style and Vision in the American Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1973. Print. Daguerre, Louis-Jacques-Mandé. “Daguerreotype.” Classic Essays on Photography. Ed. Alan Trachtenberg. 11-13. Print. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. Edward Waldo Emerson. 12 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903-1904. Print. ---. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ed. William H. Gilman, et al. 16 vols. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1966-78. Print. Folsom, Ed. Walt Whitman’s Native Representations. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print. Henisch Bridget Ann, and Heinz K. Henisch. The Photographic Experience, 1839-1914: Images and Attitudes. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1994. Print. Johnstone, Robert. “Poetic Theory.” Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia. Ed. J. R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland, 1998. 525-28. Print. Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A Cultural History. London: Laurence King, 2002. Print. ---. Photography and Its Critics: A Cultural History, 1839-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Print.

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Newhall, Beaumont. The Daguerreotype in America. New York: Dover, 1975. Print. Niépce, Joseph Nicéphore. “Memoire on the Heliograph,” rpt. Classic Essays on Photography, ed. Alan Trachtenberg. New Haven: Leete’s Island Books, 1980. 5-10. Print. Orvell, Miles. The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1989. Print. Root, Marcus Aurelius. The Camera and the Pencil, or the Heliographic Art. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1864. Print. Rudisill, Richard. Mirror Image: The Influence of the Daguerreotype on American Society. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1971. Print. “Studies among the Leaves: The Assembly of Extremes.” Crayon 3 (Jan. 1856): 30-32. The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 13 June 2014. Thoreau, Henry David. Essays: A Fully Annotated Edition. Ed. Jeffrey S. Cramer. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013. Print. ---. The Maine Woods. New York: Penguin, 1988. Print. ---. Walden and Resistance to Civil Government. A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. William Rossi. New York: Norton, 1992. Print. Traubel, Horace. With Walt Whitman in Camden. Vol. 4. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1953. Print. Whitman, Walt. Complete Poetry and Collected Prose. Ed. Justin Kaplan. New York: Viking P, 1982. Print. ---. The Complete Prose Works of Walt Whitman. Ed. Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned, and Horace C. Traubel. Paumanok Edition. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1902. Print. ---. The Gathering of the Forces: Editorials, Essays, Literary and Dramatic Reviews and Other Material Written as Editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846 and 1847. Ed. Cleveland Rodgers and John Black. Vol. 2. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1920. Print. ---. Leaves of Grass: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Sculley Bradley and Harold W. Blodgett. New York: Norton, 1973. Print.

J. JESSE RAMÍREZ

Green Futures; or, How to Enjoy Eco-Apocalypse I dedicate this work to the U.S.A. that it may become just another part of the world, no more, no less. John Cage

No figure better represents the contemporary American attitude toward apocalyptic mass culture than Walter Benjamin’s angel of history— provided, however, that we turn the angel around. In a well-known passage from “On the Concept of History,” Benjamin imagines that the angel in Paul Klee’s drawing Angelus Novus is looking back on the catastrophes of the past. Although the angel “would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed,” his wings are caught in a storm that forces him, backwards, into the future (Benjamin, “Concept” 392). The figure that I call the American angel of history also gazes at catastrophes, but he faces in the opposite direction: His back toward the past, he is transfixed by the culture industry’s spectacles of the (post)apocalyptic future. And on this angel’s face is not an expression of melancholy, but a curious smile in which terror and exhilaration have become indistinguishable. Rarely has a culture been so fascinated with narratives and images of its imminent destruction. Like the wreckage that piles up at the feet of Benjamin’s angel, today’s apocalyptic blockbuster films and TV shows, paperbacks and video games, comics and commercials, seem to be reaching a kind of critical mass. Amazon.com sells everything from the latest apocalyptic fiction and DVDs to knives, flame-resistant clothing, and other supplies for surviving the anticipated collapse of civil society. Advertisers use the image of the ruined city to sell heavy-duty pickup trucks during the Super Bowl; in a scene spoofed on YouTube, John Hillcoat’s cinematic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road func-

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tions as a post-apocalyptic product placement for Coca-Cola. The news mimics the plotlines of apocalyptic films as it routinely announces natural disasters, pandemics, financial crises, urban riots, and even the occasional “zombie.”1 As Marx and Engels once said of capitalism, the culture of apocalypse “must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere” (38). The challenge that lies before the cultural critic is to understand why contemporary American culture enjoys its apocalypses so thoroughly. In other words, the problem resides in what Jacques Lacan calls jouissance.2 Although roughly translatable as “enjoyment,” the French term has additional sexual connotations. In the words of one of Lacan’s most influential contemporary interpreters, Slavoj Žižek, jouissance refers to the “excessive, properly traumatic character” of enjoyment (Žižek, How 79). Jouissance thus captures what the French call la petite mort or the “little death” of orgasm, an enjoyment so excessive that it annihilates the self. In this essay, I want to interrogate the apocalyptic jouissance of American culture by focusing on what I consider to be the dominant mode of apocalypse today, namely, environmental or eco-apocalypse. Contemporary American culture has been imagining a seemingly endless series of environmental calamities: tidal waves, floods, Ice Ages, meteors, wastelands of gray snow, tornadoes in downtown Los Angeles, wilderness growing among the ruins of New York City. What atomic war was to the apocalyptic visions of the Cold War era—namely, the genre’s cultural dominant—a corrupted and vengeful natural environment is to the apocalypses of our current age of climate change. The comparison is instructive, for in both cases—here I offer my first thesis about apocalyptic jouissance—apocalypse is the symptom of a culture that more or less consciously disbelieves in collective human action, since it can imagine qualitative, systemic historical change only by pro1

2

I am referring to a series of news reports about grisly cannibalistic murders in March and June of 2012 that caused some to believe that the “zombie apocalypse” was imminent. In response, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement reassuring the public that zombies do not exist. See Campbell. It is common practice in Anglophone Lacanian scholarship to leave jouissance untranslated and unitalicized. I follow this practice throughout this essay, and use the term interchangeably with enjoyment.

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jecting agency onto inhuman technologies and natural forces. Despair lurks in apocalyptic culture—the despair of praxis. Phillip Wegner calls this despair “political alienation: the radical sense of otherness too many feel when faced with the prospects of their own potential for action” (150; emphasis in the original). Thus, one of the reasons that visions of eco-apocalypse abound today is that our sense of the reality of climate change is inversely proportional to the conviction that we can stop it; in other words, the more vivid our perception of impending climate disasters, the greater the absence in the collective imagination of a political project that can stop them, much less reverse the dangerous trends. If despair and alienation are all that is at stake in American apocalyptic enjoyment, then surely this enjoyment is perverse, perhaps even dangerous. It turns the despair of praxis into entertainment. Let us recall what the Angelino in Independence Day says right before the invading alien spaceship blasts the building upon which she is dancing ecstatically: “It’s so pretty.” To this we should reply with Benjamin’s critique of the fascist aestheticization of politics: “[Humanity’s] self-alienation has reached the point where it can experience its own annihilation as a supreme aesthetic pleasure” (“Work” 42). But while such a judgment is essential to an ideology critique of American commodity culture, to which this essay aims to contribute, it is too limited. Eco-apocalypse comes in many aesthetic and political varieties. An anatomy of eco-apocalypse would have to include at least the following forms: 1. The eco-apocalyptic jeremiad. Perhaps the foundational text in this tradition is Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Carson opens the book with a “fable” about the apocalyptic disappearance of birds and other animals from a small American town. The culprit is “a white granular powder” that “had fallen like snow upon the roofs and lawns, the fields and streams”—a pesticide, or as Carson preferred to call these chemicals, “biocide” (3, 8). In Silent Spring and other eco-apocalyptic jeremiads, the apocalypse serves as a dire warning, a call for the nation to reform before it is too late. 2. The eco-apocalyptic satire. In this form, environmental disaster upends the hierarchies of the political order. One of the most memorable examples can be seen in Roland Emmerich’s blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, in which extremely rapid and catastrophic climate change causes a massive migration from the United States to Mexico. Like the

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utopian satires of Cyrano de Bergerac, Thomas More, and Jonathan Swift, in which the representation of the European encounter with nonEuropean cultures “originates in a satirical impulse to turn things upside down and inside out”, The Day After Tomorrow satirically reverses the roles of the United States and Mexico (Rieder 4). Apocalypse removes the United States from its position of power in the immigration debate by symbolically transforming its citizens into “illegal aliens.” 3. The nationalist eco-comedy. In Deep Impact, the environmental disasters caused by a meteor destroy much of the United States, but the narrative and visual logic of the film suggest that apocalypse is actually the best thing that can happen to the nation. As the proto-Obama President, played by Morgan Freeman, delivers a hopeful speech in front of a ruined White House, he reassures the nation that it will rise from the ashes. The nationalist eco-comedy is distinguished not only by its happy ending, which it shares with most blockbuster apocalypses, but, more significantly, by its usage of apocalypse as an excuse—a motivation of the device, as the Russian Formalists would put it—for a triumphalist allegory of the nation’s rebirth.3 In this case, American apocalyptic enjoyment is not a perverse relishing of political powerlessness, but rather a technique for reinventing optimism. After the end comes the new beginning, the production of which turns out to have been the true end, the true objective, to which apocalypse is the means. Nonetheless, I hesitate to revise the thesis I offered above. Is it not alarming that the price of imagining new political collectivity is mass violence and death? How enormous the blockage of the American political imagination must be if only a doomsday meteor can dislodge it. But instead of continuing the anatomy, I want to toggle from genre to what is known in utopian studies as the utopian impulse. It is difficult to make blanket claims about apocalyptic jouissance because forms that can be regarded as triumphalist, reactionary, or even fascist nonetheless 3

An inchoate theory of apocalyptic representation as a utopian “motivation of the device” or “pretext” can be found in Jameson, Marxism 404-06, and Jameson, Archaeologies 199, 378. The reader who thinks that this is all an effect of American Protestantism should know that I consider this explanation to be a cliché, an impediment to genuine thinking. The relationships among apocalypse, utopia, and American Protestantism require a fine-grained historical analysis that I cannot pursue here.

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express a utopian desire or wish—if not for a perfect society, then for a society qualitatively better than the one in which the utopian dreamer lives.4 I may strongly disapprove of the way Deep Impact achieves optimism, and of the way that apocalyptic mass culture more generally makes fun of despair, but to ignore the utopian impulse within apocalypse is to overlook American culture’s persistent longing for alternative futures beyond the reformism of traditional politics. Once we extract the utopian kernel from the apocalyptic shell, we can arrive at the following answer to the question of jouissance: Americans enjoy apocalypse because it gratifies utopian wishes. Apocalypse serves as the symbolic underground, as it were, of the utopian imagination, a means of indulging utopian dreaming by momentarily disguising utopia as its opposite, the end of the world. This essay, which grows out of a book I am writing on apocalyptic mass culture, posits that the United States in the postWorld War II era has created utopian expectations that it cannot fulfill, and that the dominant political climate actively represses by portraying utopia itself as either mere wishful thinking or potentially totalitarian. Indeed, today even the most minimal proposals by climate scientists to limit carbon emissions are treated as hopelessly utopian and/or socialist. In anti-utopian times, the utopian imagination must go underground and mask itself. While we need to account for the variety of motivations behind apocalyptic enjoyment, including quasi-fascist ones, we must recognize that what also captures the fascinated gaze of the American angel of history is the excessive pleasure of utopia. To return now to eco-apocalypse, we can inquire more specifically into its utopian impulse. I interpret the title of this essay collection to imply the following questions: After nature, what remains of America? What is America after nature’s revenge? If the nationalist eco-comedy destroys America in order to save it, I want to highlight a utopian impulse that answers the above questions by making the nation disappear. 4

The common definition of utopia as a perfect social order neglects the significant engagement in utopian literature and social theory with the limits of utopia. This straw-man definition of utopia also validates the idea that utopian thinking is merely naïve idealism, the pointless pursuit of the impossible—an ideological position that assumes the inevitability of the status quo. My definition closely follows Sargent. The greatest theorist of the utopian impulse is Bloch.

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My second thesis, which must stand in constant tension with the first, is that eco-apocalyptic jouissance is motivated in part by the desire to transcend the national form. The end of the world is also the end of the nation as the dominant spatial and temporal frame of experience, and a starting point for imagining what I call post-national ecology, a form of community that comes after the end of the nation. Freed into the longue durée of green futures, of worlds in which the natural environment has outlasted the United States, the eco-apocalyptic imagination can discover more inclusive ways of being with human and nonhuman Others. Given the limits of the current essay, I will focus on two symptomatic visions of post-national ecology, the first contemporary, the second appearing at the outset of what used to be called the American Century. I begin with the work of the photographer and diorama artist, Lori Nix. Nix can be seen as a twenty-first century Thomas Cole, whom she considers, along with other Hudson River School landscape painters, to be among her greatest influences. What Nix finds compelling in the work of the Hudson River School painters is their representation of the sublime: “When one views these beautiful depictions of landscape, one immediately sees God in all his glory and is filled with awe and/or terror by His majesty” (Nix, “About”). Although her work differs from most landscape art in that Nix, with the help of her partner Kathleen Gerber, meticulously handcrafts her own settings, she is also an artist of the apocalyptic sublime. Her photography produces a compelling mixture of awe and terror—“the exact definition,” according to Žižek, “of enjoyment (jouissance)” (Sublime 229). Nix’s encounters with the sublime began during her childhood in a rural part of Kentucky that she describes as “known more for its natural disasters than anything else” (Nix, “About”). Every season produced its own local calamity, “from winter snow storms, spring floods and tornados to summer insect infestations and drought” (“About”). In contrast to the adults’ fear, Nix experienced these events as “euphoric” disruptions of everyday routine: “Downed trees, mud, even grass fires brought excitement to daily, mundane life” (“About”). An incident from Nix’s childhood exemplifies her experience of the serendipity of disaster: a few days after a tornado, Nix discovered among the debris an oven with a fully cooked ham inside (Nix, “Interview”). To be sure, Nix admits that she fears the possible futures of climate change, but what makes her work such a fascinating object lesson in apocalyptic enjoyment is its

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ability to capture the dark comedy of apocalypse, its strange combination of anxiety and pleasure. “I am interested in depicting danger and disaster,” she writes, “but I temper this with a touch of humor” (Nix, “About”). If there were a counter-concept for Roland Barthes’s punctum, the aspect of the photograph that wounds the viewer, it would be the lightheartedness evoked by a raccoon in Nix’s Clock Tower, which playfully peeks out of one of the empty cardboard boxes that are strewn about the dilapidated, post-apocalyptic room. Clock Tower is part of Nix’s “The City,” a collection of postapocalyptic urban scenes that is reminiscent of the Desolation canvas of Cole’s The Course of Empire.5 Nix describes the images as depicting “a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of its human inhabitants.” “These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects,” Nix continues, “reclaiming what was theirs before man’s encroachment” (“About”). In Subway, the floor of a rusted subway car is covered with mounds of sand and weeds. A rat scurries across the tiles of a Laundromat at Night. Overgrown, exotic plants bloom weirdly and luxuriously in Botanical Garden. But perhaps the most impressive image, at least for my purposes here, is Library. The library is a common figure in post-apocalyptic representation because it provides an index of the conspicuous absence of the human world. When H. G. Wells’s time traveler journeys into the distant future in The Time Machine, he finds a library in ruins. “The brown and charred rags,” he observes, “I presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books. They had long since dropped to pieces and every semblance of print had left them” (160). “The thing that struck me with keenest force,” he continues, “was the enormous waste of labor to which this somber wilderness of rotting paper testified” (161). Similarly, the protagonist of George Stewart’s post-plague novel Earth Abides, to which I will return below, surveys the ruins of the library of the University of California at Berkeley and wonders: “What would be the use of all these books now? . . . There was no one left now, to carry on. Books themselves, mere wood-pulp and lamp-black, were nothing—without a mind to use them” (265). 5

Low-resolution images http://www.lorinix.net.

of the

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A similar sense of loss haunts Nix’s Library (fig. 1). These books stand silently in their neat cases, or are strewn across the dusty floor, bespeaking an enormous waste of intellectual and creative energies. After all, books exist only for the sake of future readers. They are externalized memory, physical media that are potentially more durable than the mind, that fragile medium inside our skulls. As both Wells’s time traveler and Marx recognize, books are objectifications of labor power—the stored up intellectual labor of past generations. What Library allows us to glimpse is a world without readers—a world without any need for externalized human memory or “dead” intellectual labor. In fact, the wonderful irony is that Nix’s Library is not really a library, since the things in the bookcases and on the floor are not, strictly speaking, books. This “library” is instead a collection of objects that have fallen out of culture and back into the natural substances from which they were made (woodpulp and lamp-black, as Stewart describes them). There are no readers to make use of these books, to activate their cultural value as books, and thus to make them more than paper and ink. In their place is the inhuman gaze of what appear to be eastern bluebirds (fig. 2), which are perched in the trees that are growing, in a startling shift of context, inside the room. This gaze, which rests in the cool neutrality of not caring about books, marks the end of the human world. Ironically—and amusingly—there are also stuffed eastern bluebirds in a display case: but now the birds are free, and it is the dead human world that is “stuffed,” petrified, and on display.

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Fig. 1. Lori Nix, Library. Digital photograph, 2007. High-resolution image provided by the artist.

Fig. 2. Detail from Nix, Library.

But so far I have ignored the most important object in Library: the tree in the middle of the room, illuminated by the sunlight that pours in from the broken ceiling. The tree appears to be reaching for the light, growing toward it, as though the sun had called it to grow in the most unlikely of places. The tree makes good on the lyrics of the Canadian singer Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in” (“Anthem”). Library is not only about the melancholy loss of culture; it is about the light that gets in through an apocalyptic crack in the human

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world. It embodies the fascination that competes with apocalyptic fear throughout “The City”—a fascination with change, with “what a changing world can bring” (Nix, “About”). What Library teaches viewers to enjoy the longer they study it is not only the skill and artistry that went into creating such a detailed post-apocalyptic setting in miniature, but the emergence of a different world, a green future blooming extravagantly across the old temporal and spatial boundaries of the nation. As Wai Chee Dimock argues in Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time, it was the myopia of national space-time that allowed American marines to ignore the destruction of a real library, the Iraqi National Library, with its irreplaceable artifacts from the ancient Near East, during the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Operating under a military timetable, and under the short chronology of a young nation,” Dimock claims, “[the marines] were largely indifferent to the history of the world” (1). Nix’s Library reverses this myopia: the photograph inverts the destruction of the Iraqi National Library, placing its library beyond the “short chronology of a young nation,” in the longue durée of earthly time. The conflict between the nation and the earth, however, should not be subsumed under what Nick Yablon calls the “cult of the ruin” (5), a mode of thinking about ruins that is exemplified by Georg Simmel.6 In his classic essay “The Ruin,” Simmel interprets ruins as philosophical expressions of the struggle between the human spirit or mind (Geist) and nature. Simmel characterizes human history as the progressive transformation of the external environment, “a gradual rise of the spirit [des Geistes] to mastery over the nature which it finds outside” (259). Ruins signal that the spirit’s mastery, materialized in architectural structures, has been forfeited: “merely natural forces begin to become master over the work of man” (259). Since they are founded on a binary between human practice and nature, Simmel’s ruins are philosophically significant only on the condition that they have been created by natural forces. 6

Simmel contributes to what Yablon characterizes as the “myth” that ruins are “transhistorical”: “Artists, writers, and orators of different periods inevitably appropriated a conventional iconography of classical columns and Gothic arches to convey certain universal, moral themes—chiefly the impermanence of human life, and by extension civilizations, and thus the folly and futility of overreaching ambitions and enterprises” (6).

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If ruins have been produced by human action, “this contradicts the contrast between human work and the effect of nature on which rests the significance of the ruin as such” (260). In contrast to Simmel, Nix’s ruins admit no easy distinction between human and natural destruction. As Nix states above, the cause of the apocalypse in “The City” is “either natural or . . . the result of mankind” (Nix, “About”; my emphasis). Indeed, I see the handicraft process behind Library and Nix’s other environments as a remarkable allegory of the intermixture of the human and the natural in the Anthropocene. While humans have not “mastered” nature, the human impact on the environment, from melting polar ice to mass extinctions, constitutes a new geological epoch. Human beings have become a “geological force” (Crutzen and Stoermer 18). Instead of being yet another Baroque meditation on vanitas or a reflection on the eternal struggles of spirit and nature, Library is a poignant displacement of the United States at a historically specific moment, the Anthropocene, for whose ecological destructiveness this nation in particular bears a disproportionately high responsibility. My second example of post-national ecology is the novel I mentioned above, George Stewart’s Earth Abides. Published in 1949, in the early years of the American Century, Earth Abides is today regarded as a masterpiece in science fiction circles. Outside the genre, however, most scholars have forgotten the tremendous breadth and depth of Stewart’s career. An English professor at the University of California at Berkeley, the prolific Stewart wrote literary criticism (The Technique of English Verse, 1930), a biography of the California writer Bret Harte (Bret Harte, Argonaut and Exile, 1931), a history of the Donner party (Ordeal By Hunger, 1938), cultural geography (Names on the Land, 1945), and philosophical anthropology (Man: An Autobiography, 1946), among other books. As for fiction, Earth Abides was not Stewart’s first novel; two previous works, Storm (1941) and Fire (1948), were pioneers in the eco-disaster genre and were widely respected for their scientific rigor and imagination. His third novel, Earth Abides (1949), tells the story of Isherwood “Ish” Williams, a graduate student in ecology who has survived a plague that has depopulated most of the United States (and probably the planet). Admitting to my inability to do justice to the novel as a whole, I want to focus instead on two aspects of Earth Abides. First, Stewart periodically interrupts the narrative with italicized sections that describe how humanity’s near extinction has affected the

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natural environment. These sections of the novel highlight earthly and celestial environments that are indifferent toward humanity’s downfall, shifting the novel’s temporality into the earth’s “deep time,” which Dimock provocatively characterizes as “un-American time” because it vastly outstrips the nation’s short history (122-23): The almost complete removal of man, though in some ways an unprecedented earthly catastrophe, had not in the slightest affected the earth’s relation to the sun, or the sizes and locations of the oceans and continents, or any other factor influencing the weather. Therefore, the first autumn storm which swept down from the Aleutians upon the coast of California was ordinary and conventional. Its moisture extinguished the forest-fires; its raindrops washed from the atmosphere the particles of smoke and dust. Behind it a brisk wind swept down cool and crystalclear and air from the northwest. The temperature dropped sharply. (Stewart 90-91; emphasis in the original)

The passage resembles the book of Ecclesiastes, from which Stewart borrowed the novel’s title. Ecclesiastes belongs to the wisdom tradition in biblical literature, and teaches that “vain illusion is overcome and relative peace achieved when the striving of human beings, each with just a brief lifetime to live, is seen against [the] backdrop of natural eternity” (Miles 192). Stewart appropriates the naturalism of Ecclesiastes to depict the nonchalance of geological time, the longue durée in which the histories of nations, and of the human species itself, are mere moments. Ocean, continent, rain—these and others will survive humanity’s disappearance because they are older than we are and do not need us. Yet the sections of deep time must be italicized and offset because they are incompatible with the main narrative. Deep, nonhuman time cannot be narrated, at least not for long, and not without anthropomorphism. A narrative that is truly faithful to the durée of geology must read like an immensely long (and boring) procession of facts; from the human perspective, nothing can happen in such a “story” because whatever change eventually occurs can have no purpose—and therefore no intention—behind it. At most, Stewart can place deep time and narrative time side by side on the page, thereby highlighting their tension. While the main narrative reminds us that the earth is ineffable in itself, that whatever lies beyond the human must be figured in human language in order to be intelligible at all, the flashes of deep time de-Americanize the American Century. Earth Abides deprograms the national imagina-

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tion and opens it up to wider timescales and richer forms of life, reminding the reader of the nation’s transience, its smallness, the arrogance of its claim on the future and the planet. The second aspect of this novel that I will highlight is the conflict within the protagonist, Ish, over the legacies of Americanism. After starting a small community with several other survivors in Berkeley, Ish struggles to motivate his “Tribe” to begin the hard work of rebuilding American civilization. Ish favors his son, Joey, because “he had the competitive spirit, the old-time drive, so characteristic of Americans, for getting to the front” (208). When Ish tells a group of children, who have only heard rumors of the Americans—that mythical race that created all the cars, guns, and the grocery stores’ seemingly endless supply of canned foods—that he is American, Ish feels “pride come over him. . . . It had been a great thing, in those Old Times, to be an American. You had been deeply conscious of being one of a great nation” (219). Ish even has a recurring dream that government officials appear and reassure him that the United States still exists. Ish will open himself to the utopian impulse of the post-apocalyptic world only when he escapes this dream, that is, when he no longer wishes to return to the American Century (which was still, we should remember, the postwar reader’s present, and which was rearticulated in the 1990s by the Project for a New American Century). By the end of the novel Ish realizes that he has become the Last American, the only living survivor who remembers the nation at all. The power of the novel resides in these closing chapters, in which Stewart presents Ish’s eventual acceptance that Americanism will disappear from the world as a triumph. His hopes dashed by Joey’s death, Ish comes to accept that the Tribe will not restore American civilization. Unlike Ish, the Tribe does not dream of the American competitive spirit and can-do attitude: “It did not want civilization. For a while the scavenging would go on—this opening of cans, this expending of cartridges and matches stored up from the past, all this uncreative but happy manner of life” (268). Yet because he is troubled by the prospect that the Tribe will one day run out of canned food, Ish decides to do something more concrete: he shows the Tribe children how to make a bow, and presents it not as a tool, but as an instrument of play. In this way, Ish satisfies his longing for creativity: “He looked at the bow, and knew that creative force had again returned to the world. He could have gone to

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any sporting-goods store, and picked out a much better bow—a six-foot toy for archery. But he had not done so” (272). This is the height of Ish’s achievement in the novel. Because of the plague, he never finished his dissertation and became an academic scientist, as he had hoped. But now he has made a simple bow, a plaything that eventually helps the Tribe learn to hunt without the old guns and other commodities. The bow figures the disappearance of postwar consumerism, the reconciliation of science and craft, and the end of mental labor’s tyranny over manual labor. In the bow dwells the reenchantment of work, and with it, a sense of Ish’s participation in—not mastery of—the world’s becoming. In the final moments before his death, Ish stops dreaming that government officials will return and rescue him. He now accepts that he is the last of a dying breed, that the future, and whatever the new generations of the Tribe may make of it, will not be American: “Whether the new would follow the course which the old had followed, that he did not know, and now at last he was almost certain that he did not even desire that the cycle should be repeated” (311). When Ish asks his great grandson if he is happy, the man is puzzled, and eventually answers: “Things are as they are, and I am part of them” (292). For the post-American Tribe, happiness consists in belonging to being. It is not based on individual achievement—the American drive to get ahead, as Ish describes it above—but on equal participation in all of existence. Ish understands this way of thinking as an affirmation of being as such, a respect for undifferentiated life. Noticing how the Tribe’s hunters encounter a mountain lion and simply let it walk past them, Ish comments: “he could not help thinking that the men had lost that old dominance and the arrogance with which they had once viewed the animals, and were now acting more or less as equals with them” (308). What has replaced the American citizen is a type of human being who lives in richer bonds of solidarity with the earth and its nonhuman Others. This is post-national ecology, a form of life founded on temporal, spatial, and affective relations that are older, larger, and more diverse than those of the nation. In the green future, post-Americans may be able to “take our place,” to cite Dimock again, “as one species among others, inhabiting a shared ecology, a shared continuum” (6). This essay has tried to understand what I have designated the American angel of history, a reverse image of Walter Benjamin’s melancholic angel that represents American culture’s apocalyptic enjoyment. Ac-

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cording to one of the most repeated assessments of contemporary apocalyptic culture, it is easier today to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. The claim is probably a paraphrase of Fredric Jameson, who writes in The Seeds of Time that “it seems to be easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism” (xii). Crucially, Jameson adds: “perhaps that is due to some weakness in our imaginations” (xii). Jameson’s judgment informs my own initial thesis about apocalyptic jouissance, namely, that it is symptomatic of a deformed political imagination. The thrill we feel as meteors rain down on Times Square in this or that eco-apocalyptic blockbuster movie is the thrill of the momentous event, of history’s decisive turning. We do not need to wait until the end of the movie to find out if humanity will survive: the displacement of human agency by the blind violence of things proves that humans are already extinct. Without wanting to reduce the force of this critique, I have nonetheless offered a contrasting interpretation of apocalyptic enjoyment as deferred utopia, an “underground” form of utopian dreaming. Focusing on the culturally dominant form of apocalypse today, eco-apocalypse, I have argued for the presence of a post-national, ecological impulse in visions of the end of the United States. For in addition to the unmasking and denouncing of pernicious forms of mass entertainment, I believe it is the task of cultural critique to pull the rug out from under even the most mindless forms of consumerist reconciliation, to spin them around and change their valence, thus showing American culture the other, utopian side of its desire, and reminding it that the present cannot satisfy its collective longing for a truly different, better future. If, in closing, I affirm the utopian wishes of the green future, of the self-destructive enjoyment of the nation’s eco-apocalypse, I do so not as an expression of mere anti-Americanism, but in the name of forms of life, liberty, and happiness that the nation leaves undreamed. Whether there is an America after nature will depend, if not on the nation’s destruction, then on its ability to answer the call of utopian transformation. While Benjamin’s critique of fascist aesthetics is a touchstone for an American Studies dedicated to ideology critique, it is to the eco-poet Robinson Jeffers to whom we must finally turn for an articulation of the utopian possibility of change within destruction: “And not fear death/It is the only way to be cleansed” (202).

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Works Cited Benjamin, Walter. “On the Concept of History.” Selected Writings. Ed. Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003. 389-400. Print. ---. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.” The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media. Ed. Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin. Trans. Edmund Jephcott and Harry Zohn. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2008.19-55. Print. Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope. 3 Vols. Trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight. Cambridge: MIT P, 1995. Print. Campbell, Andy. “Zombie Apocalypse: CDC Denies Existence Of Zombies Despite Cannibal Incidents.” The Huffington Post. 1 Jun. 2012. Web. 4 Jan. 2015. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Print. Cohen, Leonard. “Anthem.” The Future. Columbia, 1992. CD. Crutzen, Paul, and Eugene Stoermer. “The ‘Anthropocene.’” Global Change Newsletter 41 (2000): 17-18. Print. Dimock, Wai Chee. Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. Print. Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York: Verso, 2005. Print. ---. Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971. Print. ---. The Seeds of Time. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. Print. Jeffers, Robinson. “Original Sin.” The Collected Poetry of Robison Jeffers. Ed. Tim Hunt. Vol. 3. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1991. 200-202. Print. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. London: Pluto, 2008. Print. Miles, Jack. “Global Requiem: The Apocalyptic Moment in Religion, Science, and Art.” Religion and Cultural Studies. Ed. Susan L. Mizruchi. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001. 192-210. Print. Nix, Lori. “About.” Lori Nix. Web. 7 Jan. 2015. ---. Interview with Mark Alice Durant. Saint Lucy. Web. 8 Jan. 2015.

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Rieder, John. Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2008. Print. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopian Studies 5.1 (1994): 1-37. Print. Simmel, Georg. “The Ruin.” Essays on Sociology, Philosophy, and Aesthetics. Ed. Kurt H. Wolff. New York: Harper and Row, 1965. 259-66. Print. Stewart, George. Earth Abides. London: Gollancz, 1999. Print. Wegner, Phillip E. Life Between Two Deaths, 1989-2001: U.S. Culture in the Long Nineties. Durham: Duke UP, 2009. Print. Wells, Herbert George. The Time Machine: An Invention. New York: Holt, 1895. Google books. Web. 7 Jan. 2015. Yablon, Nick. Untimely Ruins: An Archaeology of American Urban Modernity, 1819-1919. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2009. Print. Žižek, Slavoj. How to Read Lacan. New York: Norton, 2006. Print. ---. The Sublime Object of Ideology. New York: Verso, 2008. Print.

ANTONIA PURK

A Photo Album of History: Ekphrasis in Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (Book): Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (Book): is a work that seems invested in describing the author’s garden and her activities in it throughout the year. The collection of nonfiction essays appears wholly concerned with Kincaid’s passion to tend to the plot of land behind her house in North Bennington, Vermont. It starts with Kincaid’s discovery of her interest in plants and the process of learning about bloomers, shrubs, and trees that take to the South Vermont climate. And it ends with the indulgence of the passion through seed gathering in China to supplement her own garden with species from far away. In this, Kincaid’s account of the garden and her hobby are of a rather personal nature. However, the discovery of her interest in gardening also leads to the discovery of various meanings that underlie the concept of the garden in the Western world. Kincaid thus not only writes personal memories of a solitary activity, but also of her realization that the garden represents history in that on a small scale the gardener replicates acts of colonialization.1 In this context, My Garden (Book): questions the colonial history of single plants as well as the transplantation and naming as it occurs in gardening and botany.

1

For convincing analyses of Kincaid’s critique of colonialism in her garden writing see e.g. the work of Rachel Azima, Jeanne C. Ewert, Wendy Knepper, Melanie A. Murray, Susie O’Brien. These scholars rather analyze the content of My Garden (Book):, while I, here, seek to demonstrate Kincaid’s call for an awareness of colonizing practices through an analysis of the topic of representation and the formal aspects of My Garden (Book):.

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Ostensibly, the garden is at the center of the book. However, considering the form of how the garden is conveyed in My Garden (Book):, it becomes apparent that what is at stake is not only the garden, but various forms of representation. This is already hinted at by the book’s title: The parentheses and the colon point to the inseparability of the garden and the book as its representation. One could read the title as “my garden, which is this book, will begin after the colon,” i.e. the garden is located within the book. My Garden (Book): is moreover replete with illustrating images and a salient page design of leafy twines that evoke the topic of botany. In addition, images of the garden are created through extended descriptions that halt the narrative flow of the text to fully attend to the purported sights. Paying closer attention to them, this article starts out with an analysis of this particular form of representation in My Garden (Book):, namely ekphrasis. Kincaid makes extensive use of this technique to convey visual impressions of the garden through text. Highlighting the complex relationship between visuality and text, I argue that it even works to turn My Garden (Book): into a photo album of sorts that collects memories of Kincaid’s garden. But, as mentioned, this garden is not only the space of personal pleasure and interests, it is also imbued with colonial history. In a second step, I will hence work out how the garden comes to represent history. According to My Garden (Book):, the history of every plant is intertwined with the history of colonialism, and every act of gardening is reminiscent of colonization. Finally, this paper concludes by examining the purpose of the different forms of representation that occur in My Garden (Book):. It becomes clear that ultimately what is at the center of the book is not only a consideration of the garden, but how it is created (by the gardener Kincaid in Vermont as well as the artist Kincaid in this book), how it is perceived (by the gardener, the artist, and the reader), and which meanings it may bear (as a garden itself and as a textual garden in a book). In this, My Garden (Book): reflects on the nature of representations in general, identifies them as colonial legacies, and calls for an awareness of colonial remnants in any act of naming or framing— whether in the garden or in art.

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An Ekphrastic Photo Album: Citing the Sight of the Garden The garden in My Garden (Book): is Kincaid’s own. The plot of land located behind her home in Vermont is filled with flower beds arranged to please their owner. It is large enough to have a section called “woodland” and a “soft fruit garden” (MGB 16, 18). It houses both rosebushes and a pumpkin patch. Yet, the kitchen garden is not intended to feed the family, but it is a luxury. Like her other plantings, Kincaid grows the fruit and vegetables for her enjoyment as these are “things that would be much cheaper to buy at the store” (123). Foremost, the garden exists to bring pleasure to the gardener. Kincaid describes how she tends to it, frets over it, plans next year’s garden, and spends excessive amounts of money on it. It is a project that takes up time and energy all through the year. Finally, however, the most frequently performed action in the garden is looking at it. Throughout Kincaid’s occupation with the garden, “watching,” “getting a glimpse,” “staring,” “seeing,” “observing” it are at the center of her account of it (52-53). Kincaid also compares the garden to other visual arts, such as painting or sculpture. She judges the garden to be “the most useless of creations, . . . it won’t accrue value as time goes on” (111). Yet, establishing the garden as a piece of art that exists through its creators “act[s] of will”, once more emphasizes its purpose as a visual joy, similar to paintings or sculpture (111). With this emphasis My Garden (Book): is less concerned with the garden than with the visual perception of it. This is not overly surprising as a preoccupation with visuality runs through Kincaid’s body of works.2 Before she became an established writer of both fiction and nonfiction, Kincaid was intending to become a photog2

Photography is central to the negotiation of self in the novels Annie John (1985) and Lucy (1990). The protagonist of the latter eventually moves from photography to writing. Also, the covers of Kincaid’s next two novels The Autobiography of My Mother (1996) and Mr. Potter (2002) exhibit intricate relationships with the texts they accompany: Both feature photographic portraits that evoke a truthfulness of their fictional protagonists’ life stories. The title of Kincaid’s latest book See Now Then (2013) toys with the visual and the verbal, offering sights of the present and the past when read as an imperative.

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rapher. But even in those days text played a central role in her work: In a 1994 interview, she explains the relation of photography and writing: “I was in college and thought I would be a photographer, and I used to write out my photographs . . .—what I would take and how I would set them up. . . . I would write down what I thought the picture should feel like. And I would try to take a picture of what I had written down” (Kincaid in Ferguson 163). A particularly striking example of the visual and the verbal being thus intertwined presents itself in My Garden (Book):, when the sights of the garden are brought forth through text. The focus on the visual is pronounced through the introduction of the photographer and botanist Robert Woodworth as a predecessor to Kincaid. It starts with his having been the previous owner of the author’s garden in North Bennington, Vermont. As a member of the Bennington College Science faculty from 1935 to 1989, Woodworth taught biology and botany. In addition, he was a pioneer of time-lapse photography.3 “I do not know if the exciting and unusual collection of trilliums, jack-inthe-pulpit, squirrel corn, Solomon’s seal, and mayapple that are in the bed just outside the kitchen window are the very same ones that are in his films on time-lapse photography,” Kincaid writes (MGB 31), but her musing about it already suggests such a connection. Time-lapse photography collapses a period of time while focusing on one object. And just as Woodworth conflated time while perhaps observing the plants in his own (later Kincaid’s) garden, so does Kincaid collapse time in her writing about the garden. Introducing Robert Woodworth, his work as a botanist and photographer, and his role as the previous gardener, Kincaid presents him as a forebear of her own project. While she takes up the medium of text instead of photography, the act of looking at plants and recording this in collapsed time is suggested to stay the same. In analogy to the contraction of time in Woodworth’s photographic work, Kincaid’s descriptions of looking at the garden halt time in narrative progression, which already mostly consists of the description of 3

According to Kincaid, he even “invented time-lapse photography” (MGB 31). However, his work was preceded by stopping motion in photography, which was accomplished as early as in the 1870s e.g. by Eadweard Muybridge (cf. Orvell 68-69). For biographical information I drew on the entry on Woodworth in Our Bennington, the Bennington College website, and on a New York Times article (see Works Cited).

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gardening activities. Static, purely descriptive passages culminate in lists of what the gardener sees (see, e.g. 27, 69, 125, 173-174). Kincaid here uses ekphrases in the classical sense to present the garden. In Hellenistic rhetoric, the ekphrasis as an extended description, was called upon to intrude upon the flow of discourse, and, for its duration . . . to rivet our attention upon the visual object to be described. . . . It was, then, a device intended to interrupt the temporality of discourse, to freeze it during its indulgence in spatial exploration. (Krieger 7)

While a sense of narrative flow is frozen in the study of the sights in the garden, and time in this sense is frozen in ekphrastic passages, temporalities are also converged while for instance observing: (again) that wisteria blooming now (or then) so close to the buddleia which in turn is not too far from the Phlox paniculata ‘Norh Leigh,’ which is also somehow in the middle of the Phlox paniculata ‘David,’ is all pleasing to my eye, as I was looking at it then (now); at that moment of the wisteria, turning left or right (counterclockwise or clockwise), this is what I could see in front of me . . .: the perennial pea (Lathyrus latifolus) in bloom in its guzzling way . . ., some cultivars of Lobelia siphilitica (bought from Dan Hinkley because I was so taken by his description, and I remain open to seeing this lobelia just the way Dan described it) on the verge of blooming, an accidental planting combination of Platycodon grandiflorus blue and pink. (MGB 22)

The contraction of “now” and “then” transports a form of “seeing” the plants into different times: For one “now” refers to the author’s present while observing the garden; secondly this is recapitulated in the author’s memory while writing about it; and thirdly, “now” refers to the present of the reader, who follows the narrator’s description of “looking at it then (now).” The present of the reader at the moment of text comprehension, that of the author while remembering the sight of the garden and simultaneously producing the text, as well as the gardener’s present when observing the garden in front of her, are thus accumulated in the word “now.” Looking at the garden in My Garden (Book): hence is not restricted to physical sight, but can be evoked in memory as well as in imagination. My Garden (Book): thus suggests that the sight of the garden can be conveyed by verbal means, as it claims that text may induce an imagina-

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tive vision of the garden.4 In the conflation of memory and sight, My Garden (Book): operates in the way a photo album does: it collects snapshots that were taken in the past. This is corroborated by the book’s illustrative design. Corresponding well with the textual focus on the garden, My Garden (Book):’s pivotal color hue is green, which extends from the dust jacket and binding to the mock title and title page to all illustrative drawings, as well as to the design of the text pages. The title page is illustrated with a centrally positioned drawing below the book’s title. Wholly in green tones, the illustration shows a female figure from behind. She is dressed in overalls, a simple white shirt and a sunhat, the quintessential gardener’s outfit, sits by a window and looks out at a garden. The image is framed by a square, dark-green border, but its four corners are set apart in a lighter tone of green, mimicking photo corners. Imitating a photo album with this detail, the title page’s illustration sets the tone of the book: In a photograph that is emulated in a drawing, a gardener is looking at the garden. The design of the photo corners recurs in the page design of My Garden (Book):. The white pages are encased by light-green frames, which are decorated with trims of single strands of stylized leaves and in that again reference the garden. Most noteworthy though is the form of the green frames that encompass the text: They are not fully square, but have little, round indentations towards the white in every corner, suggesting stylized photo corners. This design then frames the text as if in a photo album that collects the memories of the garden’s sights. Concluding from the argument that My Garden (Book): imitates visuality in text through ekphrases and a photo album in design, one could assume that it is the book’s project to make the reader see through text, rather than through images. However, text (including ekphrases) can only produce the sight of letters and their arrangements on a page. Beyond that, the “seeing” must rely on imagination as “the material [to be

4

This also becomes apparent in the status of descriptive text in garden catalogs. Kincaid contends that “[t]he best catalogues . . . will not have any pictures” (MGB 62), for it is the text that induces imagination in such a way that it becomes an experience of sight: “and my imagination takes over as I look out at the garden, which is a blanket of white [with snow], and see it filled with the things described in the catalogue I am reading” (MGB 88).

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seen] dissipates into the airiness of words” (Krieger xv). Or, in W. J. T. Mitchell’s words: A verbal representation cannot represent—that is, make present—its object in the same way a visual representation can. It may refer to an object, describe it, invoke it, but it can never bring its visual presence before us in the way pictures do. Words can ‘cite,’ but never ‘sight’ their objects (Theory 152).

Kincaid seems to be aware of the impossibility, as although she appears to attempt an amalgamation of the visual and the verbal in My Garden (Book):, and to some extent also achieves this, she writes about the relationship of the two media: “In the narrative that we are in (in the Western one), the word comes before the picture; the word makes us long for a picture, the word is never enough to the thing just seen—the picture!” (MGB 130). While she specifies “the narrative that we are in” as that which is determined by the knowledge and values of Western culture, it simultaneously also refers to My Garden (Book):, since this is the text in which the phrase is placed. To further declare that both in Western culture and in the text at hand “the word comes before the picture,” establishes a hierarchy between the verbal and the visual, but this statement can also be interpreted temporally, which would mean that the word precedes the picture, or, put differently, the picture follows the word, which suggests that the word may create a sort of picture through ekphrastic descriptions. This possibility is immediately retracted, however, as the passage concludes with “the word is never enough” in comparison with the picture. The “ekphrastic hope,” as Mitchell terms the moment in which “the impossibility of ekphrasis is overcome in imagination or metaphor, when we discover a ‘sense’ in which language can do what so many writers have wanted it to do: ‘to make us see’” (Theory 152) must remain arrested, as ultimately sight through text can only be attempted, but never achieved. From Plant to Medium: The Garden’s Representation of Colonial History Beyond the personal past that could also be collected in a photo album, the memory that the garden contains is implicated with the world history

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of colonialism, as various critics have observed (cf. e.g. O’Brien, Tiffin, Ewert, Azima, Knepper, Murray). Kincaid condenses personal and historical memory in the garden in the assertion that it is “an exercise in memory: a way of remembering my own immediate past, a way of getting to a past that is my own (the Caribbean Sea) and the past as it is indirectly related to me (the conquest of Mexico and its surroundings)”5 (MGB 8). As I will show in the following, Kincaid positions the garden as a medium of memory and history. By highlighting the colonial legacies of gardening in acts of transplanting and naming, she showcases the garden as a small scale colonized space. Concerned with the garden as well as with single plants, Kincaid works out what W. J. T. Mitchell has put forth with regard to landscape as a medium: “It is a material ‘means’ . . . like language or paint, . . . a body of symbolic forms capable of being invoked and reshaped to express meanings and values” (“Landscape” 14). Kincaid became aware of the garden’s representational faculties when reading William H. Prescott’s The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843): “I came upon the flower called marigold and the flower called dahlia and the flower called zinnia, and after that the garden was more to me than the garden as I used to think of it. After that the garden was also something else” (MGB 6). It is the consideration of the history of gardening and the plants grown in the garden that transforms it from merely a pleasurable sight into “something else,” namely a representation of a history of conquest. Kincaid elaborates on the colonial legacy of gardening by the example of the dahlia’s history: Its Aztec name, cocoxochitl, and the recognition of its use as a medicinal plant as well as its cultivation for its beauty were utterly disregarded by the Europeans after Cortés’s invasion. Kincaid polemically highlights this in putting forth the assumed European view that “these plants from far away, like the people far away, had no history, no names, and so they could be given names” (MGB 122). Today, the Aztec knowledge of the cocoxochitl is still superseded by the name “dahlia” after the Swedish botanist Andreas Dahl (MGB 118-119) by which the plant is now commonly known. The dahlia thus represents 5

Kincaid uses the example of the conquest of Mexico, lead by Hernan Cortés from 1519 onward, to refer here to European imperialism in the Americas in general.

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the colonization of the Aztec Empire: the conquest of a land and its people, operating with disregard of the knowledge, language, and culture of the subjected and thereby negating their worth and even their existence.6 Furthermore, the example of the dahlia shows how a plant is claimed as “European” by renaming (or supposedly being named in the first place) it after a European botanist. As the title of one of My Garden (Book):’s chapters programmatically declares, “To Name is to Possess,” which once more demonstrates the appropriative capacity of words. Kincaid admonishes such colonial naming practices as “a spiritual padlock with the key irretrievably thrown away, . . . a murder, an erasing” (MGB 122), and highlights its tremendous effects in a comparison of botanic naming and the naming of nations and people, who in acts of liberation from colonial powers change their names again: Rhodesia renamed itself Zimbabwe after independence from British colonial rule and the African American poet and author LeRoi Jones changed his name to Amiri Baraka (MGB 122), “Bantuizing and Swahilizing” it to discard his American “slave name” and to change “into a blacker being” (Baraka 376). And, of course, in 1973 Elaine Potter Richardson became Jamaica Kincaid so that her name would indicate the area of the world where she is from, but also to free her from her former identity as a British colonial subject and the daughter of an overbearing mother to be able to write without the restraints of being Elaine Richardson (cf. Kincaid in Vorda 14-15). In highlighting the significance of naming, Kincaid reveals the parallel 6

Further examples of plants as media of history are the breadfruit and the hollyhock: The breadfruit was imported to the Caribbean from the East Indies as a low-cost provisions for slaves (MGB 136) and Kincaid sees it as “not a food, it is a weapon” (MGB 137). Similarly, the hollyhock signifies the history of slavery in the United States: When in bloom, the hollyhock closely resembles the Gossypium (both belong to the family of the Malcaceae). Gossypium is better known as cotton, which has tormented people throughout Kincaid’s own ancestral history (MGB 150), as well as throughout the US American South in general. Helen Tiffin reads such associations of plants with history as part of Caribbean cultural heritage and discerns that “the practices of agriculture and horticulture were necessarily and variously associated by different Caribbean populations with dispossession, slavery, and servitude, exile and colonization” (149).

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between colonialists and botanists, since both “emptied worlds of their names; they emptied the worlds of things animal, vegetable, and mineral of their names and replaced them with names pleasing to them” (MGB 160). The naming and renaming of plants, animals, lands, and peoples interrelates with transnational movements: European colonization was based on transatlantic movements from Europe to Africa and the Americas, first with the purpose of conquest, and then with the intentions of exploiting peoples and lands and returning the spoils of this exploitation back to Europe. On a smaller scale, such transnational movement is repeated in the garden. In a move that reenacts the travels of European colonizers, the gardener Kincaid travels to China to gather seeds from Asian indigenous plants to then cultivate them in her very own backyard (cf. MGB 188 et seq.). Linda Lang-Peralta and Jeanne C. Ewert have convincingly identified Kincaid’s consumerism as participation in colonialist practices. In addition to the chapter in My Garden (Book):, Kincaid later wrote about her seed gathering travels in her 2005 travelogue, Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya. Her crossing the line from colonized to colonizer (MGB 123) becomes especially apparent in her journeys to China and Nepal, as exploring the world with the purpose of collecting foreign plants and species repeats previous explorations of that kind in colonial times. Kincaid spells this out by referencing Frank Kingdon-Ward’s Plant Hunting in China (1930), Ernest Henry Wilson’s Plant Hunting7 (1927), Patrick Synge’s Mountains of the Moon: An Expedition to the Equatorial Mountains of Africa (1938), and Reginald Farrer’s Among the Hills (1910) (MGB 190). The author notes that these books are “a small part of how a journey like this, for someone like me, begins” (MGB 191). To be more specific, her journey begins not only with, but in these books (cf. MGB 190). The preposition “in” articulates not only that Kincaid’s plant hunting travels repeat those of the Europe-

7

Kincaid here actually refers to “a book by Ernest Wilson, Plant Hunter’s Paradise, an account of his travels looking for plants in China” (MGB 190). However, Plant Hunter’s Paradise is a book by Frank Kingdon-Ward, published in 1937, about his travels through Burma and to the Tibetan border. Wilson’s Plant Hunting (1927) is an account of his plant hunting journeys all over the world.

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an botanists at the beginning of the twentieth century, but also that her writing about it is rooted in a charged tradition.8 However, while repeating both the seed gathering journeys as well as the writing about it, Kincaid is conscious of her complicity in colonial practices. In “Plant Hunting in China” as well as in Among Flowers, Kincaid becomes the tourist she admonished so vigorously in her early “angry and provocative book” (Murray 116) A Small Place (1988). Here, she exposes the tourist as an “ugly thing” to whom it never occurs “that the people who inhabit the place . . . cannot stand you, that behind their closed doors they laugh at your strangeness” (Kincaid, Place 17). The irony of her becoming a tourist does not escape Kincaid, though (Flowers 20). And while she is unable to remember the names of the Sherpas who cooked for the tourist group and schlepped tables and chairs up the Himalayan mountains for their comfort, Kincaid is adamant that her neglect does not reflect a colonizing relationship. It is solely her anxiety, unease, and unfamiliarity that prevent her from interacting properly with the Sherpas (Flowers 26-27). In this way, Kincaid suggests that the nature of such encounters originates in globalization, rather than in colonization. In her seed gathering and gardening activities, Kincaid hence implicates herself in processes of globalization that are grounded in the very colonizing practices she criticizes, but in doing so, she also exhibits an awareness for her participation in such relationships.9 Gathering and transplanting seeds nevertheless echoes and thus represents the colonial practices of collecting and taking possession of 8

9

Moreover, the reference to the botanists’ journeys once more highlights the roots of present-day gardening in this history of conquest as it is already set up in the texts from the beginning of the twentieth century. For instance in Plant Hunter’s Paradise, Frank Kingdon-Ward refers to the continuation of conquest at home when he writes at the end of the book: “The journey was over. But only the journey. Not the exploration. This would be continued, year after year, at the flowering of the rhododendrons, in many an English garden” (328). Murray shows that e.g. “through the deployment of irony [Kincaid] reveals her awareness of the contradictions” (123) between her critique and her participation in globalized tourism. See Feder for a detailed analysis of Kincaid’s position as a tourist in Among Flowers.

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things and people and removing them from the colony. Besides the private backyard, an exceptional space for such a display of power and collector’s passion are the public gardens of the Empire. Kincaid describes botanical gardens as “the back yard of someone else, someone far away, someone’s landscape the botanical garden can make an object” (MGB 148). In this light, the botanical garden in St. John’s in Antigua, for instance, comes to represent domination, as it is associated with “the English people, their love, their need to isolate, name, objectify, possess various parts, people and things in the world” (MGB 143). Accordingly, the garden, and the botanical garden in particular, is more than a collection of plants. It is also the power of domination represented by such a collection. Representation and Appropriation: The Book as a Simulacrum of the Garden What becomes apparent in a consideration of the garden as a visual pleasure, as a work of art, and as signifying history within My Garden (Book): is that ultimately it exposes not only mechanisms of colonialism, but also those of representation. In the last part of this article, I will bring together the two preceding analyses of representations in My Garden (Book): to trace their functions and to highlight that ultimately the book questions not only history, but also modes of representation and relationships of representations and their referents. To recapitulate the representations in My Garden (Book): The garden that is described by the book is positioned in a triad of signification and reference: First, the garden plants represent history based on the individual roles they have played in it. Secondly, the garden showcases the craft and with that the power of the gardener, which thirdly references the power of the colonizer to transplant and dominate. The garden as a space in which the power of mankind is exercised thus represents the history of colonialism. This conception of the garden is brought forth by a book that itself consists of a complex combination of visual and verbal representations, since it functions in the way of a photo album, as argued in the first section of this paper. In an amalgamation of textual and actual gardens, the text draws attention to the representation of the visual (the ekphrastic descriptions of the garden) within the verbal, while what

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is to be “seen” through the ekphrases—the actual garden—already is a representation itself. With the doubling of representations, we have here what W. J. T. Mitchell defines as ekphrasis in a narrower sense than merely extended description: Mitchell specifies ekphrasis as “the verbal representation of the visual representation” (Theory 152). In their definitions of the figure, both Mitchell and James Heffernan are adamant about the verbal representing another medium of representation (cf. Heffernan 300). In the case of the garden and its plants that are imbued with history, the representation is not bestowed on the object by the artist, but the meaning is presented as inherent to the raw material and the sheer act of working with it, i.e. the plants themselves and the their transplantations which signify on the history of colonialism. Mary Lou Emery interprets ekphrases as a gateways to the “real” in that “ekphrasis seems to grant us access to that which lies beyond representation” (“Imagination” 263). In My Garden (Book):, I argue, ekphrases are employed to very different ends: Through the uses of a variety of representations, My Garden (Book): ultimately showcases the acts of representations themselves. Representations are layered throughout My Garden (Book):, which repeatedly references other visual artworks concerned with the Kincaid for instance compares the sight of her own garden to that of another gardener and artist: Gazing at some nasturtiums growing over a walkway in her garden, she recalls a photograph of nasturtiums that also lean into a walkway in Claude Monet’s famous garden at Giverny.10 Comparing Monet’s planting of nasturtiums to her own, Kincaid notes: At first I felt wonderful that I had had the same idea as a great gardener, and then, unable to help myself, I felt envy, because his nasturtiums had turned out much better than mine. His looked like a painting—the way all natural beauty looks. Mine were just a planting of nasturtiums. (MGB 54).

10

Interestingly, the representation of the flowers in Monet’s garden is again doubled by the note that the image was found in another book on gardening (Wayne Winterrowd’s Annuals for Connoisseurs, MGB 54).

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According to this quote, all natural beauty looks as if it were created by an artist, or, the other way around: Artists of visual media are able to create natural beauty. Of course, this beauty is not natural at all, but artificial. What is beautiful then, is the static representation of the natural in a visual medium, and not the organic natural itself. More beautiful than Kincaid’s nasturtiums are hence not Monet’s, but indeed their portrayal in a photograph. The image thus conveys more meaning (beauty and naturalness) than its referent could. Moreover, a referent may also take on the cultural meanings of its representation and in the process lose its naturalness. The English landscape, for instance, adopts the qualities of its own representation: Kincaid marvels at the English people who “obsessively order and shape their landscape to such a degree that it, the English landscape, looks like a painting (tamed, framed, captured, kind, decent, good, pretty)” (MGB 132). In this, the English landscape in Kincaid’s writing is a “medium of cultural expression” in the sense of W. J. T. Mitchell’s definition (“Landscape” 14). Mitchell finds a doubled representation in landscape painting: the visual art represents “something that is already a representation in its own right” (“Landscape” 14). In My Garden (Book): the English landscape is ordered according to ideals (MGB 110) and demonstrates how the imperial project—which in moving outward created such spaces as the Botanical Garden in St. John’s—also moved “inward toward a reshaping and re-presentation of the native land” (Mitchell, (“Landscape” 17) as pleasant and benign. In another examination of a painting, Monet’s work once more serves to exemplify the relationship of visual art and its referent. Visiting Claude Monet’s garden in France, Kincaid compares the actual garden in front of her to the paintings depicting it: While looking at the plants before her, she “had their counterparts in Monet’s paintings in [her] mind” (MGB 126). The actual sight is superseded here by the image already known. Looking at the pond’s famous water lilies lying on their sides, Kincaid writes, “but on seeing them that way I immediately put them back in the arrangement I am most familiar with them in the paintings,” sitting upright on the water (MGB 127). Accordingly, the perception of reality is preconceived by a sight that was “learned.” Kincaid’s question whether the water lily garden would be the same without the paintings (MGB 126) is thus straight to the point. Especially the absence of the Hoschedé sisters, whom Monet painted in a boat on the

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pond, points to this interweaving of the known image and simultaneous visual perception of the same sight, as Kincaid is almost startled by missing the girls on the pond: “On the day I saw it, the pond, the Hoschedé girls (all three of them) were not in a boat looking so real that when they were seen in that particular painting (The Boat at Giverny) they would then define reality” (MGB 127). Again, the painting—the visual representation of the pond—defines what is real and not the actual sight itself. As with the photograph of the nasturtiums that defined natural beauty, here the painting defines reality. These examples of visual representations and their referents reveal the power of the likenesses over the original, as they are more “natural” and beautiful and even more “real.” They even affect the perception of reality in that the images known from pictoral media superimpose actual sights, as is the case with the water lilies. In a last observation of visual art, a collection of glass sculptures at the Harvard Botanical Museum, Kincaid even more specifically speaks to the effect of representations. The museum displays specimens of fruit and flowers made of blown glass: These fruits and flowers . . . are all beautiful, and, as is the way of likenesses, seem more representative of the real than do the things that they are meant to resemble. The creation of these simulacra is also an almost defiant assertion of will: it is man vying with nature herself. To see these things is to be reminded of how barefaced the notions of captivity and control used to be, because the very fabrication of these objects . . . attests to a will that must have felt itself impervious to submission. How permanent everything must feel when the world is going your way! (MGB 79-80)

Again, the representation here holds more meaning than its referent. And more, the assessment of likenesses in visual art establishes a parallel to gardening and to colonization. The creation of art is indicated as an “act of will,” just like the creation of the garden (see above and MGB 111). Considering that representations are capable of altering the perception of nature, they are, on this basis, also able to alter nature itself, as the English culture landscape makes evident. In her analysis of ekphrasis in Caribbean literature, Emery contends that a verbal representation of a visual representation “reframes” its content in a way that addresses the relationships of possession the paintings represent (Modernism 183).

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Although Emery focuses on ekphrases of paintings that frame women and people of color, her assessment is equally applicable to Kincaid’s multiple representations of the garden: Through the use of ekphrases and considerations of other art works, Kincaid highlights modes of representation and thus showcases the acts of naming, framing, and transplantation in the garden as well as in art. My Garden (Book): is a work comprised of representations and likenesses in text itself; in text that alludes to visuality; in design that suggests a photo album; in illustration supplements to descriptive text; and not least in its topic—the garden—itself established as a representation of colonial practices and history. Thus framing the garden in a multitude of representations, My Garden (Book): as a whole becomes a likeness of the garden. As the glass sculptures captivate and control their referents, so does the book. It hence can be read as a simulacrum of the garden. It similarly takes power over its referent, as although it is marketed as a nonfiction work, for the average reader it would not be possible to verify Kincaid’s account of her own garden. It may as well be a figment of her imagination and writerly craft. Neither is it relevant whether the garden truly exists as described in My Garden (Book):. The book in this way contains the garden; it is not just an account of it. My Garden (Book): indeed is a likeness of the garden even in structure in that it demonstrates the ambivalence of beauty and horror similarly to the garden itself: Looking at the garden, we are presented with its beauty, but beneath the surface we find that the creation of the garden is based on the principle of radically asserting one’s will and of taking possession of “nature.” In parallel, reading My Garden (Book):, with its artful design and poetic language, may be enjoyable, but when considering the form of representation that is brought forth in an interweaving of the visual and the verbal, it becomes apparent that the book appropriates nature in the same way as the garden. The multiple representations in My Garden (Book): thus reveal colonialist practices in the garden, but demonstrate that artistic power is equally appropriative. However, My Garden (Book): does not blindly repeat colonizing mechanisms. Like Kincaid, who in her garden and travel participates in global and neo-colonial moves, but shows an awareness of this, My Garden (Book): repeats with a difference: Kincaid delights in ordering the garden according to her whims and pleasures (cf. e.g. MGB 120-121) and in thus taking a colonizing position in it. But her joy also, and per-

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haps even more so, lies in the garden’s own will. “The spontaneity of life in the garden defies efforts to conquer space,” Wendy Knepper writes (44). The unpredictability agitates and vexes the gardener, but she also finds happiness in this excitement, and delight in the garden’s ability to defy her imagination through organic growth (MGB 14). Gardening then is not only pleasurable because of an exercise of power, but equally because of an unspoken hope that her power might be defied by the colonized, namely the garden. In the same sense, My Garden (Book): is not a static text. Knepper reads the book with Wilson Harris’s notion of the living text (cf. Knepper 42). Corresponding to Mitchell’s idea of landscape as a “medium of cultural expression,” Harris regards landscape as a “living text.” In accordance with the concept of a landscape-text, Knepper interprets My Garden (Book): as another kind of living text in that it is a space that allows for a negotiation of changing spatial praxes of home and world, just as the garden does. Moreover, the multiple representations that frame the garden exhibit the framing itself. In this, colonization is not only repeated, but the repetition demonstrates awareness. And this awareness is what Kincaid calls for: “I do not mind the glasshouse; I do not mind the botanical garden. . . . I only mind the absence of this admission, this contradiction: perhaps every good thing that stands before us comes at a great cost to someone else” (MGB 152). As is the book’s program, My Garden (Book): demonstrates this doubling of presentation and deconstruction not only in content, but also through form. Hence, the standstills and the colonizing freezing in permanence that it performs through ekphrases, are concurrently destabilized. The impossibility of ekphrasis does not allow visual images to emerge, but their evocations result in a constant back and forth between the verbal and the visual, which dismantles the static framing that they seem to establish. My Garden (Book): accordingly undermines its own colonizing acts: The organic aspect of the garden provides space for growing, and so does the book when it showcases an act of ostensibly taking power from the referent through ekphrases that do not freeze the garden in permanence after all.

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Works Cited Azima, Rachel. “‘Not-the-Native’: Self-Transplantation, Ecocriticism, and Postcolonialism in Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (Book).” Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies 13.2-14.1 (2006): 101-119. Print. Baraka, Amiri. The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1997. Print. Emery, Mary Lou. Modernism, the Visual, and Caribbean Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print. ---. “Refiguring the Postcolonial Imagination: Tropes of Visuality in Writing of Rhys, Kincaid, and Cliff.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 16.2 (1997): 259-280. Print. Ewert, Jeanne C. “‘Great Plant Appropriators’ and Acquisitive Gardeners: Jamaica Kincaid’s Ambivalent Garden (Book).” Jamaica Kincaid and Caribbean Double Crossings. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2006. 113-126. Print Feder, Helena. “Consuming Culture in A Small Place and Among Flowers.” Ecocriticism and the Idea of Culture: Biology and the Bildungsroman. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. 94-130. Print. Ferguson, Moira. “A Lot of Memory: An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid.” The Kenyon Review 16.1 (1994): 163-188. Print. Heffernan, James. “Ekphrasis and Representation.” New Literary History 22 (1991): 297-316. Print. Kincaid, Jamaica. Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2005. Print. ---. My Garden (Book):. New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1999. Print. ---. A Small Place. 1988. New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 2000. Print. Knepper, Wendy. “‘How does your garden grow?’ or Jamaica Kincaid’s Spatial Praxis in My Garden (Book): and Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya.” Postcolonial Spaces, The Politics of Place in Contemporary Culture. Ed. Andrew Teverson, Sara Upstone. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 40-56. Print. Krieger, Murray. Ekphrasis: The Illusion of the Natural Sign. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992. Print. Lang-Peralta, Linda. “‘Smiling with my Mouth Turned Down’: Ambivalence in Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy and My Garden (Book):.” Jamaica Kincaid and Caribbean Double Crossings. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2006. 33-44. Print

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Mitchell, W. J. T. “Imperial Landscape.” Landscape and Power. Second ed. Ed. W. J. T. Mitchell. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2002. 5-34. Print. ---. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1994. Print. Murray, Melanie A. “Shifting Identities and Locations in Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (book): and A Small Place.” World Literature Written in English 39.1 (2001): 116-126. Print. O’Brien, Susie. “The Garden and the World: Jamaica Kincaid and the Cultural Borders of Ecocriticism.” Mosaic [Winnipeg] 35.2 (2002): 167+. Academic OneFile. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. Orvell, Miles. American Photography. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Print. “Robert H. Woodworth, Biology Professor, 88.” The New York Times 8 Dec. 1990. Web. 7 Oct. 2014. “Robert Woodworth.” Our Bennington. Bennington College, 2014. Web. 7 Oct. 2014. Tiffin, Helen. “‘Replanted in this Arboreal Place:’ Gardens and Flowers in Contemporary Caribbean Writing.” English Literatures in International Contexts. Ed. Heinz Antor, Klaus Stierstorfer. Heidelberg: Winter, 2001. 149-163. Print. Vorda, Allan. “An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid.” Mississippi Review 20.1-2 (1991): 7-26. Print. Ward, Frank Kingdon. Plant Hunter’s Paradise. London: Cape, 1937. Print.

INGRID GESSNER

“We see the surface, but there is something beyond the surface”: Recovering Masumi Hayashi’s EPA Superfund Site Photo Collages Introduction The camera has not only shaped the way we perceive the natural world, it has also played an important role in conflicts over land use, pollution, and American environmental politics, especially since the 1960s (Allan, Adam and Carter 4). Reformers have consequently linked politics to visual culture by turning environmental debates into questions of seeing (Dunaway xvi, xvii). Photographer and art historian Masumi Hayashi participates in this process with her panoramic photo collages. She has created a number of photographic series that reflect the decay or even loss of pristine and untouched American landscapes. Hayashi, who is best known for her collages of former World War II internment camps for Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians, has also documented abandoned prisons and industrial locations. The collages of these conflictual sites have made their way into galleries, publications, and private collections around the world.1 In her internment camp photos she has explored the “psychological and emotional connections between memory, cultural/ethnic identity, and place through landscape” (Alinder 127). 1

International Center of Photography (NYC), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Koblenz, Germany.

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Hayashi, a third-generation Japanese American, was born in the Gila River internment camp in Arizona during World War II. Her parents were among the more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent forced into internment camps between 1942 and 1945. Hayashi’s internment camp and internee portrait series were inspired by her search for her place of birth (Hoban). She then widened the focus and visited several camps in the United States and Canada. Hayashi taught photography at Cleveland State University, Ohio, beginning in 1982. On August 17, 2006, she was shot to death by a neighbor after she complained about his loud music. Between 1990 and 1992, Hayashi created photo collages of 12 “Superfund” sites. These sites are extremely toxic waste areas that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has singled out as the highest priority locations requiring a long-term response to clean up contaminations. As it is not possible to permanently get rid of toxic waste once it has been spilled, the EPA’s terminology, “cleanup operations,” seems painfully ironic.2 Furthermore, the toxic stories of these landscapes are not discernible at first sight. It is precisely the hidden traces of toxicity that Hayashi is able to unveil. She approached the sites with the critical eye of a photographer—independent of the EPA—and created panoramic collages. Hayashi’s EPA Superfund Series is comparable to Julie Sze and Tracy Perkins’s 25 Stories from the Central Valley multimedia project, which uses photos, oral history, theater and news media clips to “paint a vivid picture of the environmental toxins that ‘the other California’ lives with every day” (n. pag.). While Sze and Perkins tell the toxic stories of California’s San Joaquin Valley in the 2000s, Hayashi recorded stories of toxicity from New York and her home state of Ohio in the early 1990s. The sites she covers include the infamous Love Canal, a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York and the location of one of the most infamous environmental disasters in US history; the toxic waste site in Elyria, Ohio; Fields Brook Stream, a radioactive waste site in Ashtabula County, Ohio; the plutonium spill site near Miamisburg Indian Mound, Ohio; 2

Making known the irreversible effects of toxic wastes was one of the key topics that helped set the stage for the environmental movement, most prominently Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962).

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Feed Materials Production Center, a radioactive waste site in Fernald, Ohio, which includes wastes from the Manhattan project; and WrightPatterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, with several unlined toxic waste disposal areas throughout the base. With exception to the Dayton Air Force Base photo collages, which feature the machinery of technological and industrial progress—such as smooth metal constructions and missile heads within supposedly natural landscapes –, viewers encounter bucolic scenes that emanate natural beauty and simplicity in most of Hayashi’s Superfund Site collages. Like environmental artists before her, Hayashi relies on aesthetic modes, especially the sublime tradition, to represent the American landscape. Environmental images abound in American culture. They echo fundamental themes in American thought and ideology: from illustrations from the Age of Discovery to romantic notions of the sublime in the nineteenth century. Edmund Burke and other theorists of the sublime have associated it with particular sites (powerful waterfalls and majestic mountains) that evoke wonder and awe in spectators. The sublime aesthetic shaped and was shaped by American attitudes toward the natural world, and sublime landscapes have long been considered the most sacred. In Hayashi’s landscapes however, minute details in the collages or the titles of the works prompt viewers to explore more than what is apparent, and to see—in the words of the artist—“beyond the surface.” In other words, the “subliminal political agenda” of eco images is concealed and needs to be deciphered by the viewers (Parak 6). Jasmine Alinder explains that Hayashi “was initially drawn to the project by what she perceived as the anxiety between the toxicity of the sites and their beauty” (147). Following historical practice, Finis Dunaway also defines the sublime as an aesthetic category against the beautiful. In Hayashi’s collages, the beautiful is pitted equally against the invisible toxicity, which is only revealed in the collages’ titles. The resulting awe that is described as anxiety by Hayashi turns the sublimity into one of almost ungraspable destruction. The double-edged nature of Hayashi’s EPA Superfund Site series brings environmental and socio-political issues to the fore by forcing a perspective of incongruity on the viewer and by exemplifying a dynam-

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ics of an ‘anthropocenic sublime’.3 I base this concept on what Miles Orvell, in another context, calls the “destructive sublime”, a feeling of fearful awe one experiences in the face of aesthetic beauty combined with unfathomable destruction (239). In Orvell’s understanding, the “destructive sublime,” emerges from the contradiction between the aestheticized object and the moral implications that arise from visual engagements with destruction. Sumit Paul-Choudhury and Alice Bell have described the anthropocenic sublime with regard to Edward Burtynsky’s photographs as more seductive than repulsive, which also holds true for Hayashi’s collages. In terms of ecocriticism, I follow Laurence Coupe and his emphasis on resistance rather than conservation as well as Catrin Gersdorf and Sylvia Mayer, who argue for an “(eco-)critical inspection of culture’s discursive relationship to nature” (4; 12). Hayashi’s collages force a perspective of an anthropocenic sublime on the viewer as her photo collages expose the binarism between aestheticized toxicity and the moral and political need of taking action. The anthropocenic sublime provides a way to rejoin beauty and sublimity and extend it into the domain of politics. In the entangled world we inhabit, the proliferation of toxic chemicals ultimately threatens human life. Rob Nixon has introduced the concept of “slow violence” to describe environmental threats such as this Contrary to the often spectacular visualization of natural disasters, the invisibility and slowness of many environmental crises is marked by media and scholarly inattention.4 We rely on the aesthetic vision of photographers like Hayashi to show us these dynamics (Dunaway 211-12).

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I am indebted to Susanne Leikam for drawing my attention to this form of the sublime with her work on “Affect, Endangered Species, and the Anthropocenic Sublime.” David Maisel has similarly theorized an “apocalyptic sublime” (Black Maps). Jill Gatlin and Jennifer Peeples both wrote on “toxic sublimity.” Peeples writes: “The toxic sublime acts to counter that marvel with alarm for the immensity of destruction witnessed. Furthermore, in contrast to the sublime in nature, which functions to improve moral character, the horror of the toxic sublime calls to question the personal, social and environmental ethics that allows these places of contamination to exist” (379). Susanne Leikam has pointed out this underresearched field of visual culture studies in Framing Spaces in Motion (2015).

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Incongruity and Multiperspectivity To create her collages, Hayashi rotates around her own axis and takes multiple exposures of a subject. She then angles upwards and downwards and finally assembles the single pictures into panoramic scenes. Her collages range from 100-degree to 540-degree rotations and include as few as five and as many as 140 individual photographs. The multiperspectivity of Hayashi’s collages and the dizzying angles she creates draw attention to the fact that a single and static shot or viewpoint is not enough to capture complex experiences and shocking realities. A brief excursion into Hayashi’s internment camp collages will serve to explain her photographic vision and agenda.

Fig. 1: Masumi Hayashi, Tule Lake Relocation Camp, Stockade, Tulelake, California, 1992, Japanese American Internment Camp Series. Courtesy of Dean A. Keesey.

Her collage of the former stockade at the infamous Tule Lake internment camp in Northern California is an example of an extreme rotation (fig. 1). The largest of the ten Japanese American internment camps, with 18,789 internees, had the euphemistic official designation of “Segregation Center” and was most closely associated with the resistance movement, with frequent protests, demonstrations, and strikes (Iritani and Iritani 40). In late 1943 the situation escalated: The Army was brought in and a stockade was constructed in which approximately 300 to 450 inmates were held for up to nine months without hearings or trials (Collins 396). Pencil inscriptions of prisoners who recorded their grievances on the prison walls are still visible today (Burton et al. 310). The inscriptions are, however, not visible on Hayashi’s collages. Her art piece, The Tule Lake Relocation Camp, Stockade (1992), shows every angle of the room in one collage without real exits and thus evokes the

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feeling of inescapability and confinement (Gessner 121). The 540degree panoramic view of the confined space evokes Michel Foucault’s notion of the nineteenth-century prison as a panopticon, which allowed guards to see and control all of the prisoners from any location. While Hayashi’s collage provides a similar panoramic view, the perspective provides a counter-narrative as it emulates the perspective of the prisoner. Other collages in the interment series critically document what might be perceived as large open spaces.5 The Lemon Creek Internment Camp collage (fig. 2) consists of no less than 126 individual photographs and is an example of Hayashi’s larger canvasses (69 by 165 cm). Located in the Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia it was constructed specifically to intern Japanese-Canadian families; it was in operation between 1944 and 1945.6 When Hayashi created her collage in 1996, barely a trace of the former camp was left; there were no signposts and only the cluster of stones in the foreground suggested a former settlement. None of the wartime wooden barracks were left on the flat meadows near the mouth of the creek. The mass of individual shots in this collage, together with the clouds spreading out to the sides of the frame, suggests openness and a freedom that collides with and—at the same time—draws attention to the landscapes’ history of incarceration. The portrait of former internee Ed Ezaki consists of only 14 individual photographs (fig. 3). Contrary to Hayashi’s landscape installations, the edges and individual photographs are not evenly trimmed, drawing attention to the larger photographs that feature Ezaki holding a historical family portrait. The private content of the collage with its living room setting is emphasized by the relatively small size of the installment: 36 by 76 cm. The EPA Superfund collages are all larger and range between 70 by 75 cm 50 by 100 cm.

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The underlying criticism of the American ideology of open space is equally apparent in Hayashi’s collages. David Suzuki, UBC genetics professor, science broadcaster (The Nature of Things, since 1979), renowned environmentalist and climate change activist, was interned at Lemon Creek with his family when he was eight years old.

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Fig. 2: Masumi Hayashi, Lemon Creek Internment Camp, B.C., Canada, 1996, Japanese American Internment Camp Series. Courtesy of Dean A. Keesey.

Fig. 3: Masumi Hayashi, Ed Ezaki on Stoneybrook Street No. 2, 2004, Internee Portraits, Japanese American & Japanese Canadian Series. Courtesy of Dean A. Keesey.

EPA Superfund Site 666 The photo collage (fig. 4) based on a site in Elyria, Ohio, represents an innocuous country setting with trees and a pond sprinkled with colored autumn leaves and reflecting blue skies with scattered cotton-wool clouds. Yet the surface beauty of the collage contrasts with the title of the work. EPA Superfund Site 666 (1990) reveals the threatening quality of the depicted location. From 1950 to 1969, the LTV Steel Company of Elyria, Ohio, used the former sandstone quarry as a disposal site for

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toxic waste.7 In 1986, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed the quarry on the National Priorities List of sites requiring substantial federal funds for cleanup (Hayashi, “Site 666”). The eerie number of the site registers another stunning fact: Elyria was 666th on a list of then 888 hazardous waste dumps on the Superfund list identified by the EPA. Hayashi’s camera on a tripod, the instrument with which she records the toxic site, appears as a shadow on three individual photographs on the lower right corner of the collage. The technological process of recording and of making known is thus self-reflexively commented on in the artwork.

Fig. 4: Masumi Hayashi, EPA Superfund Site, Republic Steel Quarry Site 666, Elyria, Ohio, 1990, EPA Superfund Site Series. Courtesy of Dean A. Keesey.

The sublime quality of this particular photo collage is reminiscent of Eliot Porter’s photography of the 1950s. Contrary to his contemporary Ansel Adams, Porter ventured “beyond the usual bonds of the sublime.” Instead of capturing monumental scenes at Yosemite and Yellowstone, he resorted to “modest settings, to gentle brooks and autumnal leaves.” By paying attention to the hidden wonders of nature, he “made the familiar seem unfamiliar” (Dunaway 160). To represent seasonal change Porter used color photography. The photo that Porter selected for the 7

“Approximately 200,000 gallons of acids were disposed annually at the site” (Hayashi, “Site 666”).

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cover of his book In Wildness lends itself to an interpictorial analysis of Porter’s photo and Hayashi’s Elyria collage.8 Porter’s photo of “Brook Pond” depicts a naturally colored body of water sprinkled with yellow leaves that float on the surface.9 The photo is reprinted in the autumn section of the book, together with a quotation from Thoreau: “a very striking . . . rainbow-like phenomenon. . . . It was just as if you were to . . . brush a fresh line of paint of various colors.” 10 This passage describes nature as a canvas; the colors that ripple across water seem like paint brushed across the surface of a pond. Together, the image and text suggest a central theme of the book: reconciling art with nature, seeing the natural world as a palette for the imagination, a place to glimpse the colors of wildness. Like Thoreau, Porter focused not on the stupendous and the spectacular but instead on “the world of calm beauty at which one must look twice to find the awesomeness which is nevertheless there” (Dunaway 160). According to Joseph Wood Krutch, Porter pointed his camera at the ordinary in nature and used color photography to bring about the sublime (13). With his photographs, Porter not only revised the notion of the sublime from the spectacular to the everyday, but he also promoted an appreciation of “landscapes closer to home, instilling a sense of awe and respect for places that do not count as wilderness” (Dunaway 169). Porter’s photographs unfold their beauty in their depiction of everyday natural phenomena, “the ordinary aesthetics of lichen and ferns, shells and tide pools” (Dunaway 199). In this way, Porter shaped a locally based, but globally important ecological consciousness. Similarly starting out from home, the function of Hayashi’s collages is a different one: her aesthetic representations depict the local origins of ecological disasters of global significance. With the exception of the Love Canal site in upstate New York, Hayashi has stayed in her home state and has documented ten Superfund sites in Ohio. 8 9

10

On interpictoriality see Hebel, “‘American’ Pictures”; Hebel, “Interpiktoriale Dialoge.” Porter’s photograph “Brook Pond, New Hampshire, Oct. 4, 1953” can be viewed online at the Amon Carter Museum’s website: www.cartermuseum.org/artworks/271. Thoreau, journal entry for 7 October 1857, qtd. in In Wildness (the body of the book is not paginated) (Porter).

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Both Hayashi’s and Porter’s photos can be interpictorially linked to a more recent example. J. Henry Fair’s photo of the “Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico” (June 2010) shows two types of oil floating on the sea that intermingle on what seems to be a colorful canvas.11 Fair’s photo seems oddly reminiscent of Porter’s, and also of Hayashi’s, quiet colorful ponds. Yet, while Porter’s photograph works within the framework of the sublime, Fair’s and Hayashi’s works represent examples of the destructive sublime, with water, the element of life, containing death. The quiet beauty of their photographs is at odds with the calamity they represent. Both Fair and Hayashi make deeply critical statements about toxic contamination with their works. Love Canal, No. 2, Niagara Falls, New York Love Canal, No. 2, Niagara Falls, New York (fig. 5) represents a panorama consisting of 55 separate photographs: the center is dominated by three abandoned buildings in the foreground and some in the background. If the eye travels from the apparent center upward, disorder takes over. Clouds are discontinuous and reappear in several individual pictures. The pavement in front of the largest building is fractured. The only straight lines are the organizing lines of the grid along which the individual photos are arranged. Art historian Jasmine Alinder’s interpretation of Hayashi’s internment camp collages is also applicable to the Love Canal collage, namely in that “[s]pace is both disjointed or highly organized in different sections of the same image, and it is this tension between chaos and order that gives the images their visual power” (203). The grid seems to force a matrix on the natural environment, yet another force has previously been applied: the landscape is already toxically charged.

11

Fair’s photograph “Two types of oil from the BP Deepwater spill float on the Gulf, June 2010” is part of the online collection “Industrial Scars” (Fair).

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Figure 5: Masumi Hayashi, EPA Superfund Site, Love Canal, No. 2, Niagara Falls, New York, 1990, EPA Superfund Site Series. Courtesy of Dean A. Keesey.

Hayashi recounts: “The site looks everyday: bucolic, pristine, and pretty. The irony is that you cannot see the pollution.” Approximately twenty years after its development in the 1950s Love Canal became the subject of national and international attention, when it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly (from 1942 to 1953) been used to bury 21,000 tons of toxic waste by the Hooker Electrochemical Company. 12 What Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner point out in their volume on environmental risk holds equally true for Love Canal—namely that “poor people . . . were disproportionably exposed to the risks associated with toxic landfills” (9). In 1978, the New York Commissioner of Health Robert D. Whalen, M.D. declared an emergency at Love Canal. He recommended relocation of pregnant women and children under the age of two residing in homes adjacent to the landfill. President Carter also issued a declaration of emergency making Federal Disaster assistance available. In the same year the Love Canal elementary school was closed down. The state purchased homes along 97th and 99th Streets at 12

They included pesticides, plasticizers, chlorinated hydrocarbon residues, process sludges, fly ash, and municipal wastes.

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1978 “pre-disaster” fair market value, relocating over 230 families (Beck). As one major consequence the EPA’s Superfund program was created. Like in her internment camp series, a major purpose of Hayashi’s art is to inform the viewing public (about World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans or about toxic contamination). Yet, her photo collages refrain from overt commentary—even the titles of her photographic artworks merely copy the official EPA designations. Context is only provided in adjacent text panels. In her Post-Industrial series collages, for example, Hayashi incorporated text and audio (Alinder 151). And although she planned to also use sound with the EPA Superfund project, her efforts to interview activists about Love Canal and other waste sites failed. Fear of lawsuits kept people from participating in interviews. Instead, Hayashi decided to place text panels next to the photo collages explaining each site. The texts can be understood as ironic commentaries on what lies below the surface of the collages—a truth that needs to be deciphered in an active process of interpreting image and accompanying text.13 EPA Superfund Sites DOE Indian Mound and Feed Materials Production Center Radioactive threats are present at three sites Hayashi visited, two of which will be discussed in the following. The collage EPA Superfund Site DOE Indian Mound (fig. 6) presents a panorama consisting of 66 separate photographs, dominated by an Indian mound to the center right. In the collage, not only does the representation of natural beauty clash with a threat that lurks beneath, but toxicity and radioactivity also endanger the cultural-historical past of the landscape. The Miamisburg Indian Mound, the largest conical mound in Ohio, is attributed to the Adena Culture, 1000-200 BCE. Their civilization was centered in what is now the region encompassing today’s southern Ohio, Kentucky, West 13

Today, the online gallery of Hayashi’s EPA Superfund Series provides the viewer with additional contextualizing material and also refers viewers to the EPA website.

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Virginia, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. It was a part of the Adena tradition to construct earth-covered graves with crude tools and baskets. Originally measuring 68 feet in height, an excavation attempt in 1869 reduced the mound to 65 feet (Burba). The circumference is 877 feet at the base, and it contains 54,000 cubic yards of earth. Designated an Ohio historical site, a marker explains the mound-building culture of the Adena Indians. A marker explaining the nuclear past and radioactive present of the site is nowhere to be found.

Figure 6: Masumi Hayashi, EPA Superfund Site DOE Indian Mound, Miamisburg, Ohio, 1990, EPA Superfund Site Series. Courtesy of Dean A. Keesey.

The GGE nuclear plant was located across the street from the Indian mound. Nuclear operations started during World War II in 1943 and continued until 1993. GGE manufactured both non-nuclear components and tritium-containing components for nuclear weapons. The site includes a toxic landfill, several leach beds used for disposal of radioactive solutions, and an area where a plutonium spill occurred. The ground water is contaminated with tritium and approximately 30 acres of soil show radioactive contamination (Hayashi, “DOE Indian Mound Site”). Hayashi’s collage depicts the state park setting in late fall with clear skies and defoliated trees scattered in the foreground and on the mound. Parts of the city of Miamisburg are visible on the lower right. Long shadows from a tree line behind the photographer’s position seemingly creep into the collage in ominous black lines from the bottom edge. The shadowy curve of the black trees on the ground mirrors the curve of the

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equally dark conic mound, connecting the two and suggesting contamination of the earth and water below. Another site of nuclear contamination Hayashi photographed is the 1,050-acre Feed Materials Production Center, which is part of a nuclear weapons complex in Fernald, Ohio.14 The facility was operated under changing ownership to produce uranium fuel elements and other uranium products for use in the US nuclear weapons program from 1951 to 1989, when it was placed on the EPA National Priorities List. During the years of operation, contamination occurred in various areas including three waste storage silos, one of which contains wastes from the Manhattan Project (Hayashi, “Feed Materials Production Center”). Fernald gained major notoriety in 1984 when the Department of Energy (DOE) reported that the Feed plant was releasing uranium dust into the atmosphere, which caused major radioactive contamination of the area (“End of Secrecy”). Even after the facility’s termination in 1989 it continued to generate both radioactive and non-radioactive toxic wastes. Potential health threats included the accidental ingestion or inhalation of contaminated soil, ground water, air, and surface water, as well as eating contaminated plants and fish. According to a 2009 Los Angeles Times article nobody will ever safely live in Fernald. Even after the official completion of cleanup operations in 2006, the soil still contained “many times the natural amounts of radioactivity” and “will have to be closely monitored essentially forever” (Vartabedian). An untouched wilderness of the American imagination seems no longer to exist. As with the Indian Mound site, Hayashi does not show the facility that caused the contamination but the surrounding natural landscape invisibly affected by it. The fact that people are directly impacted by radiation and toxic contamination is hinted at with the house pictured on the left edge of the collage. Hayashi created her collages before modern photo software made it possible to seamlessly stitch individual photographs together and create panoramic vistas on the computer screen. Far from emulating such seamless stitching, Hayashi makes no effort to blur the visible lines and 14

Hayashi’s collage “EPA Superfund Site Feed Materials Production Center” may be viewed online at the Masumi Hayashi Museum website, Gallery 3: http://masumimuseum.com/gallery3/FMPcenter.html.

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edges between individual pictures. The disjointedness becomes particularly evident in the Feed Materials Production Center collage because of the crookedness of the utility poles and light posts and the intermittent street marking. Hayashi purposely shows the joints, and the visible seams exemplify the process by which the collages are created. Like in the EPA Superfund Site 666 collage, her camera on a tripod is visible as a shadow on the lower left edge. Its presence emphasizes the technical process of creation and revelation. The collages are atomized into constituent blocks. The technique also records the light at different angles. Although viewers might at first glance expect a comprehensive sweeping perspective, they are confronted with multiple perspectives. Hayashi’s collages emulate what Kenneth Burke has called “perspective by incongruity” (Permanence 67-164; Attitudes 308-09). Burke introduced this critical method as part of a Modernist aesthetic of forcing the viewers or readers out of their customary habits of perception. Applied to Hayashi’s collages, the method adds precisely that depth to the surface of what is visible or rather invisible. The incongruous perspectivity even generates an alienation effect and calls for a new practice of vision that goes beyond the mere recognition of a beautiful place. It ruptures our automatically romanticized perceptions of bucolic nature and confronts us with the pervasive artificiality and the farreaching, destructive human intrusion. The peaceful, harmonious vision is unmasked as a falsifying grand narrative propagated by big business, the chemical industry in the case of Love Canal, or the nuclear defense industry with the GGE Plant in Miamisburg and the Feed Materials Production Center in Fernald. The surface narrative betrays the viewer as it conceals the radioactive or toxic threat that the companies have left, taking the profits and leaving the waste to the federal government and the community for cleanup. Hayashi’s use of multiple photographs underscores the insufficiency of a single photograph to capture complex experiences and realities. Viewers must simultaneously process the individual component parts as they try to make sense of the vertiginous perspectives produced by the circular rotation of the camera. The recognition of what lies underneath requires effort on the part of the viewer, in the exhibit and in reality. We may then argue that Hayashi explores the incongruity between appearance and reality in the American experience.

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Connections and Conclusions Hayashi’s artwork is further reminiscent of David T. Hanson’s Waste Land (1997), an aerial study of hazardous waste sites throughout the United States. The sites that Hanson photographed—such as the strip mine, power plant, and waste and evaporation ponds at Colstrip, Montana—are not normally available for viewing. 15 Exhibited with topographic maps and texts from the EPA descriptions, Hanson’s photos tell the “historic and social realities of these landscapes produced by the chemical industries; they are causing the destruction of the Earth’s ecology” (Hollis 23). From Hanson it is not far to J. Henry Fair’s aerial photographs of industrial sites. In Fair’s photographs polluted spaces are beautiful, yet they document “industrial scars” (Gambino).16 However, neither Hanson’s nor Fair’s photographs—due to their aesthetic distancing—allow for an immersion of the viewer comparable to Hayashi’s collages. Through their often extreme angles and circular camera rotation, Hayashi’s collages envelop viewers literally within the sites. Contrary to the bird’s eye perspective preferred by her fellow photographers, Hayashi’s views are confrontational as well as accessible; they seemingly depict the everyday and could be re-experienced by everyone. In other words, toxicity may lurk everywhere. Hayashi’s Superfund Site series is a combination of original photographic work and social research. Her collages present the interplay between surface and depth, which needs to be recovered by each viewer and stimulates affective involvement. The toxicity of the depicted sites only gradually reveals itself by means of the title of the work or additional information given on adjacent information panels. Hayashi furthermore forces a perspective of incongruity on the viewers, which they need to disentangle. In her visual engagements with environmental destruction she finally conjures up an anthropocenic sublime, which emerges from the contradiction between the aestheticized object and the moral implications emerging from the toxicity of the sites. 15

16

For a collection of photos of hazardous waste sites by David T. Hanson see the website of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and search the collection. For a collection of photos by J. Henry Fair see the website “Industrial Scars”.

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Coda In late December 1968 Ansel Adams wrote the following under the impression of the three Apollo 8 astronauts, who were circling the earth: “What is important is . . . that every bit of beauty on the face of the earth . . . is extremely precious—and extremely vulnerable. . . . I think it is time that we all considered ecology as the dominant theme.”17 With regard to Eliot Porter, David T. Hanson, Masumi Hayashi, and J. Henry Fair as well as Allan Sekula, Edward Burtynsky, Richard Misrach, or David Maisel we may even go further to state that eco-photography indeed has proven to have a social function that supersedes its aesthetic appeal.18 Works Cited Alinder, Jasmine. Moving Images: Photography and the Japanese American Incarceration. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2009. Print. Asian American Experience. Allan, Stuart, Barbara Adam, and Cynthia Carter. Environmental Risks and the Media. London: Routledge, 2000. Print. Beck, Eckardt C. “The Love Canal Tragedy.” EPA Journal (1979): n. pag. Web. 31 Oct. 2014. Bell, Alice. “Burtynsky’s oil project interesting on anthropocenic sublime.” 26 Mar. 2015, 10:53 a.m. Tweet. Burba, Howard. “The Day They Opened the Miamisburg Mound.” Dayton Daily News 28 Feb. 1932. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

17

18

Dunaway interprets Adams’s dictum as suggesting the importance of ecological vision, of seeing every piece of beauty as fragile and precious. He also emphasizes the role of the camera in scaling the Earth down to size, making it possible for viewers to observe the entire planet in one glance (207-08). See Eliot Porter (In Wildness), David T. Hanson (Waste Land), J. Henry Fair (“Industrial Scars”), Allan Sekula (Fish Story), Edward Burtynsky (Manufactured Landscapes), Richard Misrach (Petrochemical America), David Maisel (The Lake Project, Oblivion, Black Maps).

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Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. James T. Boulton. London: Routledge Classics, 2008. Print. Burke, Kenneth. Attitudes Toward History. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984. Print. ---. Permanence and Change: An Anatomy of Purpose. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984. Print. Burton, Jeffery F. et al. Confinement and Ethnicity: An Overview of World War II Japanese American Relocation Sites. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2002. Print. Burtynsky, Edward. Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky. Ed. Lori Pauli. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada with Yale UP, 2003. Print. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Print. Collins, Donald E. “Tule Lake ‘Segregation Center.’” Encyclopedia of Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present. Ed. Brian Niiya. New York: Facts On File, 2001. 395-397. Print. Coupe, Laurence, ed. The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism. London: Routledge, 2000. Print. Dunaway, Finis. Natural Visions: The Power of Images in American Environmental Reform. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005. Print. “The End of Secrecy.” Fernald Closure Project. Department of Energy, United States of America. n. pag. 2007. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. Fair, J. Henry. “Industrial Scars.” My Modern Met. n. pag., 1 June 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. Print. Gambino, Megan. “Devastation From Above: J. Henry Fair’s Aerial Photographs of Industrial Sites Provoke a Strange Mix of Admiration and Concern.” Smithsonian Magazine (2011): n. pag. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. Gatlin, Jill. “Toxic Sublimity and the Crisis of Human Perception: Rethinking Aesthetic, Documentary, and Political Appeals in Contemporary Wasteland Photography.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2015). Web. 15 Oct. 2015. Gersdorf, Catrin, and Sylvia Mayer. “Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies: Defining the Subject of Ecocriticism—an Introduction.” Nature in Literary and Cultural Studies: Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism. Ed.

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Catrin Gersdorf and Sylvia Mayer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 9-21. Print. Nature, Culture and Literature 3. Gessner, Ingrid. From Sites of Memory to Cybersights: (Re)Framing Japanese American Experiences. Heidelberg: Winter, 2007. Print. American Studies—A Monograph Series 141. Hanson, David T. Waste Land: Meditations on a Ravaged Landscape. New York: Aperture, 1997. Print. Hayashi, Masumi. “EPA Superfund Site Series.” The Masumi Hayashi Museum. n. pag, 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. ---. “EPA Superfund Site, DOE Indian Mound Site.” The Masumi Hayashi Museum. n. pag, 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. ---. “EPA Superfund Site, Feed Materials Production Center.” The Masumi Hayashi Museum. n. pag, 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. ---. “EPA Superfund Site, Site 666.” The Masumi Hayashi Museum. n. pag, 2015. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. Hebel, Udo J. “‘American’ Pictures and (Trans-)National Iconographies: Mapping Interpictorial Clusters in American Studies.” American Studies Today: New Research Agendas. Ed. Winfried Fluck. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014. 401-32. Print. American Studies—A Monograph Series 230. ---. “Interpiktoriale Dialoge in der Amerikanischen Malerei und Fotografie: Beobachtungen zu einem Arbeitsfeld der American Studies nach dem Iconic Turn.” Bilder Sehen: Perspektiven der Bildwissenschaft. Ed. Mark Greenlee. Regensburg: Schnell + Steiner, 2013. 155-72. Print. Regensburger Studien zur Kunstgeschichte 10. Hoban, Jeanne M. “Odyssey in Art.” Inquiry, Research and Creative Activity at Cleveland State U Cleveland, Ohio. (2000): n. pag. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. Hollis, Cynthia L. “On Developing an Art and Ecology Curriculum.” Art Education 50.6 (1997): 21-24. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. Iritani, Frank, and Joanne Iritani. Ten Visits Revised: Accounts of Visits to All the Japanese American Relocation Centers. Los Angeles: Japanese American National Museum, 1999. Print. Krutch, Joseph Wood. In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World: From Henry David Thoreau. Ed. Eliot Porter. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1962. Print. Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series 4. Leikam, Susanne. "Animal Portraits in American Environmentalism: Affect, Endangered Species, and the Anthropocenic Sublime." Manuscript. Forthcoming. Print.

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---. Framing Spaces in Motion: Tracing Visualizations of Earthquakes into Twentieth-Century San Francisco. Heidelberg: Winter, 2015. Print. American Studies—A Monograph Series 255. Maisel, David. Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime. Göttingen: Steidl, 2013. Print. ---. The Lake Project. Tucson: Nazraeli P, 2004. Print. ---. Oblivion. Portland: Nazraeli P, 2006. Print. Mayer, Sylvia, and Alexa Weik von Mossner. “The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture/Introduction.” The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Eds. Sylvia Mayer and Alexa Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014. 7-18. Print. American Studies—A Monograph Series 247. Misrach, Richard. Petrochemical America. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2012. Print. Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2011. Print. Orvell, Miles. “After 9/11: Photography, the Destructive Sublime, and the Postmodern Archive.” Michigan Quarterly Review (2006): 239-56. Print. Parak, Gisela, ed. “Introduction.” Eco-Images: Historical Views and Political Strategies. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, 2013. 5-9. Web. 16 Sept. 2015. Paul-Choudhury, Sumit. “The Anthropocenic sublime, in particular, sometimes seems more seductive than repulsive.” 26 Mar. 2015, 10:46 a.m. Tweet. Peeples, Jennifer. “Toxic Sublime: Imaging Contaminated Landscapes.” Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture 5.4 (2011). 373-92. Print. “Perspective by Incongruity.” Oxford Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. n. pag. n. d. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. Porter, Eliot, ed. In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World: From Henry David Thoreau. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1962. Print. Sierra Club Exhibit Format Series 4. Sekula, Allan, and Witte de With. Fish Story. Düsseldorf: Richter, 2002. Print. Vartabedian, Ralph. “Nuclear Scars: Toxic Legacy of the Cold War.” Los Angeles Times 20 Oct. 2009. Web. 16 Sept. 2015.

Risk, Posthumanism, and Digital Cultures

MICHAELA CASTELLANOS

Star Trek IV and Environmental Risk: Balancing on Irony’s Edge The concept of risk implies that the future does not simply unfold but is actively shaped by human actions. This basic idea has long encouraged scientific and technological optimism but also inspires more pessimistic attitudes in late modernity. This change in attitude towards the openness of the future is perhaps not surprising. Human decisions, as becomes increasingly clear, influence the future regardless of whether this effect is intended or not (Beck 293). Sociologist Ulrich Beck considers risk the decisive category through which society in late modernity can be understood and names environmental risk as one of three dimensions of global risk. In this paper, I trace how Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Dir. Leonard Nimoy, 1986) registers societal anxieties and fears produced by an emerging discourse on global environmental risk. In addition, I pay attention to moments in which the film takes up more positive aspects of risk that are part of this discourse. I look to Beck’s theory of reflexive modernity to analyze the risk scenario Star Trek IV produces. The film participates in a larger risk discourse by narrativizing risk more generally, and global environmental risk more specifically. Risk in Late Modernity In his theory of late modernity, Ulrich Beck integrates a realist position on risk with a social constructivist one. He understands risks both as concrete dangers and social constructs (Zinn 7). For Beck, risk represents “the perceptual and cognitive schemata in accordance with which a society mobilizes itself when it is confronted with the openness, uncertainties and obstructions of a self-created future” (4). The future and

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indeed the existence of the world are uncertain in the sense that they depend on decisions. Anthony Giddens observes that attempts to intervene into society and nature (in what is believed to be a controller manner) as well as attempts to produce more knowledge often produce more uncertainties instead (4). Correspondingly, he refers to these as manufactured uncertainties, a term that is also used by Beck. However, manufactured uncertainties do not only beget more threats; they also produce moments of chance and opportunity (Lyng 129). In the context of voluntary risk taking, Stephen Lyng claims, this type of uncertainty can even open up a “genuinely new social universe of action and experience” (106). In a similar way, Beck contends that manufactured uncertainties serve an enlightening purpose in the world risk society and calls them a “source of creativity” (291). There are two sides of risk, which Beck attempts to reconcile in his theory: the potential for self-destruction on the one hand, and the opportunity for starting over on the other (50). Understanding risk as both real and socially constructed, Beck gives a lot of weight to the notion of staging. Because “global risks cannot be calculated in accordance with scientific methods and prove to be objects of non-knowing,” he explains, “the cultural perception of global risk—that is, the post-religious, quasi-religious belief in its reality—acquires central importance” (73; original emphasis). Risks, he explains, “do not have any abstract existence in themselves” but instead “acquire reality in the contradictory judgments of groups and populations” (13). If risks become ‘real’ in these discussions, it is in a lesser sense because catastrophic events are imagined to be within the realm of the possible. More importantly, risk becomes a shaping social force when it is actively engaged. This is especially true if risks remain contested. Beck thus uses the term staging not to indicate that facts are falsified but to emphasize that future catastrophes always have to be imagined and mediated in some manner (10). Environmental Risk Global environmental hazards are characterized by invisibility and a “spatio-temporal (de)coupling of decisions and side-effects” (Beck 162). Scientific progress, he claims, can help raise collective awareness of these features. The Anthropocene concept, for example, effectively

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stages risk by presenting scientific information in a simple narrative. The term Anthropocene, or Human Age, gained currency after it appeared in a brief publication in which geoscientists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer proposed that the state of the Earth had changed so markedly that a new geologic epoch could be declared. This new name, which might replace Holocene, helps articulate claims that complex, large-scale environmental threats have arisen over the last centuries. Implying human causation already in its name, the Anthropocene concept simulates a simple cause-effect relationship, which Beck considers essential in the context of meaning making in risk society (71). The Anthropocene concept plays an important role in the social construction of environmental risk, as it helps communicate the threats that have become visible to scientists to a larger public. Even if risk is overwhelmingly negatively connoted, it is understood as a catalyst for chance or opportunity as well. “Diagnoses of risk,” in Beck’s words, are often intended to turn into a “self-refuting prophecy” (10). This can again be illustrated with the example of the Anthropocene discourse, in which the positive side of risk plays features prominently. The idea of “planetary boundaries” within which Earth can remain “a safe operating space for humanity” is strongly promoted (Rockström et al. n. pag.). In a sense, the Anthropocene is a possible catastrophe that is anticipated with the goal of averting it. Expressing hope that the current negative trends might be slowed or reversed if the issues are sufficiently understood and communicated, risk plays an important mobilizing role in this context. Lastly, global environmental risks are understood as ultimate hazards. They are moreover characterized by latency. Due to their complexity, these risks “cannot be politically processed with the traditional institutions through which they are socially perceived” (Beck 162). The multiple forces and actors involved in producing the current state of the planet, for example, cannot be compressed into a single entity that can be faced and stopped,1 and for that reason the Anthropocene idea has been criticized for positing the human as the root cause of environmental

1

See Haraway, who ironically suggests the alternative names “Capitalocene,” “Plantationscene,” and “Chtulucene.”

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crises.2 In the end, disagreements about the reality of particular risks involve much more than objective knowledge (Zinn 10). Not only because of their dependence on staging, environmental risks also need to be understood as cultural problems. Communicating Environmental Risk in Risk Fiction The role of fiction in communicating risk is beginning to receive more attention, but relatively little scholarship on risk from the perspective of literary and cultural studies exists to date. The Anticipation of Catastrophe: Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture, an edited volume on the topic, opens with the remark that risk has been “one of the most productively employed categories of analysis” in the social sciences since the 1980s (Mayer and Weik von Mossner 7). The editors go on to make a compelling case for using risk as a conceptual lens for reading literary and other texts. In her individual contribution to the collection, Sylvia Mayer claims that fictional narratives “can explore the complexity, and diversity, of individual and collective risk experience worldwide in ways that work with and at the same time transcend factual, scientific representation” (23). She particularly stresses the emotional and intellectual appeal of climate change fiction, arguing that this emerging genre “makes the various cultural, social, political, economic, and psychological factors that figure in specific experiences of the climate change risk more easily perceptible, intelligible, and concrete” (23). Ursula Heise, among the first literary scholars to engage risk research, calls for involving literary and cultural studies in thinking about global risk. In particular, she draws attention to narrative templates, narrative choices, and metaphors. Situated at the intersection of science and culture, the investigation of risk perceptions also has important—and to date insufficiently studied— aesthetic implications. The literary myths of Dr. Faustus and Dr. Frank2

Social scientists have rejected the label anthropogenic and suggested that developments like climate change are more accurately socially produced phenomena (Malm and Hornborg). Other scholars challenge the humanist subject at the heart of the ‘anthropos’ concept (Haraway).

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enstein have obvious relevance for the way in which scientific information about the dangers of modern technology is culturally filtered in many contemporary societies; less obviously but no less crucially, narrative templates such as that of pastoral or apocalypse, and narrative choices about the relation of the narrator to the narrative material, about protagonists and antagonists, and beginnings and endings shape the way in which risks are perceived and communicated, as do particular metaphors and visual icons. (18)

Mayer, in a similar vein, draws attention to literary modes. She introduces two categories of risk narratives, “narratives of catastrophe” and “narratives of anticipation.” Characterized by a dystopian mode, narratives of catastrophe construct scenarios of devastation after the climate has collapsed (23). In these story-worlds, catastrophe has already taken place. In narratives of anticipation, on the other hand, catastrophe has not yet happened; a threat is perceived, but there is no consensus about how to react to it (24). Although Mayer offers a taxonomy of recent climate change novels, the distinction she makes is also helpful for thinking about other types of fiction. Mayer’s claim that fiction can help spread environmental concerns past the reach of scientific accounts is centrally true for film as well.3 In this paper, I provisionally categorize Star Trek IV as risk fiction, which is defined as “fictional engagements with and expressions of global risk that are the products of late modernity” (Cortiel and Oehme 3). This film, I aim to show, shapes elements of an emerging risk discourse into an intelligible story. By doing so, it in turn participates in the discourse on global environmental risk. Reading Star Trek IV as Risk Fiction Having categorized Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as risk fiction, I want to introduce a distinction between risk in the story-world and in the discourse on risk for the purpose of my analysis. In this paper, I will use

3

For an argument about the role of disaster films, which reach a global audience, in risk discourse, see Maruo-Schröder.

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the term risk scenario to refer to the events in the story-world.4 Many of those events involve characters’ engagements with risk. They do so by anticipating a catastrophe but also by taking voluntary risks. The plot can be briefly summarized as follows: In the twenty-third century, an unidentified space probe begins to evaporate the Pacific ocean, putting all life on the planet in jeopardy. The crew of the Enterprise finds out that the only beings able to communicate with this probe are humpback whales. However, this species no longer exists on Earth because it was hunted to extinction, and so it appears as if nothing could avert the impending catastrophe. Taking a significant risk, a task team travels back in time and brings two animals to the moment of crisis. The whales then communicate with the probe, which stops its destructive actions and vanishes into space. Risk is integral to both the central problem and the solution in this risk scenario. Narrativizing New Risks Many of the key features of risk in the risk scenario correspond to those emphasized in the risk discourse. Threats are phenomena difficult to recognize, which makes the staging of risk more important, and their complex causes cannot be assigned to specific actors. In the risk scenario at hand, the crucial threat is not immediately recognized as such: When the probe is first spotted in open space by the crew of a nearby vessel, it cannot be identified. The crew hear acoustic signals emanating from it and transmit “universal peace and hello” in all known languages and on “all known frequencies.” There is no response, however, and any attempts to decode the message fail as well. Here, Star Trek IV registers unspecific fears of unidentified—and possibly unidentifiable—threats generated by the recognition that “new knowledge can transform normality into threat overnight” (Beck 35). The identification of invisible 4

Mayer uses the term risk scenario to refer to a scenario in which “the anticipation of a possible future catastrophe expresses itself.” Such a scenario can be developed by scientific modeling or in fiction (25). I use the term somewhat differently in this paper strictly for the purpose of describing and analyzing the specific engagements with risk in a particular story-world.

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threats makes explicit that dangers exist independently of any awareness of them. This recognition, in turn, increases the shaping force, to use Beck’s term, of risk on the imagination as well as on the actions of a given risk community. In the risk scenario, risk becomes ‘real’ to the characters when it is mediated: The threat no longer goes unrecognized when the probe reaches Earth and begins to draw enormous vertical columns of water into the air. With the help of technology, the crew gathers data and realizes that the Earth will not be able to support life for much longer. The percentage of water in the atmosphere is translated into visual representations and projected onto big screens. The numbers are updated at regular intervals until blinking red lights and loud alerts indicate that a critical level has been reached. Again, risk is heavily characterized by its dependence on staging; this parallels the emphasis on mediation pervading the larger discourse. The same emphasis can again be seen when the crew finds it impossible to understand the probe’s signals. Scientific data alone is of limited use because it cannot be interpreted and used to counter a threat. The space probe directs its dissonant calls at the ocean, which prompts the crew to filter the sound according to the salinity and density of ocean water. The sounds are consequently identified as humpback whale songs but cannot be translated into any other language or sign system. However, humpback whales, the only beings in the universe able to communicate in this particular way, have been extinct since the end of the twentieth century. The destruction of Earth seems inevitable. On the one hand, this scene thus expresses growing concerns over the ability to interpret signs that may indicate a threat. Such concerns arise when new risks in late modernity bring the usefulness of experts into question instead of affirming notions of scientific certainty (Beck). On the other hand, this moment in the film resonates fears evoked by new risks, which are the products of non-knowledge. In the risk scenario, humans failed to predict the consequences of hunting a species to extinction.5 Both the existence of humpbacks and their eradication were such insignificant events in history that none of the characters had any 5

On species extinction as a recurring theme across several Star Trek episodes, see Jørgensen.

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knowledge of them. Here, a discourse on side effects of non-knowing is integrated into the plot and associated with an existential threat. “Behind the facade of non-knowing,” as Beck puts it, “the ‘side effects,’ which were willfully ignored or were unknowable at the moment of decision, assume the guise of environmental crises that transcend the limits of space and time” (19). The urgent threat posed by the probe focuses attention on the future and its capacity to be shaped for the worse. Environmental risk is latent, de-localized, and temporally disjointed in the risk scenario, marking yet another parallel to the risk discourse. In the diegesis, the threat can be traced back to a point in the distant past. This narrative choice that corresponds to the risk discourse’s emphasis on the newly recognized spatial and temporal dimensions of environmental change. This disjointedness is given additional weight by the fact that it is never specified where the probe comes form. Pointing to the spatial disjunction of cause and effect, decision and resulting threat, this gap furthermore references the impossibility of tracing environmental risks back to a single origin. The threat embodied by the space probe therefore puts into narrative form the idea that the expected disasters in late modernity are too complex to be allocated to identifiable actors or institutions (Beck 172). In Beck’s theory of reflexive modernity, the future’s openness is threatening in a new way precisely because risk communities are aware that their activities and decisions actively shape what is to come, regardless of any intent. With which degrees of agency individuals and risk collectives shape the future, however, is unknown and perhaps ultimately unknowable. The alien probe brings these elements of the discourse together in the risk scenario. Risk as Opportunity in Star Trek IV In addition to narrativizing the threatening aspects of manufactured uncertainties, Star Trek IV incorporates a discourse of risk as chance or opportunity. Here, manufactured uncertainties lead to new forms of community that are shaped by a shared experience of risk and to a new beginning, which parallels the theorized risk experience. Neither the malleability of the future, the limited agency of humans, nor the limited ability to know are exclusively negative elements. Even though it seems too late to avert disaster, the crew of the Enterprise take action; in this

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risk scenario, anticipation of both disaster and the avoided disaster motivate action. The crew attempt to identify cause-effect relationships to mitigate the impending disaster. Although they only arrive at a vague approximation, this link ultimately proves crucial for the final positive outcome. To resolve the central conflict, the characters have to face uncertainty and take a risk. The urgency of the situation and the force of anticipating two very different outcomes emphasize the notion that decisions crucial to human survival must be made “within a horizon of more or less acknowledged and controversial non-knowing” (Beck 74). Ultimately, the fictional crisis – like the environmental crises, as risk research suggests—cannot be brought under control by rationality alone. That the diagnosis of risk eventually does turn into a self-refuting prophecy in the risk scenario is due to the fact that a new community emerges under the influence of risk. Agency is distributed across a variety of actors. The crew of the Enterprise master several challenges: traveling through time, finding humpbacks whales, and traveling through time again while transporting the animals. But their success alone does not guarantee the success of the mission. Neither are the whales’ communications sure to stop the probe from destroying Earth’s atmosphere. In the end, the disaster is averted by a collaborative effort by humans, extra-terrestrials, and whales. In the risk scenario, the community that shapes the future in both negative and positive ways is extended through a shared experience of risk. Elements of the larger risk discourse are part of how this particular part of the story is told. As characters under threat, whales are set on par with other agents in the story-world. Having arrived in California of 1986, the crew locates two humpbacks (a male named George and a pregnant female named Gracie) at the Cetacean Research Institute, but the whales are unexpectedly released into the Pacific before the crew is ready to transport them. The spaceship finds them confronted by whalers. The harpoon fired at the whales is deflected by the spacecraft, which manages to beam the animals on board in the nick of time.6 Cetaceans, the group of animals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises came to stand metonymically for nature in the environmentalist movement of 6

Interested readers may enjoy Jørgensen’s discussion of the parallels between this scene and anti-whaling activists’ direct actions.

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the 1970s. As conspicuous and charismatic “icons of endangerment” in popular culture as well as in contemporary environmentally oriented literature, these marine mammals are frequently used to stage environmental risk (Buell 201; Kalland 21, 47). Star Trek IV integrates this signifying potential and amplifies it by making whales essential parts of a complex risk experience in which they count as subject of rather than objects at risk. In the risk scenario, the actions that make avoiding disaster possible are as complex as the threat that needs to be mitigated. This complexity arises from the way in which risk acts as both a moment of danger and a moment of chance, which, in its tenor, corresponds to a similar understanding of risk in the larger discourse. The category of risk opens up a world within and beyond the clear distinctions between knowledge and non-knowing, truth and falsehood, good and evil. The single, undivided truth has fractured into hundreds of relative truths resulting from the proximity to and dismay over risk. This does not mean that risk annuls all forms of knowledge. Rather it amalgamates knowledge with non-knowing within the horizon of probability. Thus the category of risk reflects the response to uncertainty, which nowadays often cannot be overcome with knowledge but is instead a result of more knowledge . . . Through risk, the arrogant assumption of controllability—but perhaps also the wisdom of uncertainty—can increase in influence. (Beck 5; my emphasis)

Star Trek IV joins the idea that disaster can be averted due to the mobilizing power of risk to the idea that multiple actors interact across temporal and spatial scales in environmental risk. Materializing Manufactured Uncertainties: The Alien Probe as a Figure Star Trek IV gives narrative form to an emerging discourse on environmental risk in which human impact on the planet is conceptualized as pervasive and potentially uncontrollable. The realization that the same actions that were considered safe in the past are actually noxious puts the past into new light. Such a realization additionally weighs on decisions in the present moment, which—as decision makers are well aware—will inevitably affect the future. “Ironically,” Beck writes, “our continually perfected scientific-technological society has granted us the

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fatal insight that we do not know what we don’t know” (47). Late modernity is characterized by a pervasive awareness that not all consequences are knowable and that many future threats are thus impossible to predict. All of these qualities of risk are given narrative form in Star Trek IV and come together in the figure of the unidentified probe. Within the risk scenario, this probe semantically links apparently unrelated events and comes to indirectly represent them all. It is consequently characterized by an internal tension, which makes it an apt metaphor for manufactured uncertainties. In the probe, anxieties over environmental risks in late modernity are narratively materialized into a complex visual metaphor. It is an image onto which risk-related anxieties are projected. With the help of this figure, a multifaceted threat that is extremely difficult to represent can nonetheless be visualized. Associated with notions of a tipping point, this figure furthermore communicates that environmental crisis is immediate and the need to act is urgent. The space probe therefore also embodies the so-called decision paradox: the greater the threats and the gaps in knowledge, the more urgent and the more impossible a decision becomes (Beck 117). The notions of the Earth as finite, limited, and vulnerable that Star Trek IV evokes correlate with a sustainability discourse in which Earth figures as a life-support system. This film responds to fears in the face of budding scientific understanding of the Earth as an array of interconnected ecosystem. In the context of the risk scenario, species extinction becomes a particularly apt metonym for manufactured uncertainty. Both the threatening quality and the transformative power of manufactured uncertainties are bound up in the probe as a figure. Because the resolution of the central conflict is owed to the extension of the risk community, Star Trek IV also communicates that environmental risks do not only affect humans. If “risk fiction emphasizes the effects of collective action on the future of the community”, this community is extended in this risk scenario (Cortiel and Oehme 3). At the same time as it incorporates optimism that environmental risks may be brought under control, Star Trek IV also becomes a critique of a heavily anthropocentric risk discourse in which the risk community is still predominantly imaged to be above all a human one.

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Staging Risk Through Irony Fiction, and popular culture more generally, both responds to and shapes the risk discourse in late modernity. Star Trek IV, as I hope my reading has shown, engages with risk in its characteristic ambiguity. This popular science fiction film produces a risk scenario that brings temporally and spatially disconnected phenomena together. Thereby, it accomplishes a task that remains difficult for scientific explanations of risks. This is also owed to the film’s mode: The hyperbolic risk scenario makes environmental risk visible in a very specific way. Here, the future can be shaped by many different kind of actors. Even though catastrophe is ultimately averted in the diegesis, Star Trek IV emphasizes the limits of human control, if human is equated with the humanist subject. Risk fiction thus promises to be an exciting category to explore in this respect. In science fiction in particular, the triangulation of humans, animals, and aliens might give insights into the delineation of the human subject through processes of Othering, which may be changing under the influence of shared risk. Particularly those animals that have historically presented problems of knowledge, such as whales, and have their own discourse of irony and ambiguity, are often powerful metaphors in risk narratives (Burnett). The narrative agency of animals in such texts, but also potential ways purely allegorical reading might be rendered difficult in light of environmental threats which present very concrete threats to actual animals make for a fascinating study from an animal studies perspective. Risk fiction, as literary and cultural studies scholarship shows, presents complex engagements with the risk experience in narrative form and makes a specific contribution to the risk discourse in late modernity. That this contribution is taken seriously is evidenced by controversies about risk scenarios that depict easy, technology-based solutions, which have been criticized for offering unqualified narratives of progress.7 My argument has been that this popular film’s ironic mode both stems from and produces a nuanced acknowledgement of the complexity of global risk. Because of its strong emphasis on the limits of understanding in the risk scenario, Star Trek IV sets a counterpoint to unqualified narratives 7

See Maruo-Schröder for a discussion.

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of progress. At the current moment, much of the scholarship on risk narratives, and particularly on climate change fiction, predominantly explores narratives of disaster and crisis. Less critical attention has been given to literary and media texts in which risk features as a moment of opportunity. To avoid this focus from becoming restrictive, the study of narratives that anticipate catastrophic events and those that envision post-catastrophe scenarios should be complemented with the study of narratives in which disaster is averted. Especially fiction that emphasizes the positive aspects of risk, without falling into positivism, merit a similarly sustained study. Star Trek IV narrativizes risk in a hyperbolic and ironic manner, but the film nevertheless allows for the staging of environmental risk. The staging of environmental risk as a complex phenomenon is enhanced by Star Trek IV’s ironic mode. Works Cited Beck, Ulrich. World Risk Society. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Print. Buell, Lawrence. Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture and Environment in the US and Beyond. Cambridge: Belknap, 2001. Print. Burnett, D. Graham. The Sounding of the Whale. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012. Print. Cortiel, Jeanne, and Laura Oehme. “The Dark’s Night Dystopian Vision: Batman, Risk, and American National Identity.” European Journal of American Studies 10.2 (2015): 1-19. Print. Crutzen, Paul J., and Eugene F. Stoermer. “The ‘Anthropocene.’” IGBP Global Change Newsletter 41 (2000): 17–18. Print. Giddens, Anthony. “Living in a Post-Traditional Society.” Reflexive Modernization. Ed. Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash. Cambridge: Polity, 1994. 56-109. Print. Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationscene, Chtulucene: Making Kin.” Environmental Humanities 6 (2015): 159-65. Print. Heise, Ursula. “Cultures of Risk and the Aesthetic of Uncertainty.” Scientific Cultures—Technological Challenges. A Transatlantic Perspective. Ed. Klaus Beseech and Meike Zwingenberger. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009. 1744. Print.

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Jørgensen, Dolly. “Who’s the Devil? Species Extinction and Environmentalist Thought in Star Trek.” Star Trek and History. Ed. Nancy R. Reagin. Hoboken: Wiley, 2013. 242-62. Print. Kalland, Arne. Unveiling the Whale: Discourses on Whales and Whaling. New York: Berghahn Books, 2009. Print. Lyng, Stephen. “Edgework, Risk, and Uncertainty.” Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty: An Introduction. Ed. Jens O. Zinn. Malden: Blackwell, 2008. 106-37. Print. Malm, Andreas, and Alf Hornborg. “The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene Narrative.” The Anthropocene Review 1.1 (2014): 62-69. Web. 11 Mar. 2016. Maruo-Schröder, Nicole. “‘It’s theoretically possible’: Disaster and Risk in Contemporary American Film.” The Anticipation of Catastrophe. Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Ed. Sylvia Mayer and Alexandra Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009. 181-200. Print. Mayer, Sylvia. “Explorations of the Controversially Real.” The Anticipation of Catastrophe. Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Ed. Sylvia Mayer and Alexandra Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009. 21-38. Print. Mayer, Sylvia, and Alexandra Weik von Mossner. “Introduction.” The Anticipation of Catastrophe. Environmental Risk in North American Literature and Culture. Ed. Sylvia Mayer and Alexandra Weik von Mossner. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009. 7-20. Print. Rockström, Johan et al. “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity.” Nature 461 (2009): 472-75. 23 Sept. 2009. Web. 11 Mar. 2016. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Dir. Leonard Nimoy. Perf. Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, et al. Paramount Pictures, 1986. Film. Zinn, Jens O. “Introduction.” Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty: An Introduction. Ed. Jens O. Zinn. Malden: Blackwell, 2008. 1-17. Print.

WOJCIECH MAŁECKI

From Speculative Darwinism to Interspecies Narratives: The Consequences of Pragmatism for the Posthumanities Despite the presence of pragmatist inspirations in the work of thinkers such as Cary Wolfe, Donna Haraway, and Brian Massumi,1 the potential of American pragmatism for the posthumanities is still generally unrecognized in scholarly literature. In this paper, I will try to show some of that potential by arguing that the theoretical resources of pragmatist philosophy allow for addressing the fundamental challenges facing posthumanist thought today. I am going to focus in particular on three of such challenges that have been recently identified by Rosi Braidotti. The first is to preserve what is valuable in critical theory’s approach toward human knowledge (the recognition of its radical situatedness), while severing its ties with social or cultural constructivism (Braidotti 2-3, 163). The second is to develop a materialist ontology that would both recognize the recent contributions of science to our understanding of the “nature-culture continuum,” and not succumb to scientistic reductionism (Braidotti 2-3, 94). The third is to create an “experimental” posthumanist ethics that would be reconcilable with the premises underlying the former two challenges (Braidotti 39, 100, 104). But before I turn to explaining how pragmatism is to be of help here, some terminological clarifications are in order.

1

See Wolfe, “Theory”; Haraway; Massumi, e.g., 232; cf. Bennett 101-102.

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Charting the Terrain, or On “Pragmatism”, “Posthumanism”, and Some Other Terms That Start with “P” The term “posthumanism” is notoriously haunted by the risk of confusion and misunderstanding, which is both because some scholars are not entirely sure what meaning attribute to it, and because those who are quite sure about that meaning often hold diverse opinions on what it actually is. As Cary Wolfe rightly notes, in comparison with the term “humanism”, “posthumanism” is used to denote an array of positions that are bewilderingly varied and at times “even irreconcilable” (Wolfe, Posthumanism xi-xii). But while he does a fine job illustrating that claim, it should be noted that the positions he contrasts do have something in common. Namely, each can be seen as exemplifying a critique of “the classic humanist divisions” (“of self and other, mind and body, society and nature, human and animal, organic and technological”) that results from a radicalization of certain strands of Enlightenment thought.2 Each of these positions can be seen, that is, as exemplifying what I propose to call posthumanism in a generic sense. That sense should in turn be contrasted with an institutional one, which, despite its wide occurrence in scholarly discourse, is rarely made explicit. It refers to a cluster of such critiques that emerged in the nineties in Western academia and eventually constituted a recognized interdisciplinary field with characteristic leading figures (N. Katherine Hayles, Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, and Wolfe himself), sources of inspiration (Jacques Derrida, Humberto Maturana, Niklas Luhmann, etc.), and themes (cyborgs, non-human animals, digital literacy, etc.). The two senses—institutional and generic—are sometimes conflated, which is unjustified insofar as none of the aforementioned figures and sources of inspiration is necessarily called for by posthumanism in the generic sense, and only some of the themes are. To think otherwise is to commit an institutional fallacy, which consists in identifying a certain genus of thinking with its specific institutional realization. One must avoid this error in the present context, and admit that there may be forms 2

The quotation comes from the back cover of Wolfe’s What Is Posthumanism? Cf. Wolfe’s remarks on Enlightenment at pp. xv-xvi and xx of that book.

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of posthumanism in the generic sense that do not have much to do with the textual, methodological, and thematic canons of posthumanism in the institutional one. In detail, contemporary examples of such forms abound, including the work of various analytic animal ethicists, ecocritics, ecofeminists, green postcolonialists, the new materialists, and speculative realist philosophers.3 Both of the aforementioned senses will be deployed below, and to avoid the cumbersome “in the generic/institutional sense” I am going to use “posthumanism” (along with its derivatives such as “posthumanist”) for the former, and “posthuman studies” for the latter. Additionally, I am going to collectively refer to the recent realizations of posthumanism in academia as “posthumanities.” Note that these terminological distinctions are not only a matter of textual convenience or pedantry. Besides signaling the threat of the institutional error in talking about posthumanism, they perform a similar function with regard to the authoritarian error, that of treating whatever is said in the relevant context by an authority in a given field as setting a standard for that field. Though the error seems so obvious that it hardly merits a warning, it is in fact made quite often, including in the posthumanities. Therefore, however trivial this may sound, let me point out that neither Wolfe, nor Braidotti, nor anyone else, has a monopoly on what posthumanism is, and no statement becomes a standard of posthumanism merely because a given person uttered it. What this means, among other things, is that it is not precluded that developing a viable kind of posthumanist thought may demand rejecting some apparent staples of posthumanism in the institutional sense. In fact, as I am going to point out, two such staples (vitalist materialism and Maturana’s constructivism) should in fact be rejected and can be usefully substituted by alternative conceptions developed in philosophical pragmatism. This brings me to how pragmatism is understood in the present paper.

3

See, e.g., Roos and Hunt; Bennett; Meillassoux; Slovic. Note that the situation sketched above is dynamic, and that, in particular, there is considerable interaction between posthuman studies and various other quarters of the posthumanities. Cf., for instance, the recent interest of Hayles in speculative realism.

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It is generally agreed by historians that the origin of that species of thought can be traced back to the 1870s, when the members of the socalled Metaphysical Club at Harvard undertook the task of deriving from Darwinism the ultimate consequences for philosophy. The founders of pragmatism were sympathetic to science and studied the development of contemporary evolutionary theory with close attention. One of them, Chauncey Wright, even contributed to it, and his work was praised by Darwin himself (see Richards 478 and Misak 14). What Wright, Charles S. Peirce, William James, and, later, John Dewey took from Darwin were two things. A “denial that there are absolutely unchanging forms in nature”, and the idea of a radical continuity between our species—homo sapiens sapiens—and the rest of the animal world (Eames 5). That latter idea included, among other things, a firm rejection of the humanist view, according to which human reason catapults our species to an entirely different ontological and ethical plane than that occupied by ‘the brutes’. In the pragmatist model, our cognitive capacities are instead placed on a continuum that embraces all organisms, and “rationality” is understood as a synonym for the “skill at survival,” denoting an ability which squids have more of than amoebas, which languageusing human beings have more of than nonlanguage-using anthropoids, and which human beings armed with modern technology have more of than those not so armed: the ability to cope with the environment by adjusting one’s reactions to environmental stimuli in more complex and delicate ways. . . . It is ethically neutral, in the sense that this ability, by itself, does not help one decide to what species or to what culture it would be best to belong (Rorty, Truth 186).

This Darwinian view stands behind pragmatism’s most controversial contribution to philosophy—its proposal to see “belief as a ‘habit of mind’ that enables the organism to cope with some aspect of the environment” (Grey 797)—and it is in how that view was developed by the philosopher Richard Rorty that I see the core value of pragmatism for posthumanism and posthumanities.4 Therefore, leaving aside the com4

For a synoptic account of the history of pragmatism and Rorty’s place in it see Misak.

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plicated trajectory of pragmatism’s history, we are now going to make a hundred-year jump from the Metaphysical Club to Rorty’s particular brand of pragmatism, which he began officially advocating in the 1970s. Speculative Darwinism, or How to Be Posthumanist about Knowledge Recall that according to Braidotti, in order to be properly posthumanist about knowledge, we must develop a position that will somehow be able to both preserve critical theory’s insight that knowledge is always situated, and at the same time abandon its exclusive focus on cultural situatedness that eventually leads to cultural constructivism. In other words, we must be able to reject the naïve belief in a view from nowhere without positing an equally naïve “categorical distinction between the given (nature) and the constructed (culture)” (Braidotti 2). My pragmatist answer to this requirement lies specifically in what I would like to call Rorty’s “Speculative Darwinism”: a theory in which the old concept of rationality as a skill at survival is given a particular twist inspired by the work of the Pittsburgh Hegelians Wilfrid Sellars and Robert Brandom (see, e.g., Maher). The twist in question amounts to accounting for the high degree of technical rationality in humans by referring to their ability to justify their claims, or, in the Sellarsian terminology, to play the language-game of giving and asking for reasons. According to Rorty, that ability is necessary for possessing what philosophers usually call knowledge, and, as he is ready to admit, on our planet, it seems to be possessed exclusively by homo sapiens sapiens. But to his mind this does not make people categorically different from other animals: we are “just one more species doing its best,” even if we happen to do so by very specific linguistic means (Rorty, “Species”). These means surely make us special, but not more than other specific abilities or specific organs make other animals special. In order to make this point, Rorty invokes beavers, arguing that their teeth, tails, or their capacity to build dams are ontologically on a par, and “as natural as,” our descended larynx and ability to justify our claims. He also refers to these rodents to exemplify his thesis that our knowledge does not make us more in touch with the world than other beings are. Dam-building and knowledge are forms of responding to the causal pressures coming from the environment by exerting causal pres-

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sure oneself, and this “causal touch” is the only way in which it is possible for any animal to be in touch with the world—be it a human animal, a beaver, or an amoeba (Rorty, “Response” 123). But if our knowledge is no more in touch with the world than tails and pseudopodia are, then, according to Rorty, it is also no less in touch with it. That is, if, as an evolutionary tool, our cognitive skills are tailored to our specific needs, than so are the instruments available to other representatives of the Earth’s fauna. True, knowledge claims serve our needs, but so do dams serve beavers’ needs, and to say that, in virtue of their function, the former inherently distort reality would make just as much sense as to assert that so do the latter. Equally true: If animals with different needs developed a language, it would generate different vocabularies in response to the same causal pressures. But, as Rorty argues, it would be absurd to then measure those vocabularies according to a single scale of epistemic accuracy abstracted from the species-specific context of their emergence. As should be clear from the above, as a view that stresses the biological determinants of human cognitive finitude, Rorty’s speculative Darwinism is both radically situated and non-culturalist,5 thereby meeting the main requirement for a posthumanist epistemology posited by Braidotti. Yet precisely at this point it might be asked if there is in fact any need for the posthumanities to turn to Rorty in this respect, as there is a position that not only fulfills that particular requirement but already occupies a prominent place in posthuman studies, namely the bioconstructivism of Humberto Maturana. Is there any difference between the two that would be relevant in the present context? There is at least one such difference and it is related to the fact that, unlike Rorty, Maturana sees biology as providing hard scientific justification for his constructivist epistemological claims, something which ultimately renders his position incoherent and untenable. In a nutshell, as pointed out by the German philosopher Josef Mitterer, the biological theses that are supposed to justify Maturana’s epistemological claims 5

Note that this does mean that Speculative Darwinism precludes there being any cultural determinants of knowledge production. Quite the contrary. It simply presumes that there other determinants too, including the biological ones.

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can only be conceived as either realist or constructivist themselves. If the former is the case, then they “would be a non-constructivist presupposition of constructivism,” which is a contradiction. If the latter, then they cannot contribute anything to the justification of constructivism and [are] irrelevant to it. And this is something that a foundationalist bioconstructivist cannot accept: he would then lose the authority whose universalization allows him to eliminate or discredit biological and other claims that contradict his own assertions. (Mitterer 23-24)

Speculative Darwinism, in turn, does not claim that its therapeutic lessons are justified by the scientific truth of Darwinism. The latter serves here mainly, and explicitly, as an inspiration for a certain theoretical model of human knowledge. This is what makes speculative Darwinism speculative, and what allows it to avoid not only the fundamental error of Maturana, but also various errors of other naturalized epistemologies, which may otherwise seem very similar to it. That said, despite its clearly naturalistic bent, Speculative Darwinism as a theoretical position is in itself too agnostic on metaphysical issues to meet the ontological challenge which, according to Braidotti, faces the posthumanities, i.e., the need for devising a materialism that would be both scientificallyinformed and free from scientistic reductionism. There is, however, in Rorty’s pragmatism something to answer that challenge, too, and it again seems to be better than some key answers that have been widely endorsed in posthuman studies. Non-Reductive Physicalism, or Toward a Posthumanist Ontology Admittedly, to advertise Rorty’s pragmatism as a positive answer to metaphysical needs may sound baffling. After all, was Rorty not a thinker who loudly professed that metaphysics, understood as a field of philosophical inquiry, is an entirely untenable or nonsensical enterprise? Not at all. In fact, the truth is precisely the opposite: Rorty tirelessly emphasized that metaphysics cannot be disregarded in this way, and criticized thinkers such as Rudolf Carnap and Ludwig Wittgenstein for claiming otherwise (see, Rorty, Philosophy 23). Of course, Rorty’s reputation as a “metaphysics-basher” is not for nothing, but a full discussion

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of this question would demand clarifying the various senses in which he used the term “metaphysics,” and there is no place for that here. What may be said here without much stipulation, however, is that, according to Rorty, if one needs metaphysics as a vision of “how things in the largest sense of the term, hang together in the largest sense of the term,” one should settle for physicalism (Rorty, Consequences 29). That is, one should imagine everything can be described in the language of physics. As to why one should do this, let us begin by acknowledging that there can be no scientific proofs of the truth of physicalism as a metaphysical doctrine, just as there can be no scientific proofs that it is false. But since this applies to each and every such doctrine, it is not a fault on physicalism’s part. There are, of course, philosophical arguments involved in the ongoing debate between physicalism and its opponents, but it appears that no one has ever switched sides as a result of being exposed to them. Each party has become equally adept at criticizing its adversaries for conceptual confusions, non-intuitive premises, or absurd consequences, and at somehow resisting the impact of analogous charges aimed at it. According to Rorty—who draws here from William James and Arthur Fine—the resistance of metaphysical orientations to argument is mainly due to the fact that they stem from “the reasons of the heart,” and that it is rather implausible that the force of those reasons will be diminished by the sole fact that a person holding them has been “forced into [a] tight dialectic corner” (Rorty, Philosophy 136). It should not be surprising, then, that in promoting a physicalist worldview Rorty prefers to touch hearts rather than score dialectical points. One of his favorite strategies is to position physicalism as a stage in the corrosion of the West’s authoritarianism, that is, a belief in a powerful non-human authority out there to which we are responsible but which cannot comprehend—something like a “hard, unyielding, rigid être-ensoi which stands aloof, sublimely indifferent to the attentions we lavish upon It,” and by which we feel completely overwhelmed (Rorty, Consequences 13).6 That belief has been present in philosophical and religious doctrines alike, and two of its most powerful historical incarnations are Christianity and Platonism. In the view of the human-world relations shared by each, both the world and we human beings have a true essence 6

Cf. Rorty, “Pragmatism,” Małecki, and Kremer.

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that is hidden under what is only apparent, including everything we describe as material: human bodies, trees, stones, mud, and so on. The task of each human being is to somehow peel away the appearances and thereby allow his or her true self to reunite with the essence of reality; “reunite” because, according to Platonism and Christianity, both are of the same, non-material nature (see Rorty, Objectivity 117-18). With the advent of the scientific revolution, this task became incomprehensible to the growing number of people who took it for granted that there was no immaterial core to the world outside—that all that can be found out there are particles which interact in a contingent way. To those people, “the universe begin[s] to look like a rather simple, boring machine, rambling off beyond the horizon, rather than like a bounded and well-composed tableau” which has a secret meaning to be deciphered (Rorty, Essays 144; cf. Rorty, Objectivity 118). But not everyone who gave up on one pole of the Platonist/Christian dyad was willing to give up on the other pole, and among those were the many humanist philosophers who wanted to save the self from the process of mechanization; philosophers who wanted, so to speak, to offer an “enclave” for the mind “as Platonism and Christianity had conceived” it (Rorty, Essays 155). The chain of such offers started with Descartes’s res cogitans, then included Kant and Fichte’s doctrines of “noumenal agency”, to be extended by “Schopenhauerian Will, Diltheyan Erlebnisse, Bergsonian intuition,” (Rorty, Objectivity 118) and Sartre’s “self as a blank space in the middle of a machine—an etre pour soi, a ʻhole in being’” (Rorty, Essays 157). It was during that process that the idea of the “individual” emerged, a “moral self that exists apart from all roles” and “any social or historical context” (Rorty, Essays 157). In order to bolster his historical account, Rorty invites us to compare the ontological model on which the scientific revolution operated with that which it superseded, that is Aristotle’s conception of substances. According to the latter, each object has a natural purpose “built in,” which it needs to fulfill in order to realize its “central essence” (Rorty, Essays 143). According to the former, objects should be seen as machines—as contingent assemblages of uniformly material elements that behave in certain specific ways but lack any built-in purpose and anything that would be intrinsically more central to them than anything else. The progress of natural sciences should be seen, then, as gradual mechanization, or perhaps machinization, of the world-picture, and unless we

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stop thinking of ourselves as the only special thing exempt from that process, the process of secularization will not be complete either. Seen in this light, the various forms of vitalist materialism endorsed in the posthumanities, and in posthuman studies in particular, appear to be a throwback to the authoritarianism diagnosed by Rorty. After all, they all seem to be clinging to the idea that there is some mysterious force in the world that cannot be captured by the apparatus of empirical sciences, but is at the same time so fundamental that we must not ignore it and should heed its cosmic “roar” instead (Braidotti 196). As Braidotti puts it: Life is cosmic energy, simultaneously empty chaos and absolute speed or movement. It is impersonal and inhuman in the monstrous, animal sense of radical alterity: zoe in all its powers. . . . [It] is always too much for the specific slab of enfleshed existence that constitutes single subjects. (Braidotti 131)

Rortyan physicalists certainly do not have an ear for cosmic roars, nor do they think that there are any other “monstrous” and “absolute” things in the world that cannot be described in the vocabulary of physics. But they also do not claim that we must always describe everything in this way. Their physicalism is coupled with speculative Darwinism, and thereby made non-reductive, which, you may recall, is one of Braidotti’s key requirements for a posthumanist scientifically-informed ontology. In other words, while they agree that the vocabulary of physics can, in principle, provide a description of anything we talk about, they do not hold that it provides for the most adequate representation of the world, nor that we should therefore reduce all other existing vocabularies to it. For one, they refuse to talk about vocabularies as representing reality as it is in itself. Secondly, they believe that the tasks served by most such vocabularies (which are treated on the speculative Darwinist model as mere instruments of coping) are not most efficiently served by the vocabulary of physics. Just as you would have a hard time explaining in terms of quantum mechanics why a square peg does not fit in a round hole (which is something easily done in folk-ontological terms), it would be rather clumsy to try to predict, for instance, what will happen to a chair if you kick it by thinking in terms of chair-shaped batches of particles. Non-reductive physicalism, then, does not entail abandoning the folk-ontology talk of medium-sized dry goods. Neither does it encourage the idea that inquiry in all academic sectors should be conducted in

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the language of physics; that, say, biologists would do well to abandon talking about organisms and enzymes, and psychologists or ethicists of beliefs and desires. They would not do well. But, at the same time, nonreductive physicalism does not preclude that just as biologists have generally profited from conceiving organisms on the model of machines, so may psychologists and ethicists profit from applying that model to the human self, even if they are at the same time not willing to abandon the talk of beliefs and desires. In the remainder of the paper I am going to argue that this may be useful in particular for developing a form of experimental posthumanist ethics Braidotti calls for. Narrating Machines, or Toward a Posthumanist Ethics We know that the mechanical model has served biology well because it has boosted its explanatory and predictive power, but why would it serve ethics similarly well? Rorty suggests an answer in his essay “Freud and Moral Reflection,” beginning with a reference to one of Freud’s most famous observations, namely, that psychoanalysis follows in the footsteps of Darwin and Copernicus by striking a “blow” to humanity’s grandiosity and “self-love” (Freud 284-85). As usual with famous remarks by great thinkers, it seems intuitively clear and enlightening at first sight, but becomes much more obscure and obfuscating after one begins to examine it. And as is perhaps no less usual, we need another great thinker to make us realize that. In this case, our debt is to Rorty’s point that “Freud does not give us a clear idea what” he and Darwin and Copernicus “have in common,” as “[i]t is not evident that successive decenterings add up to a history of humiliation” (Rorty, Essays 143). But, adds Rorty, there is something they do have in common, and it is that their work can be thought of constituting consequent stages in precisely the mechanization of the world picture. By “viewing the various species of plants and animals as the temporary results of interactions between fortuitous environmental pressures and random mutations, [Darwin and Mendel] made the world of living creatures as pointless as Newtonian mechanics had made cosmology” (Rorty, Essays 143-44). Freud in turn extended the scope of mechanization to human psyche, “helping us to see ourselves as assemblages” of beliefs and desires which do not have any intrinsic center, and whose particular arrange-

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ment and content is determined by causal factors. What we call conscience, passions, or ego, are not heterogeneous faculties, but rather subnetworks of a “larger homogenous machine”, none of which represents a “truer” self and is more animal or divine (Rorty, Essays 157). One important consequence of this model for moral philosophy, and one which Rorty openly endorses is that it seems to leave no space for a special, non-contingent segment of our mind called rationality or noumenal self, which, if studied thoroughly, would reveal to us some universal moral principles that are compatible with the nature of the universe and buried in each human being, whatever his or her personal history might be. When we think with Freud, or at least with Rorty’s Freud, we get rid of the old humanistic vision of something noble and non-mechanical in our bosoms, and we “recognize ourselves as having the beliefs that we do, including our (putatively) ‘specifically moral’ beliefs and emotions because of some very particular, idiosyncratic things that have happened in the history of the race, and to ourselves in the history of growing up” (Rorty, Essays 152).7 What Rorty means here is that if, for instance, some of us Westerners today have grave moral concerns about various forms of racial, economic, and gender oppression that the West inflicts on both its own citizens and globally, then this is not because we have access to the universal principles of reason while our less progressive peers do not, or that we are more in touch with the world as it is in itself than they are. Rather, our holding those particular views is a result of the fact that the circumstances of our upbringing made us susceptible to a certain ethics (we might call it the ethics of emancipation) that is itself a product of a series of chance events that occurred in the history of the West. Crucially from the perspective of this paper, according to Rorty, one of the most important of such historical occurrences is the rise, in the eighteenth century, of various new forms of narrative discourse (such as the novel or the journalistic report) that helped to radically expand the Westerners’ circle

7

According to Rorty, this is the main import of Freud’s remark, in “Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood” to the effect that “[i]f one considers chance to be unworthy determining our fate, it is simply a relapse into the pious view of the universe which Leonardo himself was on the way to overcoming when he wrote that the sun does not move” (Rorty, Essays 152).

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of empathic concern. Such narratives did so by offering their readers a glimpse at the structural suffering they had been previously unaware of and a chance to immerse in the perspective of those whom they would typically exclude from the category of moral peers or even fellowhumans—peasants, servants, slaves, people of different gender and ethnicity, and still other others. A philosopher by training and temperament, in putting forward his thesis Rorty never moved beyond broad speculation, but since he had first articulated it, it has been corroborated by research in history and psychology, most significantly by Lynn Hunt’s book Inventing Human Rights. The pivotal question behind that latter book is why in 1776, Jefferson could declare it to be self-evident that “all men are created equal” and that they are possessed of “certain inalienable rights,” while only a few decades earlier such a declaration would be considered by most of his fellow Americans, and perhaps even himself, as not only hardly self-evident, but evidently wrong. Part of the answer she gives is indeed that the second half of the eighteenth century had witnessed the publication of novels such as Rousseau’s Julie and Richardson’s Pamela, and she documents in compelling detail how these and similar works might have contributed to their readers coming to see various minorities as belonging to the same moral community that they themselves felt part of (see, e.g., Hunt 47-48). Now, there is prima facie no reason to doubt that novels can do for non-human rights what they have done for human rights, and more generally to doubt that Rorty’s take on ethics and narratives can be extended beyond the confines of our species, even though he had not ventured at that himself. Expanding on Rorty’s position, then, it could be argued that if some of us today have moral concerns about, and oppose, factory farming as well as other forms of animal oppression, then we should not think that this makes us more in touch with reason or the nature of things than are the speciesist oppressors and their compliances. We do not have any non-contingent authority on our side. We simply happened to be born in certain circumstances and exposed to certain stimuli that induced in us a commitment to the welfare of other creatures. And if we feel the need to somehow deepen that commitment, and if we worry that we may still be unwittingly complicit in some form of anthropocentric oppression, then the way to address this need and to ease the worry is decidedly not to look for universal principles encoded in the nature of

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reason and universe, but rather to try to learn as much as we can about the concrete details of our relations with other species and to imaginatively inhabit as many perspectives of different non-human animals as possible. Here again narratives seem to be an appropriate instrument. Thanks to books such as Gail Eisnitz’s Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry and Donna Leon’s novel Beastly Things, or Oriana Fallaci’s article on “The Dead Body and the Living Brain,” we can get a better grasp of the blood-soaked realities of meat production and animal experimentation, while Alice Walker’s “Am I Blue?”, Alison Baird’s White as the Waves (a version of Moby-Dick written from the perspective of the animal), and Leigh Buchanan Bienen’s award-winning story “My Life as a West African Gray Parrot,” allow us to inhabit the position of non-human others and recognize the affective richness of their lives, including the varieties of suffering we cause them. Finally, novels such as Lois-Anna Yamanaka’s Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers hint at new configurations of human-animal relations in which so-called farm animals could become members of our families in the way only a few privileged species are currently allowed to be, while still other narratives (e.g., Philip K. Dicks’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) can help us imagine advancing the perimeter of our moral concern further still, beyond the biological world, to include synthetic beings. Here Rortyan pragmatism agrees with Rosi Braidotti that in developing a posthumanist ethics we will have to proceed experimentally by exposing ourselves to environments, bodies, and selves we have thus far avoided or neglected (Braidotti 190-92). What pragmatism adds to that proposal is an emphasis on narratives as important vehicles for bringing us closer to those environments, bodies, and selves. Of course, whether narrative or not, it is hard to say exactly where our moral experiments will lead, and even more difficult to know whether our current selves would like that place if they were given a chance to see it. We might see our future selves as monsters and react with incredulity at their seeing monstrosity in us. But we would then be unable to find comfort in de-

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claring them abominable by the universe’s own lights. There are no such lights for pragmatists.8 Speculations on the future aside, for now I hope to have at least shown that pragmatism, and Rorty’s pragmatism in particular, does offer useful resources for dealing with some fundamental theoretical and meta-theoretical challenges that the posthumanities currently face: that it provides a non-foundationalist, yet non-culturalist epistemology, a physicalist, yet non-scientistic ontology, as well as the framework for an ethics that presumes humans to be merely machines yet encourages us to be always ready to extend our moral concern to other machinic assemblages—human and non-human alike. Works Cited Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke UP, 2010. Print. Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge, UK; Malden: Polity P, 2013. Print. Eames, S. Morris. Pragmatic Naturalism: An Introduction. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1977. Print. Freud, Sigmund. “Fixation to Traumas—the Unconscious.” Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Vol. 1. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1916. Print. Grey, Thomas C. “Holmes and Legal Pragmatism.” Stanford Law Review 41.4 (1989): 787-870. JSTOR. Web. Haraway, Donna Jeanne. How Like a Leaf: An Interview with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print. 8

This chapter was written as part of research project no. 2012/07/B/HS2/02278 sponsored by a grant from the National Science Centre, Poland. It has its origins in my contribution to the panel Posthumanist Interfaces of the Networked Self, organized by Ulfried Reichardt and Regina Schober (Universität Mannheim) at the 61th Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien in Würzburg. I would like to use this occasion to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to participate in the panel and the audience for their comments and criticisms. Thanks go also to David Wall, Jakub Łakomy, and the editors of this volume, who read earlier drafts of the chapter and offered useful suggestions.

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Hayles, N. Katherine. “Speculative Aesthetics and Object Oriented Inquiry (OOI).” Speculations: A Journal of Speculative Realism V (2014): 158-179. Print. Hunt, Lynn. Inventing Human Rights: A History. First ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2007. Print. Kremer, Alexander. “Rorty on Religion and History.” PHILOBIBLON XV (2010): 326-338. Print. Maher, Chauncey. The Pittsburgh School of Philosophy: Sellars, McDowell, Brandom. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy 42. Małecki, Wojciech. “Dethroning the Dark God of Absence: On Rorty, de Man and Unreadability.” Oxford Literary Review 33.1 (2011): 83-101. Edinburgh University Press Journals. Web. Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2002. Print. Post-Contemporary Interventions. Maturana, Humberto R. “Ontology of Observing: Biological Foundations of Self Consciousness and the Physical Domain of Existence. ” Conference Work Book for “Texts in Cybernetic Theory.” Felton: American Society for Cybernetics, 1988. 4-52. Print. Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. Trans. London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd., 2008. Print. Misak, Cheryl J. The American Pragmatists. First edition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. Print. Oxford History of Philosophy. Mitterer, Sepp. “Wie Radikal Ist Der Konstruktivismus?” Klagenfurter Beiträge zur Technikdiskussion 43 (1991): 1-27. Print. Richards, Richard. “Darwin’s Philosophical Impact.” The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy. Ed. Dean Moyar. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010. 689-709. Print. Routledge Philosophy Companions. Roos, Bonnie, and Alex Hunt, ed. Postcolonial Green: Environmental Politics & World Narratives. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2010. Print. Under the Sign of Nature: Explorations in Ecocriticism. Rorty, Richard. Consequences Of Pragmatism: Essays 1972-1980. First edition. Minneapolis: U Of Minnesota P, 1982. Print. ---. Essays on Heidegger and Others. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print. Philosophical Papers v. 2.

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---. “Just One More Species Doing Its Best.” London Review of Books 25 July 1991: 3-7. Print. ---. Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print. Philosophical Papers v. 1. ---. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print. ---. “Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism.” A Companion to Pragmatism. Ed. John R. Shook and Josephrgolis. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. 257-266. Wiley Online Library. Web. 5 Jan. 2015. ---. “Response to John McDowell.” Rorty and His Critics. Ed. Robert B. Brandom. First edition. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. Print. ---. Truth and Progress. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Philosophical Papers v. 3. Slovic, Scott. “The Third Wave of Ecocriticism: North American Reflections on the Current Phase of the Discipline.” Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 1.1 (2010): n. pag. www.ecozona.eu. Web. 15 July 2013. Wolfe, Cary. “Theory as a Research Programme—the Very Idea.” Theory after “Theory.” Ed. Jane Elliott and Derek Attridge. New York: Routledge, 2011. 34-48. Print. ---. What Is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010. Print. Posthumanities Series v. 8.

JAMES DORSON

Critical Posthumanism in the Posthuman Economy: The Case of “Mister Squishy” In the past the man was first; in the future the system must be first. Frederick W. Taylor

This slogan from Frederick W. Taylor’s 1911 influential manifesto, The Principles of Scientific Management, might as well have been written as a catchphrase for the field of critical posthumanism that has emerged in the humanities since the late 1990s. Critical posthumanism is defined both against humanism that places man first, and against an uncritical version of posthumanism that welcomes any opportunity to surpass human limitations through technology. As a half-way point between the fear of technology and its euphoric embrace, critical posthumanism is conceived as a project located between “the current extremes of technoutopian and techno-dystopian visions” (Herbrechter 111). Its aim is to interrogate the possibilities that emerge when subjectivity is no longer tied to the Enlightenment model of man as a rational and autonomous subject. The field is descriptive in the sense of seeking to demonstrate how the autonomous self not only has been superseded by developments in the information age, but actually never existed in the first place. It is also performative in the sense that critical posthumanism is meant to challenge the persistence of the Enlightenment concept of man, which, all evidence to the contrary, retains its ideological hold over society, with dire social and environmental consequences. The central objective of critical posthumanism, according to N. Katherine Hayles, is thus to realize the “illusion of autonomy” and the “fact of recursivity,” because “valuing autonomy without attending to recursivity leads to destructive behaviors that are unlikely to change unless we are willing to rethink

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what it means to be a subject in the contemporary world” (“Illusion” 678). My aim in this essay is not to defend the autonomous self, but to question the version of subjectivity that critical posthumanism has put forward in its place. The argument has three parts. First, I examine the relationship between posthumanism and the rise of a managerial outlook in the late nineteenth century, in which Taylor was a key figure. While the genesis of posthumanism is usually located in cybernetics and the emergence of new information technologies in the 1950s, it could just as well be traced back to what James R. Beniger has called the control revolution in the late nineteenth century. 1 As a response to the crisis of control precipitated by the industrial revolution in manufacturing, new methods of collecting and processing data became necessary for regaining control of the production process. For Beniger, the emergence of new managerial technologies could be viewed as initiating the information age, and thus as constituting an important prehistory to the later cybernetic revolution. Tracing the emergence of the posthuman back to late nineteenth-century management ideology also enables me to contextualize and problematize the critique offered by critical posthumanism. The industrial rationality epitomized by Taylor fostered a countermovement that focused on the alienating effects of instrumental reason, a critique that peaked with the widespread student protests of the 1960s. While this part shows how critical posthumanism departs from the critique of instrumental reason by rejecting a dichotomy between humans and machines, the second part of this essay shows how critical posthumanism nonetheless shares its premises through its critique of control as limiting the creative adaptability of the posthuman subject. Thus aligned with a critique of Taylorism, this part leads me to suggest that the form of subjectivity articulated in critical posthumanism as an alternative to the autonomous self is coincident with a new managerial outlook that arose out of the crisis of Taylorism in the 1960s, and which has radically redefined the control paradigm in management. 1

As Cary Wolfe points out in What is Posthumanism? (2010), the genesis of the term posthumanism is not only ascribed to cybernetics and the Macy conferences that took place from 1946 to 1953, but is also commonly traced back to the deconstruction of man in poststructuralism (xii).

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In the final part of my argument, I turn to a reading of David Foster Wallace’s story “Mister Squishy” from Oblivion (2004) as an illustration of the darker side of posthuman subjectivity. While Wallace has been claimed as a posthumanist, I argue that “Mister Squishy” is profoundly skeptical of the promises of the posthuman self at the turn of the millennium, which it places in the context of workplace automatization. In contrast to a strain of critical posthumanism that harbors sexy cyborg fantasies, Wallace’s story is a more sober account of what may happen when human workers interface with information technology. Terry Schmidt, the main character of the story, is posthuman insofar as his cognitive apparatus is hardwired for computational thinking, yet he is also a failed posthuman to the extent that he is not able to adapt to his company’s technological overhaul. Emphasizing the Darwinian logic of posthuman adaptability, Schmidt, in spite of his statistical acumen, loses out to the greater computational power of the supercomputers that are set to replace him at the story’s end. Posthumanism in “Mister Squishy” does not lead to new forms of agency that integrate human potentials with technology, but to an era of big data that augurs a (literally) post human economy, where human workers are made redundant by the search for greater efficiency. Wallace’s story dramatizes the posthuman condition, but in so doing raises the question of whether posthumanism is equivalent to post-employment. The (Post) Human Element While Taylorism is not usually associated with critical posthumanism, it nevertheless played a seminal role in supplanting the belief in individual autonomy as the highest common good, which had reigned in the preceding Victorian society. As Michael Munley observes, “Taylor topples priorities that had prevailed over centuries of humanist thought, from its first outburst in the Italian Renaissance and its animation of the Protestant Reformation, through its elaboration of political reform based on the sovereignty of the individual” (qtd. in Kanigel 438). On the one hand, Taylorism is based on the rational Homo Economicus in the sense that the form of payment for work put forward in Taylor’s piece-rate system relies on the behavior of workers according to their own selfinterest, that is, maximizing their profit by working up to the ideal

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standards of productivity set by the scientific manager. On the other hand, Taylorism needs a bureaucratic system in which data about workers can be recorded, processed, and implemented in the form of scientific rules.2 Workers are turned into data that can be exchanged and quantified. Anything that cannot be measured has no value in the Taylorist system. Thus, the organizational shift around the turn of the twentieth century—from the patriarchal authority of the captains of industry to the bureaucratic authority of a rational system run by experts— entailed a change in human nature. As Robert H. Wiebe writes: The bureaucratic orientation did more than sweep away faculty psychology and its Christian dualism; it obliterated the inner man. The focus had shifted from essences to actions. The new ideas concerned what men were doing and how they did it . . . the individual was meaningless as a unit for investigation; only men’s social behavior deserved analysis. (148)

Taylor was also instrumental in breaking down the boundaries between everyday life and the mechanical processes at work. While Taylorism was primarily a method for the management of industrial labor, Taylor viewed scientific management as “applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the work of our great corporations” (7). No sphere of life for Taylor is placed beyond the reach of science and technology. Rather, human lives should be “Taylored,” to borrow the pun from the title of Martha Banta’s 1993 study of the impact of Taylorism on American culture. Moreover, bodies and machines in scientific management are not opposed to each other but seen as coextensive. Anson Rabinbach in The Human Motor (1990) shows how, in the late nineteenth century, scientific studies of human fatigue that sought the “reconceptualization of the body as a thermodynamic machine” became a powerful ideology (46). For efficiency experts, Rabinbach writes, “[t]he human organism was considered a productive ma2

Thus, in Taylor’s own words, the development of management as a science “involves the establishment of many rules, laws, and formulae which replace the judgment of the individual workman and which can be effectively used only after having been systematically recorded, indexed, etc. The practical use of scientific data also calls for a room in which to keep the books, records, etc., and a desk for the planner to work at” (37-38).

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chine, stripped of all social and cultural relations and reduced to ‘performance,’ which could be measured in terms of energy and output” (183). There was not only a shift from man to system; rather, man was perceived to be a system. In Bodies and Machines (1992), Mark Seltzer further explores this theme by identifying what he calls “the American body-machine complex” in the cultural logic of late nineteenth-century literature (3). For Seltzer, the fascination with science and numbers in realist and naturalist texts ultimately led to “a miscegenation of the natural and cultural: the erosion of the boundaries that divide persons and things, labor and nature, what counts as an agent and what doesn’t” (21). The rejection of fixed boundaries between humans and technology is a key element in critical posthumanism, dating back to Donna Haraway’s seminal 1985 essay “A Cyborg Manifesto,” in which she made the claim that we are all “fabricated hybrids of machine and organism” (150). But instead of sharing Seltzer’s concern over the “miscegenation of the natural and cultural,” Haraway revels in its transgressive possibilities (21). Critical posthumanism may thus be said to share the premise with early managerial ideologies that bodies and machines are not ontologically exclusive. Following a significant strain of technoevolutionism in the field, Cary Wolfe writes that critical posthumanism regards the human as “fundamentally a prosthetic creature that has coevolved with various forms of technicity and materiality, forms that are radically ‘not-human’ and yet have nevertheless made the human what it is” (xxv). The idea of welcoming the confluence between people and technology places critical posthumanism on the side of management in another respect as well. As Leo Marx shows so well in The Machine in the Garden (1964), the explosion of technologies in manufacturing and transportation in the second half of the nineteenth century was accompanied by a profound ambiguity toward the incursion of technology into nature. In his later article, “Pastoralism in America” (1986), he saw the “antitechnocratic principles” of the New Left as a paradigmatic resurgence of the old antithesis between nature and technology (64). For Marx, the opposition between body and machine was best illustrated in the student protest leader Mario Savio’s dramatic appeal to “put your body upon the [machine] and make it stop” (qtd. in Marx 38). However, Savio’s injunction was but the popular expression of a lineage of critique that went back, over Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School, to Freud’s Civili-

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zation and Its Discontents (1930), and ultimately to Max Weber’s dystopian view of instrumental reason. Although Weber did not see any alternative to bureaucracy, in a speech that he gave to the Verein für Sozialpolitik in 1909, he emphasized the importance of human independence from the machine process: “the great question is therefore not how we can promote and hasten [bureaucratization], but what can we oppose to this machinery in order to keep a portion of mankind free from this parceling-out of the soul, from this supreme mastery of the bureaucratic way of life” (n. pag.). Later, Marcuse, in his radical rereading of Freud in Eros and Civilization (1955), brought the opposition between man and machine to a head, proclaiming that “the energy of the human body rebels against intolerable repression and throws itself against the engines of repression” (16). While the Left from Marx to Lenin was historically optimistic about the promise of technology, by the 1960s the machine had become a metaphor of repression, the body a metaphor of emancipation. It need hardly be said that critical posthumanism rejects this form of critique as grounded in a false conception of human nature. Indeed, the recognition and embracing of, in Stefan Herbrechter’s words, “the role of technology for human (and nonhuman) evolution” entails a rejection of the very basis for the most widespread critique of Taylorism, namely the attempt to put man back into the picture (viii). The focus on the system instead of individuals in scientific management led to a tenor of critique that was sustained throughout the century, from the rise of the Human Relations Movement, based on Elton Mayo’s industrial psychology in the 1920s, to the Human Potentials Movement, influenced by Abraham Maslow’s metapsychology in the 1960s. The problem with Taylorism was that it paid no heed to the human element. Against the reduction of man in bureaucratic forms of management, an alternative view of human nature as creative, libidinal, and irreducible developed. Banta thus writes about “the uncontrollable ‘human element,’ which no principle of scientific management can completely rationalize or control” (8-9). By rejecting the dichotomy between human and machine that informed the critique of Weber’s proverbial iron cage of rationality from the beginning, critical posthumanism marks a turn away from a long tradition of critique directed against the alienating effects of industrialization. That being said, however, the rejection in critical posthumanism of the opposition between (human) nature and machines should not be

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taken as tantamount to an acceptance of the modern forms of management that first spawned the new posthuman breed. Although the version of the self that critical posthumanism has promoted rejects any claim to essence or autonomy, it nevertheless remains strikingly at odds with the Taylored self, fitted for a bureaucratic system based on standardized processes and formalized hierarchies. The Adaptable Self The caricature of the bureaucratic self is a cog in a machine. In contrast, the posthuman self may be caricaturized as a node in a network. In N. Katherine Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman (1999), one of the founding texts for critical posthumanism, she describes the posthuman self as “an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction” (3). Hayles defines posthuman subjectivity against the liberal humanist view of the subject, based on possessive individualism (originating with Hobbes and Locke), where the ability to sell one’s labor—and hence to own one’s self in the first place—is constitutive of subjectivity. Moreover, possessive individualism for Hayles is concomitant with the Enlightenment project of the rational subject’s domination over nature. Because the liberal self was “[i]dentified with the rational mind, the liberal subject possessed a body but was not usually represented as being a body” (4; original emphasis). As a result, “the body is understood as an object for control and mastery rather than as an intrinsic part of the self” (5). Proposing an alternative, posthuman account of subjectivity, Hayles emphasizes interconnectivity over autonomy. In this account, Hayles writes, “a dynamic partnership between humans and intelligent machines replaces the liberal humanist subject’s manifest destiny to dominate and control nature” (288). The project of mastery, “to dominate and control nature,” was of course inherent in the bureaucratic forms of management that emerged around the turn of the last century. An offspring of the Enlightenment— or, for the Frankfurt School, a perversion of the Enlightenment—the instrumental reason that fuelled the search for greater efficiency in management was based on a division between subject and object, where the former was placed in a position to know and thereby master the latter. In

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1914, the progressive intellectual Walter Lippmann published an homage to social control through science in his Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest. Lippmann bemoaned that society had become unanchored from past certainties without having discovered new ones. Post-Victorian society found itself adrift, to the effect that “[w]e are blown hither and thither like litter before the wind” (118). Instead of rejoicing in the emancipation from the traditions of the past, Lippmann articulated a program of mastery to halt the drift of modern life as the major challenge of his day. Mastery through science for Lippmann meant the reassertion of control over the forces that moved people and society, and he described it as “a progressively powerful way of domesticating the brute” (148). The key metaphor for critical posthumanism is not mastery but adaptation. “Mastery through the exercise of autonomous will,” Hayles writes, “is merely the story consciousness tells itself to explain results that actually come about through chaotic dynamics and emergent structures” (Posthuman 288). The aim is not to control these structures, as it was during the Progressive Era, but to adapt oneself to them. In critical posthumanism, the subject is understood as “integrated into a chaotic world rather than occupying a position of mastery and control removed from it” (291). This, for Hayles, is not to imperil human survival but is precisely to enhance it, for the more we understand the flexible, adaptive structures that coordinate our environment . . . the better we can fashion images of ourselves that accurately reflect the complex interplays that ultimately make the entire world one system. (290)

If posthumanism is a result of the control revolution that began in the late nineteenth century and the information society that ensued from new modes of communication based on gathering and processing data, critical posthumanism aligns itself with another type of revolution, namely the emancipatory struggle against systems of control that has gone hand in hand with the modernization process from its beginning. Critical posthumanism rejects the human body as the privileged emancipatory site for the struggle against instrumental control, represented by the figure of the machine. And yet it remains firmly within a grain of critique opposed to modern forms of control. While it rejects any dichotomy between nature and technology, at the same time its evolution-

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ary rhetoric of adaptation functions to naturalize the hybrid cyborg body as a site of resistance to unnatural attempts to control and master our environment. The autonomous subject is reinscribed as unnatural, a social construction that may be ideologically reproduced, but which is unable to reproduce itself through natural selection and environmental adaptation. In contrast, a cyborg world for Haraway, who, significantly, has a background in developmental biology, is “about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (154). The posthuman self for Haraway is “about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities” (154). The emancipatory potential of such a hybrid identity is precisely its ability “to subvert command and control” (Haraway 175). The emergent subjectivity that critical posthumanism champions is one that is constituted by connections rather than essence. Posthuman subjectivity can never be fixed, because it exists only as a product of relationships that keep changing. There is no ground of being, only emergent processes that never stabilize. While this sense of ontological drift—to stay with Lippmann’s term for the antithesis to mastery—may be emancipatory in some respects, its subversive potential nevertheless needs to be contextualized within our current historical moment. 3 As Richard Sennett observes, “[a] pliant self, a collage of fragments unceasing in its becoming, ever open to new experience—these are just the psychological conditions suited to short-term work experience, flexible institutions, and constant risk-taking” (133). Just as critical posthumanism was emerging and emphasizing the subversive potential of the adaptive self, other critics, mainly in sociology, were beginning to link the

3

Herbrechter rightly points out that “one should not underestimate the fact that the current developments and thus also the discussion about posthumanism are taking place within the context of radical changes affecting the material economic base. This change constitutes a radical transformation within increasingly globalized late capitalism from an analog (humanist, literate, book or text-based) to a digital (posthumanist, code, data or information-based) social, cultural and economic system” (viii).

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rejection of control and fixed identities to the demands of a postindustrial labor force.4 For Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello in The New Spirit of Capitalism (1999), the kind of adaptive self that is privileged in critical posthumanism was coterminous with the emergence of new managerial forms—based on the model of the network rather than totalizing systems. As a response to what Boltanski and Chiapello call the “artistic critique” of control and oppression ensuing from bureaucratic forms of management, they show how management after the crisis of Fordism in the 1960s became increasingly decentralized and concerned with the self-organization of workers rather than with hierarchical structures of control (38). The kind of subjectivity desired by new forms of management is not a self Taylored to the organization, but one able to adapt itself to changing market conditions. What counts in a networked world is not order and compliance with rules, but the ability to form productive relationships. Thus, “[t]o be doing something, to move, to change—this is what enjoys prestige, as against stability, which is often regarded as synonymous with inaction” (155). The networked self, or what Boltanski and Chiapello call “connexionist human beings”, only has itself to rely on, yet that self is but a product of the connections it has entered into with others (154). For connexionist people, “the quiddity that is recognizable is not the result of a pre-existing endowment, or even of a trajectory or experience. It derives from the constellation of established connections. They are themselves only because they are the links that constitute them” (125). As mobility is crucial for the networked self, ownership is rejected as cumbersome. The ownership model of self that liberal individualism is predicated upon is transformed: “connexionist human beings are the owners of themselves—not by natural right, but inasmuch as they are the product of a labour of self-fashioning” (154). In other words, exchange value for the connexionist self does not reside in the self, but in the creative labor that continually reproduces the self. 4

To be sure, there is also a healthy amount of skepticism toward hybrid identities within the field of critical posthumanism itself. Cf. Zipporah Weisberg’s observation that “[h]ybridity has become a kind of fetish concept – cited ad nauseam in critical posthumanist literature with little critical attention to the dangers it represents when actualized in practice” (98).

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What is valued in a networked world is not the possessive but the adaptive self.5 Because the ability to sell one’s labor coincides with the ability to fashion the self, the principle reward for labor in a networked world is the perpetual reproduction of the self that carries it out. Boltanski and Chiapello’s account is important to critical posthumanism, because it links the critique of instrumental control that the field has rebooted for a society after nature with the transformation of management in the New Economy. When viewed in this economic context, the posthuman ceases to be subversive and becomes rather subservient to the demands of the market. From this perspective, the substitution of the autonomous self that defined liberalism with the adaptable self of critical posthumanism looks most of all like a form of neoliberal subjectivity—a self perpetually accommodating itself to changing market conditions. This is the danger that Wallace’s story “Mister Squishy” illustrates by showing the darker side of posthuman subjectivity in a postindustrial economy. The Nuisance Parameter Although David Foster Wallace has been claimed as a posthumanist by critics, his work may be said to interrogate the posthuman condition in ways that challenge the emancipatory account of the adaptable self in critical posthumanism. In Hayles’s posthumanist reading of Infinite Jest (1996), the novel’s brilliant textual performance of recursivity is “about recognizing the profound interconnections that bind us all together, human actors and nonhuman life forms, intelligent machines and intelligent people” (“Illusion” 17). In Wallace’s later work, particularly his stories in Oblivion (2004) and The Pale King (2011), these interconnections have come to pose a threat to characters that recognizing them does not allay. Here the coevolution of humans and machines does not mean the successful adaptation of humans to a new environment, but their increasing redundancy in a world determined by market efficien5

See, for example, the management author Lionel Bellenger’s claim that “‘adaptability is the key to the network spirit’” (qtd. in Boltanski and Chiapello 124).

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cy.6 Recursivity may be a fact for Wallace, but merely adapting oneself to it is not the solution. In his own much-cited words, Wallace’s work is concerned with “what it means to be a fucking human” (Interview 26). Yet the version of the human with which he operates is not one that is constituted by the possession of any essence, but precisely by the recursive loops that determine reality in the information age. His stories place characters as well as readers (through his circular syntax and plot structures) within informational circuits that threaten to overwhelm them/us. Lacking a narrative consciousness to select and order impressions of the world in meaningful ways, Wallace’s characters often seek, and usually fail, to make sense by identifying patterns in the noise of their perceived reality. As perception is reduced to a data stream that must be processed by pattern recognition, meaning is reinscribed as a question of mathematical correlation rather than narrative causation. This cognitive shift is performed through Wallace’s headlong aesthetic, where readers are bombarded with seemingly random bits of information in exasperating run-on sentences. Thus, when the IRS workers in The Pale King are told that “[y]ou are all, if you think about it, data processors,” this is less meant as parody than a pithy statement on the posthuman reality of Wallace’s fictional worlds (340). While all of Wallace’s characters are arguably posthuman in their lack of essence and their data-processing minds, the main character in his story “Mister Squishy” is nevertheless an extreme case. It is also a most interesting case because it specifically thematizes the problem of posthuman labor in an increasingly automatized world. Most of the story centers on a focus group meeting aimed at testing a chocolate snack product launched by the Mister Squishy Company. The main character and facilitator of the group is the “thunderingly unexceptional Terry Schmidt” (43). Working as a “Statistical Field Researcher” for the market research firm contracted by the chocolate manufacturer, Schmidt is 6

The overarching plot in The Pale King, for example, hinges on whether human IRS examiners will be replaced by computers, and there seems to be little hope for the former at the dawn of the computer age when the novel takes place. In the “Notes and Asides” appended to the novel, we are told that the “[b]ig issue is human examiners or machines” (545).

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described as having “a natural eye for behavioral details that could often reveal tiny gems of statistical relevance amid the rough raw surfeit of random fact” (11, 9). As parts of the narrative are focalized through Schmidt, the people in the focus group are described in the estranging terms of their demographic relevance. Schmidt himself, it turns out, is the very image of the alienated corporate hack “within a grinding professional machine,” which has turned him into “a faceless cog” (31, 32). In fact, he is so faceless that his image slowly merges during the course of the story with the smiling cartoon face of the brand icon to become simply “Mr. S.” (47). Wallace’s description of Schmidt as a “cog” is, of course, a citation of the critique of Taylorized labor. Instead of merely accepting the fact that we are data processors, Paul Giles, in his posthumanist reading of Wallace, writes that Wallace’s posthumanism is sentimental in that it seeks to recuperate a more authentic mode of existence. “[T]o be a human being in Wallace’s world is not simply to relapse into a sclerotic humanism,” Giles writes, but “to search for fragments of authentic personality amidst the razzmatazz of scientific jargon and hip-hop slang, so that a novel such as Infinite Jest might be said to involve a putative humanization of the digital sensibility” (336). Situating Wallace’s work within “a familiar strain of American pastoral,” Giles in effect links it to the critique of instrumental reason that deepened the Taylorist crisis in the 1960s (331). If “Mister Squishy” at first seems to follow this trajectory, however, it also resists it in two ways. First of all, his citation of the critique of Taylorism is highly parodic, self-consciously recycling countercultural rhetoric that long since has lost its critical relevance. It is also difficult to miss the irony in the fact that the main character of the story—Schmidt—bears the same name as Taylor’s infamous example of the worker carrying pig iron for the Bethlehem Steel Company. The story further parodies Schmidt’s sentimental response to his own insignificance by having him prepare a lethal chemical solution, ostensibly for carrying out a terrorist attack, because “making a dark difference . . . was somehow more true to your own inner centrality and importance, than being nothing but a faceless cog” (32). Wallace’s ironic channeling of such self-help language is all the more poignant considering that Schmidt has no inner centrality and importance to be true to. In fact, Schmidt is so insignificant that by the end of “Mister Squishy”, it turns out that he is not even central to the story in which he

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is the main character. At the end, he has not only merged with his professional identity, but has been altogether phased out of the narrative when the story switches to a second plotline. This is where the story goes beyond simply parodying the alienation critique of Taylorized work to reframe Schmidt’s unimportance in economic terms. Schmidt is not only alienated, but at the end is eliminated, made redundant by the greater efficiency of the computers that will replace him. In this second plotline, it is revealed that the market test that Schmidt conducts was part of a “larger field experiment” carried out by the company’s “secret inner executive circle” in order to demonstrate the fallibility of human tests and the superiority of “modern hard science” (59, 62). The ulterior motive of the tests is thus to make the market research firm “100% techdriven” (64). Anticipating what has recently been termed big data, we learn that “with the coming digital era of abundant data”, focus groups and their facilitators “would go the way of the dodo and bison and art deco” (62, 64). Because “the whole thing from soup to nuts could soon be done via computer network”, there would no longer be any need for “facilitators to muddy the waters by impacting the tests in all the infinite ephemeral unnoticeable infinite ways human beings always kept impacting each other and muddying the waters” (63, 64). In other words, in the statistical language that the story so cleverly emulates, human workers are little more than a “nuisance parameter.”7 Such obsolescence of human workers in the digital age is a development that poses a stark challenge to critical posthumanism. In one sense, the symbiosis between humans and machines that Haraway and Hayles view as making new forms of agency possible already seems anachronistic. While Hayles notes that “the posthuman appears when computation rather than possessive individualism is taken as the ground of being, a move that allows the posthuman to be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines”, the computational advantage of machines over people raises the question of why bother articulating them together 7

The story may well have been inspired by the case a few years earlier of Amazon.com laying off its editorial staff after discovering that book recommendations based on algorithms were more efficient in persuading customers to make their next book purchase than recommendations made by professional reviewers.

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in the first place (Posthuman 34). The shift we are currently witnessing from fantasies about artificial intelligence to what has been called algorithmic living, where probability measures shape every aspect of life, is a case in point. In Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier’s book Big Data (2013), they note that “[b]ig data is not about trying to ‘teach’ a computer to ‘think’ like humans. Instead, it’s about applying math to huge quantities of data in order to infer probabilities” (12). In the brave new world of big data, the very idea of a cyborg that blurs the line between people and machines seems like a quaint anthropocentric fantasy. Algorithms have no need for symbiosis with humans. And in the Darwinian rhetoric of critical posthumanism, algorithms are surely fitter than people in the workplace when it comes to computational power. In spite of Schmidt’s posthuman adaptation to a computational mindset, he still fails to survive in a competitive environment shaped by market efficiency. When thus put into an economic context, the evolutionary optimism of critical posthumanism quickly sours. “Darwin’s tagline still fit”, the chief executive of the market research firm in “Mister Squishy” muses as he considers streamlining his company, and then adds: “Fitness. As in who fit the new pattern” (65). If critical posthumanism is to have any critical purchase today, the goal must not only be to rethink subjectivity to better fit the patterns of the twenty-first century market economy, but to rethink ways in which to shape those patterns. The evolutionary language of critical posthumanism tends to naturalize social processes and technological developments. This leaves us with only two options, as Lippmann suggested a century ago: either to master the environment or to drift with it. In order to avoid this dichotomy between social control and the free market it is necessary not only to focus critical attention on the illusion of the autonomous self, but first of all to denaturalize the environment within which we are embedded as subjects. Without taking control of our fate through deliberate institutional and policy choices, the only option left for workers is the incessant adaptation to demands set by the labor market. This is surely not the evolutionary scenario that critical posthumanism has in mind. Yet without recognizing that our world today is shaped by market forces, adaptation to our technosocial surroundings is less emancipatory than simply social Darwinism reconfigured for the twenty-first century.

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The plot twist in “Mister Squishy” that eliminates Mr. Schmidt effectively switches critical registers from one centered on the alienated worker—if ever so parodied—to the precarious economic conditions of labor today. The story both resists a nostalgic return to the alienated bureaucratic self that represents Schmidt as a cog and the autonomous self as a sentimental illusion. But with its reframing of the story in economic terms, it also rejects the adaptable self of critical posthumanism by showing how it goes hand in hand with a competitive market logic that puts human workers at a disadvantage against their automated adversaries. This is a plot twist that critical posthumanism could learn from. If it does not rethink our economic relations alongside its rethinking of subjectivity, Wallace’s story suggests that our posthuman future promises to be less post- than neoliberal—just as the future human is less likely to resemble a cyborg than the redundant Terry Schmidt, struggling for survival in the new pattern of the labor market. Works Cited Banta, Martha. Taylored Lives: Narrative Productions in the Age of Taylor, Veblen, and Ford. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. Print. Beniger, James R. The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986. Print. Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. The New Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. Gregory Elliott. New York: Verso, 2007. Print. Giles, Paul. “Sentimental Posthumanism: David Foster Wallace.” TwentiethCentury Literature, 53.3 (2007): 327-44. Print. Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and SocialistFeminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books, 1991. 149-81. Print. Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. Print. ---. “The Illusion of Autonomy and the Fact of Recursivity: Virtual Ecologies, Entertainment, and Infinite Jest.” New Literary History 30.3 (1999): 67597. Print.

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Herbrechter, Stefan. Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print. Kanigel, Robert. The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency. New York: Viking, 1997. Print. Lippmann, Walter. Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1987. Print. Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization. London: Sphere Books, 1970. Print. Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1967. Print. ---. “Pastoralism in America.” Ideology and Classic American Literature. Ed. Sacvan Bercovitch and Myra Jehlen. New York: Cambridge UP, 1987. 3669. Print. Mayer-Schönberger, Viktor, and Kenneth Cukier. Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think. London: John Murray, 2013. Print. Rabinbach, Anson. The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992. Print. Seltzer, Mark. Bodies and Machines. New York: Routledge, 1992. Print. Sennett, Richard. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York: Norton, 1999. Print. Taylor, Frederick W. The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Norton, 1967. Print. Wallace, David Foster. “Interview with Larry McCaffery”. Ed. Stephen J. Burn. Conversations with David Foster Wallace. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 2012. 21-52. Print. ---. “Mister Squishy.” Oblivion: Stories. London: Abacus, 2008. 3-66. Print. ---. The Pale King. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011. Print. Weber, Max. Speech delivered at the Verein für Sozialpolitik. 1909. Web. 31 Oct. 2014. Weisberg, Zipporah. “The Trouble with Posthumanism: Bacteria Are People Too”. Critical Animal Studies: Thinking the Unthinkable. Ed. John Sorenson. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ P, 2014. 93-116. Print. Wiebe, Robert H. The Search for Order, 1877-1929. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967. Print. Wolfe, Cary. What is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010. Print.

BABETTE B. TISCHLEDER

Earth According to Pixar: Picturing Obsolescence in the Age of Digital (Re)Animation “From outer space several human-made objects are visible on Earth: the Great Wall of China, the pyramids, and, on the southwestern tip of New York City, another monument to civilization, Fresh Kills Landfill.” This opening of Heather Rogers’s book, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, literally zooms in on its subject matter: a landscape composed of trash, the massive scale and geological effect of a stream of waste that has been channeled into mega-landfills since the 1950s. Fresh Kills, now turned into a recreational park, holds the discarded matter or, as I prefer to say, the product of a capitalist consumer economy that depends on wasting, on producing obsolescence (1). A video documentary by Rogers on the same topic seems to have inspired her book’s opening. It establishes its subject by a succession of satellite pictures that move closer to the man-made geography with each image: from a view of the eastern half of the North American continent, the coastal region of Long Island and New Jersey, Greater New York, to Staten Island, and finally, still from high above, but standing out from its environment, a yellowish brown desert landscape—Fresh Kills (“The Hidden Life of Garbage”).1 Rogers’s text and video show not only the enormous proportions of the burial ground of New York’s continuous waste stream, but more generally illustrate the long-lasting effect human economies are having on the environment. A dump visible from outer space is a concrete manifestation of the larger anthropogenic impact on planet Earth, more visible and therefore more impressive than escalating concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane, the abstract numbers of global population 1

Rogers’s video “The Hidden Life of Garbage” is available on YouTube.

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growth and the increasing exploitation of Earth’s resources. All of the latter are factors that led Paul Crutzen to suggest that we are now living in the Anthropocene, a geological epoch that is “human-dominated” (23). Images of a dystopic Anthropocene are a staple of the now established genre of environmental documentaries. Prominent examples are An Inconvenient Truth (2006), on the Al Gore campaign that aimed at alerting people to the “planetary emergency” caused by global warming, and the CNN documentary Planet in Peril (2007)—on the interrelated effects of climate change, overpopulation, deforestation, and species loss. Post-apocalyptic images of our planet also constitute a popular genre of sci-fi movies and literature that present Earth as a world largely devoid of humans, with only one or a handful of survivors: I Am Legend (2007), the latest, popular film version of Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel of the same title followed the earlier adaptations The Last Man on Earth (1964) and The Omega Man (1971). Soylent Green (1973), set in 2022, presents Earth as a planet depleted of all its natural resources and ravaged by greenhouse gases and overpopulation. Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow (2004) is another popular eco-disaster film: global warming has caused the melting of the ice caps, unleashing catastrophic storms and floods, and Earth is threatened by the advent of a new ice age.2 Whether humanity is endangered or decimated by a fatal virus, an alien takeover, an impact event, or an environmental disaster, the sci-fi genre offers many sceneries of a devastated planet, where production value is expressed in grandiose landscapes of destruction. But there is, to my knowledge, only one film that shows such an apocalyptic scenario as a result of overconsumption and wasting: WALL-E, Pixar’s eighth feature-length computer-animated film from 2008, presents a planet literally drowning in trash.

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Emmerich’s second environmental disaster film, 2012 (2009), tries to top the first in terms of spectacular special effects and destruction; he has pulled out all the stops: tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, erupting volcanoes, you name it.

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Trash Planet It is the year 2805 A.D., 700 years into the future. The beginning of WALL-E resembles that of Heather Rogers’s book and video: As viewers we enter the film’s universe from outer space. We first see a galaxy of stars, then the virtual camera zooms down onto the blue planet, passing through the remains of defunct satellites until we can make out the shape of the North American continent in a dirty yellowish brown color. Earth is a veritable wasteland, suffocated in endless mountains of garbage. The landscape of “trash planet,” as the creators of WALL-E call it, is presented from an aerial perspective. The garbage comes in the shape of large piles and vertical structures that look like skyscrapers and have been erected around the remaining office towers. We fly over these buildings until we see, from high above, a tiny thing moving along the worn ruts that curve around heaps of trash: the film’s protagonist, a solitary robot performing its daily routine as a trash compactor. His name is WALL-E, an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth Class, and he is the last of his kind. Other broken, sad-looking specimens will come into view in an early scene, accentuating that he and his indestructible pet cockroach are the only “survivors.” Humans fled the planet 700 years ago because Earth could no longer sustain life, and they now live on a luxury spaceship by the name of Axiom. Within the first 15 minutes, the film will introduce another main character, an Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator—EVE—a probe sent to earth to look for evidence of life in the deserted landscape. EVE will turn WALL-E’s head and direct the movie’s plot toward a more conventional romantic comedy. The film offers a bleak vision of the detrimental effects of runaway capitalism and a corporate economy that fosters blind consumerism. Responsible for this mess is a company called Buy N Large (BNL). The first five minutes of film show us WALL-E going about his daily routines; we see him rolling down one of the impressive garbage towers, through the trashed environment of a deserted city. He passes by a large “Ultrastore” building, a gas station, huge billboards, a bank, and advertising screens that all bear the BnL logo and offer the products and services of the mega-corporation. Buy N Large, in hyperbolic fashion, is modeled after Walmart and similar globally operating retail corporations. After having ruined the planet, BNL now runs the Axiom—the

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refuge in space that has become the fully automated, robot-serviced “home” for a ridiculously degenerated human species. One of the hologram screens that WALL-E passes advertises BNL’s escapist “solution” to the garbage problem: “Too much garbage in your face? There is plenty of space out in space. BNL Starliners leaving each day. We’ll clean up the mess while you are away.” The images of the defunct fleet of WALL-Es against a backdrop of trash towers reveal that this promise is utterly obsolete—the mess has become unmanageable. Indeed, this postapocalyptic scene is suggestive of the obsolescence of the human race itself. What remains of humanity are advertising screens and a videotape of the musical film Hello, Dolly! (1969) that WALL-E loves to watch; both present life-action scenes displayed on older media apparatuses within the computer-animated space of WALL-E’s world. The audience is not introduced to “actual” humans until thirty minutes into the film, when the action relocates to the spaceship: they look like inflated squeeze dolls, hold on to large soft drinks, and— utterly immobile—are wheeled around in floating chairs. These figures are preposterous caricatures of human beings, with their bloated faces and limbs made to look like plastic.3 Humanity’s legacy on Earth is the mountains of refuse that WALL-E sifts through, and out of which he picks single items. These items, including the movie Hello, Dolly!, will serve as the most expressive emblems of a bygone human culture. WALL-E has been widely received as a film that delivers an unmistakable warning against corporate capitalism, the consumerism it promotes, and the constant stream of waste it produces. Critics and audiences alike have understood the film to be a cautionary tale that envisions a dark future for coming generations if current forms of consumption and wasting persist. Here is one of the voices that emphasizes the movie’s alleged ecological message: “I saw WALL-E with my 5-year old on Saturday night and it was like a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of overconsumption, big corporations, and the destruction of the environment” (Ford n. pag.).

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Needless to say, the artificiality of these puppets is intended: WALL-E and EVE are the “authentic” characters in the movie that will help to reawaken these humans from their dull, immobile, and regressed state.

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But should we really assume that this popular animation feature for all ages delivers a “green message”? I don’t think so. The question that guides my inquiry in this essay does not concern the alleged environmental awareness of the Pixar film. My aim is to shed light on the fascination with trash that is quite obvious in WALL-E and that also characterizes the more “serious” genres of environmental fictions and documentaries. This essay explores the iconography of waste in the Pixar movie and, more cursorily, in texts such as Rogers’s Gone Tomorrow and Don DeLillo’s Underworld. I will point out some interesting parallels regarding the appeal of garbage in these rather different contexts. Obsolescence interests me both in its material (the reality of trash) and aesthetic dimensions (the staging of trash), as well as in a more abstract way—the way in which older film genres and cinematic forms are both referenced and rendered obsolete in the digital world Pixar creates. In the second part of the paper, I will particularly regard the visual appeal of trash planet in WALL-E and the way it has been made to look real, or, as the Pixar animators like to express it, “believable”. I ask why garbage—an abject, amorphous, stinking mass of matter—is turned into an appealing setting through digital animation. What makes it captivating in an aesthetic sense? And what challenges does it pose for the digital animators? Investigating the way obsolete matter is animated through computer-generated imagery (CGI), I will also consider how, from a media-historical perspective, the Pixar film relies on a dynamic of obsolescence all its own. Garbage in Historical and Geological Perspectives Before taking a closer look at the Pixar movie, I want to briefly consider the narratives of obsolescence that form the film’s larger cultural context. Rogers’s Gone Tomorrow has a clear objective in this regard: It tells the story of garbage as the consequence of our daily consumer practices, conveying how the passage of obsolete matter into landfills, incinerators, and oceans only begins the moment it is removed from our sight. Rogers’s book and other critical accounts present the history of consumerism as it developed in the twentieth century, with built-in obsolescence as a principle of production and consumption. Planned obsolescence comes in many different forms—technical, functional, stylistic.

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Even though it has existed since the late nineteenth century (disposable bottle caps, for instance) and was conceptualized as a way of stimulating consumer demand during the depression era, it did not emerge as a systematic device for fueling the economy and keeping consumption steady until the 1950s.4 The advent of plastics, and along with it, a fast-growing packaging industry, introduced the mass production of articles with an extremely short turnover rate—made to be used once and then tossed. The mass introduction of disposable packaging—“barely perceptible as commodities” (Rogers 116-17)—and the celebration of disposability in the name of hygiene and convenience constituted a new category of trash and initiated a new scale of waste production (cf. Strasser 26768).5 Disposable cups, bags, and bottles, have become our daily shortterm companions, and the ease of “takeaway” seems to necessitate throwing away. Wasting, however, lies not in the nature but in the culture of things. “What counts as trash depends on who’s counting” (Strasser 3). In other words, forms of disposal are historically specific, and most critical assessments of American consumer history point to the nineteenth-century and other cultures in order to show that waste on the scale we know it today is a relatively recent phenomenon. Like other books on the topic—Giles Slade’s Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America (2006) and Susan Strasser’s classic study Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash (1999)—Rogers investigates garbage as the American consumer society’s true legacy. Focusing on 4

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Bernard London’s pamphlet “Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence” (1932) suggested governmental measures in the form of legally decreed death dates for consumer articles in order to stimulate and maintain consumption. See my and Sarah Wasserman’s introduction “Thinking out of Sync” in Cultures of Obsolescence: History, Materiality, and the Digital Age for a theoretical approach to obsolescence; see Bill Brown’s essay “The Obsolescence of the Human” in the same volume for a discussion of London’s ideas. “More than 30 percent of municipal waste today is packaging, and 40 percent of that is plastic” (Rogers 5). The afterlife of the polymers is incalculable both in terms duration and toxicity: “On average, plastics are predicted to stay intact for 200, 400, maybe 1,000 years, and these are only guesses. For their life span, plastics kept above ground will abrade and ‘off-gas’ malignant releases into the air” (Rogers 6).

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the afterlife of our commodities, critical waste studies reverse the internal logic of obsolescence by shedding light on what is usually overlooked. Looking at the larger “metabolism of the market” allows trash to become expressive, disclosing our consumer habits and desires, and displaying how ephemeral our infatuations and attachments are (Rogers 11). The contrast between short-term use and long-term effects on the environment is particularly alarming: While “about 80 percent of US products are used once and then discarded,” the long duration and ramifications of their afterlife can hardly be predicted. Whether household garbage or e-waste, we have created depositories of matters whose ongoing physical and biochemical life will activate incalculable reactions on the ground, in the air, in rivers and oceans, and in the atmosphere; they must be considered ecological time bombs, as waste studies illustrate (Rogers 6).6 Mega-landfills are anything but safe graveyards for our refuse; the liners that are used to contain liquid wastes will not last long enough to prevent toxic leachate from seeping into the groundwater; moreover, so-called “landfill gas” that consists primarily of methane, a crucial factor in global warming, and other air-borne pollutants are released consistently by decomposing waste (Rogers 4, 19).7 Ewaste, one of the most harmful and fast-growing forms of garbage, is often not recycled properly, but shipped around the globe to junk yards in China, India, and Ghana, where it is burned and disassembled with primitive means, thereby polluting the environment and gravely affecting the health of workers. And, as one more example, there is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also called the “trash vortex,” a “plastic soup” comprised of linked areas of non-biodegradable floating debris and plastic particles that are bound by an oceanic gyre. Its magnitude and the malignant effects of harmful microplastics (that attract chemical pollutants) on marine eco systems are undisputable, but difficult to assess; 6 7

See chapter 9, “Cell Phones and E-waste,” in Giles Slade’s Made to Break. “According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ‘Methane is of particular concern because it is 21 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide’. Landfill gas also includes the air-borne wastes from things like adhesives, household cleaners, plastics and paints, including carbon-dioxide, hazardous air-pollutants (HAP) and volatile organic compounds” (Rogers 4-5).

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some estimates suggest that is has the size of Texas; others say that it extends over an area “twice the size of the continental United States.” 8 The anthropogenic results deriving from these concentrations of garbage will impact the lives of future generations as well as those of other species on our planet. We should be aware that the full measure, complex interrelations, and temporal scale of this impact lie beyond our grasp and imagination.9 My short account is limited to so-called household wastes, not addressing industrial or nuclear waste, for example. Needless to say, there are many more unsettling facts that one could add in order to provide a fuller picture, but I refrain from that and turn to figurations of garbage in literature and film. Fictional Wastelands There are many fictional scenarios that feature trash as a grisly yet alluring wasteland, or pick out particular items and stage them in a nostalgic register. Think, for instance, of the dancing plastic bag in Sam Mendes’s film American Beauty (1999). It is presented as video footage within the movie: a plastic bag is whirled around by the wind. A sugary soundtrack adds a sentimental tone. To the protagonist, the bag’s dance prompts a quasi-religious feeling of enchantment: “there’s this entire life behind things”—“so much beauty in this world.” The discarded article becomes 8

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See “The world’s rubbish dump: A tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan,” by Kathy Marks and Daniel Howden, and the entry “Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Pacific Trash Vortex,” on National Geographic’s website. In his though-provoking article “Climate and Capital: On Conjoined Histories,” Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued that our understanding of human history, especially that of “industrial civilization” does not square in scale with “the history of the earth system,” or “the history of life including human evolution on the planet” (1). While there is an awareness of the anthropogenic impact on planet Earth, we nonetheless face the problem of widely diverging scales of human and nonhuman time in the Anthropocene—a problem that also characterizes the ongoing life of garbage: Nobody can know the longterm effects of nuclear waste, for instance; its persistence on this planet goes way beyond the terms in which we think about the scientific designs, economies, and policies that have brought it into the world.

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an object of aesthetic contemplation and spiritual elevation. The experience of beauty the film tries to convey is twice removed from actual trash, and it is the sentimental staging—the framing of an ephemeral moment, the grainy look of the video footage that stands out from the larger aesthetic of the film, the music and commentary—that make it an aesthetic object. The singling out of particular items and the temporary reversal of the trajectory of obsolescence is quite typical for this kind of nostalgic rehabilitation of trash in fiction or art.10 Somewhat different is the beauty of garbage in Don DeLillo’s Underworld (1997). In this novel, Brian Glassics happens upon a “terraced elevation” that he realizes to be Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island: “It was reddish brown, flat-topped, monumental, sunset burning in the heights, and Brian thought he was hallucinating an Arizona butte” (183). He is fascinated with the immensity of the wasteland spreading out before him: Three thousand acres of mountained garbage, contoured and roadgraded, with bulldozers pushing waves of refuse onto the active face. Brian felt invigorated, looking at this scene. . . . It was science fiction and prehistory, garbage arriving twenty-four hours a day, hundreds of workers, vehicles with metal rollers compacting the trash, bucket augers digging vents for methane gas, the gulls diving and crying, a line of snouted trucks sucking in loose litter. (184)

As a waste consultant, Brian knows what he is looking at; he understands the labor and logistics of waste management. What this passage conveys, however, is not the perspective of an engineer, but that of a human being taking in the scene, stunned by the liveliness of the place, by its sublime beauty—“this thing was organic, ever growing and shifting, its shape computer-plotted by the day and the hour. In a few years 10

An example of the latter is Bill Keaggy’s book 50 Sad Chairs (2008), and the accompanying website that present images of chairs put out on the street and photographed over a certain period time: “Take a peek inside the cruel and unforgiving world of St. Louis, Missouri’s abandoned, abused and neglected chairs. Found in back alleys all over the city, these chairs live out their last days on mean streets, forsaken by their owners and forgotten by society. Until now.” Here too the artist’s project constitutes a rehabilitation of obsolete matter that relies on the singularization of particular items.

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this would be the highest mountain on the Atlantic Coast between Boston and Miami” (184). In this vast dump, Brian senses the articulation of human lives and emotions, people’s desires, their “habits and impulses, their uncontrollable needs and innocent wishes, maybe their passions, certainly their excesses and indulgences”—together they form “a unique cultural deposit, fifty millions tons by the time they top it off” (184-85). DeLillo’s scenery of Fresh Kills is a cultural imaginary of waste that could have inspired the creators of WALL-E, and that certainly has promoted an understanding of mega-landfills as monuments to human civilization comparable in scale only to the pyramids or the Chinese Wall.11 These monuments are expressive of a “mass metabolism” that is threatening to overwhelm humanity, as DeLillo’s character worries. He envisions the scenario of a horror movie in which the waste mountains start sliding down and burying the neighboring houses. Beyond its aweinspiring vastness, Fresh Kills fascinates as a site that is alive with history, with human aspirations, longings, and impulses that have been buried somewhere along the way. The landfill as a “culminating structure” is a resting place not just for obsolete artifacts, but for human dreams, losses, and bygone futures—“the things you wanted ardently and then did not” (184-85). These monumental structures of the Anthropocene hold the untold stories and unpredictable futures of human life. WALL-E: Picturing Obsolescence One fascination with garbage, then, lies in the possibility of unearthing some of the human secrets buried in it. This perspective allows me to come back to WALL-E and to point out a trajectory that many narratives of trash follow: the satellite view of Fresh Kills, the panorama of the same dump in Underworld, the zooming in onto Earth from outer space in the Pixar film—all these “establishing shots” first present the sublimity of the grand picture—the mutilated face of the planet—before the 11

The analogy between landfills and cultural or natural monuments is quite common: Perhaps inspired by DeLillo’s Underworld, Rogers compares the landfill with “a misplaced Western butte.” Comparisons with the Chinese Wall and the pyramids can be found equally in DeLillo, Rogers, and Slade.

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perspective moves closer to the scene, allowing the observer to take in some details. DeLillo’s character begins to make out specks of color and scraps of fabric in the “stratified mass of covering soil,” and these inspire him to imagine not just the entire object—a bikini brief, a Styrofoam box, a tabloid—but concrete scenes of human life (185). Trash as undifferentiated mass gives way to telling objects, prompting the imagination of the storyteller. A similar passage, from a panoramic view of a littered cityscape to revealing details of trash, defines the narrative of WALL-E. The bulk of the garbage we see will remain an undifferentiated mass, but some of it is broken down (diegetically as well as aesthetically) into smaller parts—compressed cubes. WALL-E produces these bricks by compacting garbage in his metal body; he then stacks them in square shapes that slowly grow into the familiar trash towers. The modern-day Sisyphus dutifully goes about his daily task, a mission he will obviously never be able to accomplish. Cleaning up is a dull task, and the narrative does not linger there for very long. WALL-E is easily distracted by single items he pulls out of the indistinct mass; and these are, again, the moments when garbage comes alive and when the rusty robot comes into his own as a character with a soul—attracted by the remains that humanity has left behind. When asked about the setting of his movie and whether or not WALL-E offers a green message, director Andrew Stanton has always denied that he intended to paint an end-of-life scenario that accentuates the hazards of humanity’s pollution of the planet. To Stanton, “it was all based on character and emotion,” the idea of “the last robot on Earth, doing its job forever, not knowing that it was a waste of time.”12 What came first was not a scenario that called for a particular form of action, but the idea of the last “lonely little robot,” which required a conceit for this character. Stanton provides several reasons for wanting his protagonist to be a trash compactor. The first one is genre: he envisioned an animated movie in the tradition of the silent cinema, with “unconventional dialogue.” Indeed, the film’s entire first act is free of dialogue, yet rich with music and sound effects; the two robots and the pet cockroach communicate through gestures and facial expressions. More relevant for my argument, though, is what Stanton said about the affordances of 12

All quotations are from Terry Gross’s interview with Andrew Stanton.

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trash planet as a setting: “it allowed him [WALL-E] to go through the detritus and the sort of evidence of what mankind was all about, and that was huge.”13 Stanton, who usually denies any environmental motive for his film, refers to his own consumer habits in this instance and iterates the insight of waste studies and literature—that trash is expressive of human culture and the actual product of consumer capitalism. Moreover, Stanton’s statement points at the processes of reversal and reappraisal that obsolete matter has in store—certainly for the scavenger WALL-E. The garbage in the Pixar movie is resonant with the once vibrant life of people on the now deserted planet and thus betrays more than just the story of large corporations and overconsumption. The expressiveness of abandoned artifacts comes to the fore when the trash-compacting robot breaks from his routine and salvages items from the trash. And it is his childlike curiosity and collector’s passion that make him human by association. His interaction with the objects he takes home to his garbage truck become the movie’s most vivid articulation of “what mankind was all about.” One scene in particular, showing WALL-E at work, makes it clear that the film takes its cue from an earlier film tradition—the silent slapstick cinema: Charlie Chaplin, overwhelmed by the speed of the conveyor belt in Modern Times, Buster Keaton’s battles with a prefab house in One Week, Harold Lloyd hanging from the arms of large clock. In a similar fashion, we see WALL-E playing with a paddle and ball that bangs against his binocular eyes; then he picks up a fire extinguisher and accidentally sets it off: it throws him off his treads and spins him around. A pair of bras pulled over his binocular eyes blocks his view. All these scenes resonate with knockabout comedy and its burlesque confrontation of people and recalcitrant objects and machines—violent encounters with the material world.

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In the interview with Terry Gross, Stanton mentions the “million boxes” come to his house everyday, and acknowledges that there is “too much consuming,” but adds that his story wasn’t intended to be “any darker than that.”

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The Operational Aesthetic and Digital Animation So far I have developed my argument largely on the basis of plot and the phenomenology of trash in the different texts. In order to understand the dynamics of obsolescence and nostalgia as they play out in the Pixar film, however, it is necessary to reflect upon its operational aesthetic. This is a concept Tom Gunning has introduced to the context of the cinema, particularly early comedies that evolved into the slapstick genre. Referring to the first known fictional film, L’Arroseur arrosé, which the Lumière brothers presented in Paris in 1895, Gunning explains that audiences were attracted less by the film than by the display of the cinematic apparatus. Gunning has adopted the term operational aesthetic from Neil Harris to reflect “a fascination with the way things worked, particularly innovative or unbelievable technologies” (88). The cinematograph was one such technology because, like the other recording medium of the nineteenth century, the phonograph, it was capable of capturing the passage of time. According to Friedrich Kittler, the cinematograph was one of the “storage technologies” that brought “epochal change” due to their ability to “record and reproduce the very time flow of acoustic and optical data” (3). The fascination with early film has much to do with the ability of cinematic technology to capture things in motion. In Gunning’s example, it is a garden hose that a rascal steps on to block the water’s flow only to release the pressure a moment later, when the innocent gardener is bending over to inspect the device. “The new technology of motion picture photography was capable of portraying even the complex motion of such ephemera as the spray of a garden hose” (89). Hence it was not the cinematic technology alone that audiences of early comedies enjoyed, but that this technology was able to display the workings of inanimate objects that possess a fascination of their own. Early comedies made use of such devices or “crazy machines” as Gunning calls them—the proverbial slapstick, but also the slippery banana peel, loose wheels, falling objects, collapsing structures, and malfunctioning gadgets. Buster Keaton was a master of showing people and objects whirled around by centrifugal forces and gravity. The operational aesthetic, then, enables a visual pleasure derived from watching how objects work when they are put into motion. How does this relate to a movie that is fully computer-generated and where all objects on display are the result of digital code? And how can

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the concept of the operational aesthetic be applied to this very different technology of image production? The obvious parallel is that the Pixar film self-consciously adopts many elements from silent comedy. WALL-E’s fire extinguisher is an only slightly more modern device than the garden hose, and it resonates strongly with early comedy’s crazy machines. And here, too, it seems to be “the fascination with the way things work that fuels the gag” (Gunning 100). Considering the total lack of indexicality in animated features, however, the pleasure of watching WALL-E’s struggle with inanimate objects must be a different one. It cannot rely on the “way things come together” or the “visualizing of cause and effect through the image of the machine” that appealed to audiences in Keaton’s films (100): All we see in the Pixar film is pure artifice where no cause and effect in a physical sense exist. Still, I argue that it is also a combination of what is presented and the mode of presentation that constitutes the appeal in Pixar animation. As viewers, we are keenly aware that we are seeing an entirely artificial world, no matter how real it appears in some regards. Like previous Pixar films, WALL-E self-consciously plays with that awareness, and it tries only in certain respects to create a photorealist look of trash planet. That trash figures so prominently in the movie might have to do with the way the protagonist and object matter come to reflect the operations of the digital animators—aesthetic technologies that are able to animate inanimate objects in a believable way, and to design a charming robot that has more individuality than any human figure in the movie. Rather than being a matter of critical concern for the creators of WALL-E, trash is an object of aesthetic appeal and an artistic challenge for the digital animators who studied actual dumps in order to create a believable threedimensional world. J. P. Telotte has described Pixar’s production of animated spaces as one that tries to combine an effect of cinematic realism and “the typical squash-and-stretch cartoon world,” which he calls a “negotiated style” (205). Doing Finding Nemo, a film set in the Pacific Ocean, the Pixar team encountered the problem that the undersea world they had designed in a photorealistic style ended up “looking too real” as a setting for the cartoonish fish that served as protagonists: “Talking fish would seem thoroughly out of place in a photorealistic ocean,” comments David Price (213). In order to handle the problem, “the engineers tweaked the tools to fall back to so-called ‘hyper-reality’—the term at Pixar for a

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stylized realism that had a lifelike feel without actually being photorealistic” (213). It is this lifelike feel that also served as an orientation for the world the Pixar team envisioned for WALL-E. Designing trash planet, the producers wanted to achieve a look that made masses of discarded commodities appear natural and lively. According to Andrew Stanton, “keeping alive” aims at avoiding that a scene feels static or still; there should always be “little bits of activity”—dust rising, pieces of paper flying. Realizing believable images of garbage required (re)producing the quasi-organic appeal of the dump in digital imagery. Important for reaching this goal, according to Stanton, was to “get out all the CGness” that threatens to reveal the artificiality of the computer-generated image. To produce a “grainy, gritty environment that has some character to it” was a declared objective; yet “dirty” amorphous matter poses an aesthetic challenge, given that computer-generated images are “naturally” clean and crisp rather than gritty. Dimensionality and believability are key principles that guided Stanton’s team in achieving a look that avoided the so-called “uncanny valley”—an expression that indicates the unsurpassable difference between computer-generated imagery and photography. Lacking the physical association with its referent that photochemical film possesses, animated movies cannot capture, but only imitate, the effects of gravity, the behavior of moving objects, and the random collisions between living creatures and inanimate things. The Pixar animators are aware that this poses a problem for the depiction of digitally animated spaces. “At the heart of the perfect digital image—coded by its clean binaries—is a secret desire for mistakes, for randomness, for what Dick Hebdige might call ‘little disasters’” (Rombes 1). Seen from this perspective, then, trash as subject matter was an incentive for the creators of WALL-E to produce something that looked convincingly dirty and to push the limits of their own craft to counter the cold perfection of CGI. Moreover, in order to produce a believable feel of trash planet they also explored and tried to generate the “natural” effect of cinematic lenses and lighting. The Pixar team invited the cinematographer Roger Deakins to teach them about camera work and lighting styles, which then served as a model for programming virtual cameras and digital lighting effects. In particular, widescreen sci-fi films of the 1970s were used as an orientation for imitating the effect of anamorphic lenses—an

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effect that limits the depth of field with blurry areas in the fore- and background of the frame. This visual “imperfection” allows the subject to be framed more intimately. The anamorphic look with its characteristic lens distortions informs the animated world of the Pixar film in all its simulated medium and long shots. What strikes us as a true look of trash, then, does not resemble our natural perception of the world, but takes its cue from film history, thus appropriating and reproducing particular cinematic styles in order to generate an appealing and believable animated space. There is yet another way in which trash in WALL-E serves a selfreflexive purpose rather than expressing a concern with planetary pollution: Andrew Stanton said that animators are collectors, that they collect memories and go back to the animate worldviews of their childhood in order to devise fantasy worlds: “the compassion some of us feel for the bicycle that has to wait in the rain, the chair that has been put out on the street” (Stanton, n.pag.). In this sense, then, the character of WALL-E can be understood as an alter ego of the animators that created him: they share his passion for inanimate objects and have passed on to him the ability to see the animate in the inanimate, the soulful glow of a Zippo lighter, the magic of a Rubik’s cube, the reliable whir of a mechanical egg beater that resembles the movement of WALL-E’s treads, the velvety case of a diamond ring he tosses out because the feel and shape of the little box appeal much more to him than its content. Much like the Rubik’s cube, the form of the box reflects his own anatomy as well as the rectangular garbage bricks that are the product of his daily toil. His fondness for anything that has a cubic form reflects the passion of his makers; the bricks he makes, the jewelry box he keeps, or the Rubik’s cube that he proudly presents to Eve: They all can be read as cartoonstyle visualizations of three-dimensional pixels, thus symbolizing the operational aesthetic of CGI. In a more abstract sense, then, WALL-E is both the product and the embodiment of an animate worldview. In the film’s diegesis, he is a chip-driven machine powered by solar energy. As an animated figure with a rusty body, expressive binocular eyes, and mechanical charm he appears convincingly naturalistic. It is the negotiated style that combines cutting-edge CG animation with the animator’s ability to accentuate the soulfulness of nonhuman machines that render him alive. But WALLE’s creators rely not only on digital technology; in order to invoke the

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fascination with the machine and the recalcitrant objects that featured in silent film comedy, they also follow the twelve principles of animation that were defined by Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in the 1930s and were published in their book The Illusion of Life (1981), also referred to as the “bible of animation.”14 One important aspect of these principles was to create a life-like sense of how animated figures moved around. Not visual realism, but the illusion that cartoon characters adhered to the laws of physics is crucial for the viewer’s sense of a plausible animated world. While CG animation is technically able to produce “impossibly continuous, impossibly complex” worlds, it draws on earlier cinematic styles and animation techniques in order develop “automated algorithms [that] provide the spaces, objects and even ‘camera’ with a set of behaviors consistent with the physics of the real world at the same time as they allow for a plasticity in such rules only possible in animation” (Gurevitch 134). Coming back to the alleged ecological concern that critics found expressed in the Pixar movie, I conclude that WALL-E offers its audience a mildly critical, but overall very palatable portrait of a polluted Earth. The subject of cleaning up that features so prominently in the first act of the film quickly gives way to heterosexual romance. Toward the end of the film, EVE’s effort to resuscitate a badly battered WALL-E and to rekindle his sense of feeling has supplanted any ecological worries. Her ability to repair him with spare parts (as he has done several times before) and the fact that humans, however wobbly, are back on their feet on mother Earth, planting green seedlings, offers a comforting outlook. It is not only the narrative that works toward this happy ending: The cheerful soundtrack from Hello, Dolly! that has accompanied the images of trash planet from the start, the “huggable” protagonist,15 the appeal and usefulness of the salvaged objects, and the romantic plot of the older movie that serves as model for the future-day romance—all this elements reassure us that we are watching a well-designed fantasy. More importantly, we are made to believe that garbage, discarded objects, and obsolete media can be repurposed in meaningful ways: obsolescence is 14 15

See “Animation Notes #5: 12 Principles of Animation” on the website of the Center for Animation and Interactive Media. See Battles’s article on WALL-E’s endearing appeal on Boston.com.

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managed and contained through (digital) recycling—both in its plot and in its operational aesthetic. Remarkable about the Pixar film is, moreover, what it does not show: The overall effect of authentic grittiness is achieved by presenting garbage from a suitable ‘anamorphic’ distance, thus averting from the fact that its composition remains visually indistinct when seen from up close. It is digital detritus in the sense that it is computer-generated, but the creators of WALL-E made sure that their depiction of trash does not resemble e-waste in any way. A salvaged iPod is the only obsolete digital gadget we see in the film, and it is, magically, still working after 700 years. WALL-E thus obfuscates the close connection between the pleasures that digital technologies afford and the e-waste that is sure to follow in their wake. Keeping its diegetic trash free from unsettling associations and foregrounding its own aesthetic style, the Pixar movie celebrates digital design while disavowing its implication in wasteful economies. Making eco catastrophe a remote sci-fi fantasy and thus palatable for its all-age audience, the film has indeed little to contribute to a critical perspective on obsolescence. That said, however, we should not forget that even more serious efforts to visualize the critical dimensions of waste will present only very small segments of the larger picture. It lies in the nature of obsolescence to remain largely unseen after all. Works Cited 2012. Dir. Roland Emmerich. Perf. John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet. Columbia Pictures, 2009. Film. American Beauty. Dir. Sam Mendes. Perf. Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, and Thora Birch. DreamWorks Pictures, 1999. Film. “Animation Notes # 5.” Centre for Animation and Interactive Media. Web. 23 May 2014. Battles, Matthew. “The Huggable Machine: What Makes a Robot Charming?” Boston.com. Web. 23 May 2015. Brown, Bill. “The Obsolescence of the Human.” Cultures of Obsolescence: History, Materiality, and the Digital Age. Ed. Babette B. Tischleder and Sarah Wasserman. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 19-39. Print. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Climate and Capital: On Conjoined Histories.” Critical Inquiry 41 (2014): 1-23. Print.

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Crutzen, Paul J. “Geology of Mankind.” Nature 415 (2002): 23. Print. DeLillo, Don. Underworld. New York: Scribner, 1997. Print. Finch, Christopher. The CG Story: Computer Generated Animation and Special Effects. New York: The Monacelli P, 2013. Print. Ford, Patrick J. “WALL-E’s Conservative Critics.” The American Conservative. The American Ideas Institute, 30 June 2008. Web. 23 May 2014. Tugeon, Andrew. “Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Pacific Trash Vortex.” National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 19 Sept. 2014. Web. 23 May 2014. Gunning, Tom. “Crazy Machines in the Garden of Forking Paths: Mischief Gags and the Origins of American Film Comedy.” Classical Hollywood Comedy. Ed. Kristine Brunovska Karnick, and Henry Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 1995. 87-105. Print. Gurevitch, Leon. “Computer Generated Animation as Product Design Engineered Culture or Buzz Lightyear to the Sales Floor: To the Checkout and Beyond!” Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 7.2 (2012): 131-49. Print. Keaggy, Bill. 50 Sad Chairs. Cambridge: Perfect Paperback, 2008. Print. ---. 50 Sad Chairs. Bill Keaggy, Web. 12 Oct 2014. Kittler, Friedrich A. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999. Print. Writing Science. London, Bernard. Ending the Depression through Planned Obsolescence. New York, 1932. Marks, Kathy, and Daniel Howden. “The World’s Rubbish Dump: A Tip that Stretches from Hawaii to Japan.” Independent.co.uk. 5 Feb. 2008. Web. 3 June 2014. Price, David A. The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company. New York: Knopf, 2008. Print. Rogers, Heather. Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. New York: New P, 2005. Print. ---. “The Hidden Life of Garbage.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 7 June 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. Print. Rombes, Nicholas. Cinema in the Digital Age. London: Wallflower, 2009. Print. Telotte, J. P. Animating Space: From Mickey to WALL-E. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2010. Print.

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The Day After Tomorrow. Dir. Roland Emmerich. Perf. Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Ian Holm. Twentieth Century Fox, 2004. Film. Slade, Giles. Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2006. Print. Stanton, Andrew. Interview by Terry Gross. Pixar’s Andrew Stanton: Animating From Life. Fresh Air. NPR, 10 July 2008. Radio. Strasser, Susan. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. New York: Metropolitan, 1999. Print. Tischleder, Babette B., and Sarah Wasserman. Introduction. “Thinking out of Sync.” Cultures of Obsolescence: History, Materiality, and the Digital Age.” Ed. Babette B. Tischleder, and Sarah Wasserman. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 1-18. Print. WALL-E. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Perf. Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Sigourney Weaver. Walt Disney Studios, 2008. Film.

MARYANN SNYDER-KÖRBER

Flarf: E-Detritus Composition and the Analytical Affordances of a Late Avant-Garde Flarf? Flarf has been described as “the first recognizable movement of the 21st century” (Sullivan 1). That is to say, it can be reckoned the first recognizable literary movement in the new millennium or, even more precisely, the first recognizable avant-garde literary movement to take shape this side of the year 2000. Avant-garde translates as advance guard. In this light, Flarf is not just about irritating the presumptions, procedures, and institutional framings of the “social subsystem that is art” (Bürger, Theory 22). Those subversions work towards a new “praxis of life” (22). For all the acclaim, readers in the 2010s are unlikely to be familiar with the brand name “Flarf,” much less be able to identify the key elements of the early twentieth-first-century poetry marketed under this label. The supposed “movement” spans a relatively brief moment: beginning in 2000 and still present on sites like the poet Michael Magee’s mainstreampoetry blog and the Flarf Orchestra tumblr conducted by the multimedia artist Drew Gardner, but already noticeably fading by the midpoint of the last decade. A 2006 special issue of the online poetry journal Jacket, for instance, opens with an editorial asking “What was Flarf” (Tranter; my emphasis). Responses to that question invariably focus on the use of internet search engines to assemble the word masses from which the Flarf poet, or “Flarfist,” composes. The compositions themselves are incongruent collages: full of frictions in semantics, register, and tone. The serious is juxtaposed with the quotidian, nonsensical, and, at times, simply crude. In her 2003 poem “. . . Let’s Rebuild the Twin Towers in Ny . . . On your Pizza” Kate Degentesh splices then current catchwords of patriotic commitment with standard fast-food

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ordering queries (“What would you like on your pizza, sir?”) and the typographical slip-ups typical for text messaging (“NY” to “Ny”). Gary Sullivan forges his cullings into a yet more direct attack on poetic proprieties. “Put a Q-tip in it and stir it up sick,” he enjoins in an early 2000 exercise: “pocka-mocka-chocka-locka- DING DONG / fuck! shit! piss!” (Sullivan qtd. in Bernstein 1). The strutting vulgarity of such lines recalls Wyndham Lewis’s Blast (1914) and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (1955). The cultivation of disjunction, absurdity, and, most certainly, the collage as a signature form harkens back to Dada. Flarfists make no attempt to obscure these influences. They might strive to irritate certain assumptions about how poetry is written (with computer search and tortured rhyme, say), but Flarf at the same time stages itself within a longer tradition of artistic provocation. Thus, formal references are cultivated along with the brand “styling” and more general organizational patterns of early twentieth-century group literary experiment. Much like the Vorticism that Lewis calls for in Blast or the Imagism promoted by Ezra Pound, Flarfism is the product of a relatively small circle of befriended writers. No more than a dozen names regularly appear in Flarf poetry collections and accounts of the group’s formation (Bernstein 4). The audience for such work is equally select: art and media-savvy urbanites keen to feel part of a “cultured incrowd” (Reed, Nobody’s Business 94). So why consider Flarf now, when its hipster fans have moved to the suburbs and the notion of search engine-aided poetry has lost its novelty? At best one might expect the cliquish history of a Bush Era-coterie. At worst a cautionary tale would emerge about “What Happens when Poets Spend Too Much Time Fucking Around on the Internet,” as Flarf critic Dan Hoy has charged: “techno-dependency,” “show-offy” poems, and complicity with “corporate tools” (i.e. search engines) and, thereby, “corporate ideology” (1 and 3). This contribution takes a different tack. Against assumptions of insularity, mere show, and uncritical accommodation, the next pages launch an argument for the analytical potential of Flarf. Most directly stated: in utilizing internet resources, Flarfists are performing an analysis of this ever more important grounds for thinking, feeling, and interconnecting in modernity. From this vantage point, recalling what Flarf “was” in its heyday aids us in seeing what the conditions and possibilities before us

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“are” when we put our fingers to the keys to read, write, and search online. That possibility enables a new kind of ecopoetics: one as unexpected and perhaps initially as jarring as any Flarfist juxtaposition (Eco-Flarf?), but nonetheless necessary. To apply the term environment only to the organic natures of wilderness, weed, and soil limits what Jakob von Uexküll proposed thinking of as “spatial-temporal worlds” (Sheringham 108). Forged out of interactions with our surroundings, environments are subjectively angled. Yet in their convergence, such individual orders come together to serve as “building blocks” for larger coherencies (Appadurai 33).1 At each stage, environments are conglomerates of the organic and technological: thoroughly “drenched . . . with human manipulation” (Peters 2). In the Anthropocene, elemental media theorist John Durham Peter reflects, “the human stamp touches all” (48). Such facts have consequences: for the delineations of what we deem “environment” as well as our models for ecologically engaged models of writing and thought. A fully realized ecopoetics must attune awareness not just to “bears, foxes, woods, mountains,” as poet and theorist Marcella Durand has challenged, but “water reservoirs, the inside of televisions, . . . subway tunnels” (“The Ecology of Poetry” 59). The environment we variously describe as “online,” “digital,” or “net,” but most regularly designate as “the internet” can be added to that list. In honing our attention to the specifics of that addition, Flarf takes on Durand’s call to an attuning and, ultimately, “investigative” ecopoetry (“The Elegy of Ecopoetics” 253). To set up the initially counterintuitive case for Flarf as an analytical category able to launch a productively expanded ecopoetics requires a number of steps: a more thorough account of the formation’s origins, for one, and consideration of Flarf’s procedures in comparison with competing poetic-digital experiments, for another. Most fundamentally, however, such assertions require that we take Flarf’s identification as an avantgarde endeavor seriously. 1

In his most accessible outline of the environment concept, the 1934 picture book Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen, Uexküll likens subjective environments to individual “soap bubbles” (“Seifenblasen”) that “interpenetrate without friction” (“reibungslos durchschneiden”) (46).

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Of Avant-Gardes, Affordances, and the Birth of Twenty-First-Century Poetry from the Spirit of Scam As avant-gardes are projects, the most productive question is not the perennial “What is an Avant-Garde?” but rather “What Does an AvantGarde Do?”. To this, the answer would tend to be: first, they aim and, then, they fail. No historic advance guard has succeeded in sublating the confrontational energies of art experiment into a genuinely new “praxis of life,” as premier avant-garde theorist Peter Bürger first phrased it in 1974 (Theory 22). However, as he has more recently emphasized, “that failure . . . should not be equated with a lack of effectiveness and importance” (“Neo-Avant-Garde” 700). Indeed, avant-garde operations have an important effect independent of supposed failure: if not for revolutionary transformation of future life, certainly for an analysis of present conditions. As Bürger outlines in his touchstone Theory of the Avant-Garde, irritations of institutional framings, presumptions, and the like are the means of a self-reflection that renders objective relations “recognizable” (Theory 22). For the forward-driving artistic militant, recognizing current conditions is a preparation for their reconfiguration. However, when the larger transformation stalls or is eschewed and, in either case, when the initially provocative bite of subversion dulls, however, this heightening of “recognizability” remains a core element and enduring achievement of avant-garde efforts.2 Flarf fits especially well into this adjusted perspective on the avantgarde—understood not as an advance guard blazing into the future but rather as an “overt guard” illuminating the present—because Flarf places “use” at the generative center of its poetic practices. Beyond all surface crudity, this is the most significant of Flarf’s gambits. Casting the poet as “user” not only irritates established visions of the writer: from romantic models of expression through more modern notions of the artist as “catalyst” or mere “copyist” (Eliot, “Tradition” 31; and Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing 12). This approach aligns the supposedly cerebral task 2

For insight into ongoing discussions of avant-garde definition, see the 2010 special issue of New Literary History on “What is an Avant-Garde?” edited by Jonathan Eburne and Rita Felski that features Bürger’s own reflection on “Avant-Garde and Neo-Avant-Garde. ”

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of writing with “ways of operating” in the world that are materially implicated and multilayered (de Certeau xi). Use goes beyond accessing a resource or deploying a specific tool. Such actions also do more than provide material for a later analysis. More radically, use itself can be understood as a kind of analysis. Uexküll famously evokes a meadow stroll to illustrate his understanding of environment (22). The same scenario can help illustrate the close connection between analysis and use if we, for example, imagine ourselves strolling across a tree-bordered field in early fall. In the absence of usual kitchen gadgets, a stone might be picked up to crack open a nut. That choice is not based on conventional understandings of function (as it would in the case of a nutcracker or even a hammer), but rather on a situational assessment of the object’s suitability for the task at hand. Pounding hopefully cracks the nutshell. Handling, however, likely fosters awareness of other things one might do with a rock: singly or in combination with other items in the vicinity. A lone rock could weigh down papers, a pile of stones could fend off attackers, mud and pebbles could be built up into a wall, and so on. In this manner, assessment shifts from an analysis of individual elements and momentary possibilities to a wider-angled assessment of “spatial-temporal world” or, in a word, environment (Sheringham 108). These propositions regarding use as a form of analysis evolve out of the affordance concept. The perceptual psychologist James J. Gibson coined the term in the 1970s to designate what an environment “offers . . . provides or furnishes, either for good or ill” (127; emphasis in the original). Consequent affordance theory has been pivotal for the practice and academic study of design in the last decades. Affordance is also beginning to play a more central role in social studies and humanities inquiry (see, esp. Levine 1-23). Its origins, however, lie in the study of yet more fundamental contexts. As Julka Almquist and Julia Lupton remind in an overview essay of 2009, Gibson’s concept “began as an ecological idea, a way of understanding the various forms of life that a particular habitat could afford a variety of species.” This perspective ultimately “calls us back to a broader environmental view . . .— ʻenvironmental’ not only in the . . . sense of sensitive to resources and sustainability, but also in the sense of engaging interconnected networks of meaning and use” (11-12).

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Attention to use thereby opens broader analytical horizons. Any practice, attentively considered, can enact such an expansion. Through conceptual and medial self-consciousness, art practices can add attuning emphasis. An art practice committed to avant-garde provocation and the imperative of “recognizability,” however, pursues such insights with the greatest possible drama. So it has been with Flarf, which certainly did not begin politically but as something of a prank. As Gary Sullivan tells it, his primary motivation in submitting the text “Mmm-hmm” to poetry.com at the beginning of the 2000s was to expose the “scam” of the site’s supposed “poetry contest.” It was “the most offensive poem I could manage,” he writes, beginning “Mmm-hmmm / Yeah, mmm-hmm, it’s true / Big birds make / Big doo!” and concluding “HAI-EE! shout out loud / Cuz I love thee. Thank you God, for listening!” (Sullivan qtd. in Bernstein 3, 1-4, 1920). Befitting a swindle, “Mmm-hmm” was promptly honored with a publication offer: inclusion in a “coffee-table quality” bound poetry collection (Sullivan qtd. in Bernstein 3).3 Sullivan did not immediately dash off a check for this deluxe edition. Instead, he spread the word about poetry.com in another, more exclusive corner of the internet poetry community: the invitation-only “subpoetics” listserv. In the late 1990s, this discussion forum had branched off from the public “poetics” listserv set up by the poet Charles Bernstein at SUNY Buffalo (active 1994-2014). That split already signaled a certain rebellion or, at the minimum, a desire on the part of younger creatives to distance themselves from an older generation of once rebellious, now academically established poets. The 1970s-era L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry that Bernstein is closely associated with shook up the dogmas of 3

In 2003, Charles Bernstein solicited accounts of Flarf’s origins from the poet Michael Magee to use for a course on contemporary poetry that he was then teaching at SUNY Buffalo. Magee sent his own reflections as well as those of other Flarfists. The resulting “Flarf Files” are actually one file of snippets that have been cut from correspondence, websites, and so on and pasted into a continuous electronic document that is now the standard documentation of the formation’s development. For ease of reference, citations indicate the individual poet’s name within the Bernstein-edited compendium as well as the print-out page. For an account of Flarf genesis within a broader sociohistorical context, see Reed, Nobody’s Business 88-120.

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personally expressive poetry generally preached in midcentury writing workshops. Bernstein and associates, in contrast, made language itself the “active agent” in writing and all other “constructions of being and the real” (McCaffery 143). By the 1990s, however, the rebel was a professor and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry the new standard.4 Bombarding poetry.com with “more of these awful poems” gave the “subpoetic” separatists a mass-culture target apart from intergenerational rebellion (Sullivan qtd. in Bernstein 4). An equally significant factor fueling their aggression was arguably the participatory model that poetry.com espouses to this day. On its current homepage, the site promises that “7 Million poets will review your poems.” Those seven million are simply the seven million logged contributors to the site. Such an understanding of the poetic enterprise stands in diametrical opposition to an invitation-only listserv. The prospect of “7 Million” threatens to depreciate the cultural capital accruing to the job title “poet”: the principal capital that experimental writers in the “subpoetics” mode might hope to possess. The current iteration of poetry.com even offers “achievement badges.” Commenting on, liking a poem, sharing material via social media and contributing work all earn points that can elevate users to the rank of “talented poet” (499-999 points), “distinguished poet” (1,0002,249 points), or “poet laureate” (6,250-14,999 points). The antagonism between the “subpoetic” poets and poetry.com would make for an interesting study in patterns (and parodies) of prestige accrual at the millennium. Nonetheless, the more important development to come out of the listserv’s infiltration of the participatory poetry business was the solidification of a particular tactic for creating “awful poems.” Purposefully bad content set the course for consciously disjunctive composition methods. Key to that change was a shift in the use of the internet. What was initially an arena of conflict became a source of materials. In short, Sullivan and colleagues such as K. Silem Mohammad, Michael Magee, Kate Degentesh, and Drew Gardner “discovered” Google.

4

For a useful short account of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing, see McCaffery. On the concept and the institutionalization of late twentieth-century poetry, see Lazer.

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These poets had become interested in the community composition enabled by listserv post-and-reply threads. Even more so, the masses of paratactical material that search engines could trawl up caught their attention. This was the start for yet another listserv: “flarflist” debuted in 2001. Internet fascination also triggered the procedure that has become the distinguishing feature of Flarf. From this point on, Google searching became the standard Flarfist first step. Key words or sequences thereof, very often contrastive unto the ridiculous are input. Poetry is then composed out of the output, but with the following limitation: only first-tier search results are used. Links are never traced back to full sites and original documents. “Hits” remain suggestive snippets sans contextualization. The cullings are, however, given new coherence in the work. Materials are brought together with an eye to “bringing out their inherent awfulness”; the cultivation of “a corrosive, cute, or cloying, awfulness” is the goal according to ur-Flarfist Sullivan (qtd. in Bernstein 2). Thus, the search “Pizza” + “Kitty” provides the fodder for a mix of gun-toting violence and cats-in-costumes kitsch: Kitty Goes Postal-wants pizza. Kitty has hat & cape and looks like a magician . . . Observe kitty eating a slice of pizza. “Eat some free pizza, Kitty!” YUM (pizza man impatient at the door) ............................ “Take off your shoes, bitch” Base Mood, icky. Kitty Mood. BOOM BOOM. . . . (Koeneke)

In the process, an artistic niche grouping moves closer to the mainstream. Standard poetic formats such as the line and stanza, rhyme, simple humor, and, above all, the construction of poetry out of generally accessible materials is closer to the open ethos of poetry.com than the selective “subpoetics” stance. In this regard it is important to recall that Flarf took shape at the millennium, prior to the across-board “personalization” of Google Search in 2009. From this point on, search results have not just been ranked according to frequency of cross-reference (as

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per the previously standard Page Rank algorithm) but on the basis of individual factors such as location (by way of IP address) and prior user preferences (primarily obtained via http cookies). Those last dimensions of personalization have been regarded particularly critically; they narrow a supposedly world-wide web into an ever more limited echo chamber (see, esp. Pariser). In the early 2000s, however, a “standard Google” with uniform search results was still a possibility. Accordingly, there is a very literal truth to the Flarfist claim of creating “MAINSTREAM poetry for a MAINSTREAM world” (Magee, mainstreampoetry). The phrases, commonplaces, and even disjunctions their work highlights are all mined from the collective archive of the internet. That mainstream focus hardly halts an avant-garde’s slide out of the spotlight. Indeed, it may well accelerate that process. Flarf provokes by intensifying what is already common. Normalization is the flip side of such amplification. Similarly, the procedures of Flarf are easily adaptable into more general poetic practices that do not necessary end in “corrosive, cute, or cloying, awfulness” (Sullivan qtd. in Bernstein 2). As for Flarf itself, languages of contradiction inevitably lose their charge over time, particularly when the contexts of their deployment are no longer current. This is certainly true for political Flarf such as Degentesh’s “. . . Let’s Rebuild the Twin Towers in Ny . . . On your Pizza” or Sharon Mesmer’s 2007 mash-up of a George W. Bush phrase with sex tip tidbits: “I Wanna Make Love to You on Mission Accomplished Day.” While American jingoism has hardly been eliminated in the interim. Bush’s retirement and the now actual (not just “officially” asserted) withdrawal of US troops from Iraq have robbed the occasional piece of its occasion. What remains is the “recognizability” effect of avant-garde processes und use-based analysis (Bürger, Theory 22). While Flarf is hardly alone in engaging with new digital resources post-2000, its attention at a key moment in the development of interaction attunes in an illuminating way to what this environment “offers. . . provides, or furnishes, either for good or ill” (Gibson 127; emphases in the original).

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Modernist Uncreativity in an Age of Internet Modernity As we have seen, Flarf recalls any number of earlier twentieth-century avant-garde practices. Yet, the most important modernist tradition that Flarf participates in is that of “unoriginal genius.” “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal” is T. S. Eliot’s summation (“Massinger” 182). In his thinking, the transformative “theft” of tradition is what ultimately keeps a poet within tradition, although the idea itself breaks with prominent nineteenth-century positions on artistic originality and ideals of self-determination. In the updated version of “individual talent” that Eliot so influentially argued for receptivity and information management take the place of “genius.” From this vantage point, the “strong poet” of modernism does not stand apart from the rest of the general, generally non-poetic population. We all must navigate what the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries referred to as print, picture, and general media “flood” (James 651) and our day very similarly describes as “flows”, collected, channeled, generated, and expanded by the multimedia “technoscape” of the internet (Appadurai 33). That last development has intensified the challenge, and arguably also the necessity, of “unoriginal genius.” It is not simply a matter of composing “for the computer screen,” as Marjorie Perloff emphasizes in her reflections on modernist “unoriginality,” but rather writing “in an environment of hyperinformation” (xi; emphasis in the original). And “hyper” in this context is to be understood in qualitative as well as quantitative terms. The interconnections of the net have become not just our principle means of communicating, informing ourselves, and documenting our world. The increasingly common, ever more anxious consensus is that the internet makes our world. “If it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist,” is how Kenneth Goldsmith puts it, clinching his point with anecdotal punch: “You might deny this until you realize that much of your self-worth is derived from Googling yourself” (“If” 1). Goldsmith is a deejay, professor, openaccess archivist, and, since 2013, the first Poet Laureate of the New York Museum of Modern Art. In the convergence of these roles, Goldsmith has become something of a celebrity in the US-American cultural scene as well as globally. As of January 2015, the youtube video of his White House Poetry Night performance has collected over 11,000

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clicks. He is also the contemporary poet whom Perloff most consistently links with the “unoriginal genius” ideal of our present day (146-65). Goldsmith, in turn, frequently links back to Perloff and her propositions in his own reflections. Accordingly, he concludes: Perloff’s notion of unoriginal genius should not be seen merely as a theoretical conceit but rather as a realized artistic practice, one that dates back to the early part of the twentieth century. . . . Today technology has exacerbated these mechanic tendencies in writing . . . inciting young writers to take their cues from the workings of technology and the Web as ways of constructing literature. As a result, writers are exploring ways of writing that have been thought, traditionally, to be outside the scope of literary practice: word processing, databasing, and intensive programming, to name just a few. (Uncreative Writing 2)

One of the approaches that Goldsmith does not list is Flarf, although it does eventually come up in his remarks: in an after-thought like clause: “and an entire movement of writing, called Flarf, that is based on grabbing the worst of Google search results” (Uncreative Writing 4; emphasis in the original). Allotting Flarf addendum status is not wholly unjustified in the context of Goldsmith’s remarks. The term has, after all, come to serve as a kind of branding à la Imagism as opposed to the general modes of “uncreative writing” that Goldsmith lists in introduction. However, another reason for deferred reference perhaps lies in the fact that Flarf has generally been positioned in competitive apposition to the writing model that Goldsmith stands for: not just “uncreative,” but “conceptual” poetry. While the term “conceptualism” obviously predates the millennium, Goldsmith and a number of other writers have taken up this tag of 1960s visual and sculptural arts to set up a longer tradition of experimental writing. Dating conceptualism back to the likes of Denis Diderot then gives cohesion (and the cachet of the venerable) to word art projects underway in the early 2000s (Dworkin and Goldsmith 186-87). The degree to which Flarf can be deemed “conceptual” has been subject to debate, one that is often playful, but nonetheless marked by a will to differentiation (edged in denigration). The poet Vanessa Place offers “Notes on Why Conceptualism is Better than Flarf” (2010), arguing: “Conceptualism asks what is poetry? . . . It is allegorical . . . It compromises and complicates the question of . . . text.” In a word, it is

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“legit” (1-2). The Flarfist Gardner rebuts with “Why Flarf is Better than Conceptualism” (2010). “Conceptualism,” he contends, “is never about anything other than Conceptualism itself.” In contrast, “Flarf is poetry.” And, thus, “it is about everything that is not poetry. . . . Flarf is life” (1-2). The antagonism is predictable. While the black-clad conceptualist allies her work with art and rigor, the Flarfist plays the part of the democratic trickster. Such face-offs make for entertaining poetry evenings. More substantially, the cultivated opposition between the “conceptual” and “Flarfiful” offers a useful initial framework for assessing what twenty-first century hyperinformation environments afford poetry and what the different poetic uses of these environments analytically reveal: about the writing models, but also the larger environment of larger modernity in which these poetries operate. Like the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, whose close heirs they are, conceptual writers have no truck with the personally expressive and little patience with either fuzzy feelings or conventional reading pleasures. Thus, far more fundamentally than Flarf, their principal enemy is the “lyrical.” Conceptualists consequently aim to eradicate the subjective in the final written text as well as the composition process. At all stages, in conceptualist writing the process is the poetic message. Transcription is one of the most straightforward conceptualist procedures, albeit complicated through specific constraints. In “dicktée” (1997), for instance, Judith Goldman chronologically collects all of the words in Moby Dick (1851) beginning with “un.” The resulting lists are brought together in blocks of continuous text in which the assumed negativity of the anchoring prefix is countered by a range of other words in which “un” evokes plentitude. Thus, “unaccountable, unwarranted, unimaginable, unnatural” meets “unite . . . understand . . . universal”. The very repetition of “un” creates a veritably undulating sound chain: akin to waves. Meanwhile the text insists “understand, understand, understand,” while repeating “under, under” (243-44). The print words that Moby Dick is constructed of thereby carry not only the overt subject of the novel within them, the whaling ship’s passage, but also the allegorical drive to go deeper “under, under” the surface and “understand, understand, understand” allegorical implications.

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In other projects the procedure specifics pertain to overall system blueprints rather than elements within larger structures. Such works aim to mimic the machineries that poetry, but also writing and modern life generally operate from. These overarching orders include consumer capitalism and informational architectures as well as language. The conceptual poets and theorists Robert Fitterman and Vanessa Place speak of a “radical mimesis” (20) they see represented by texts such as Goldsmith’s Day: a four month-long and, eventually, 840-page retyping of the September 1, 2000 edition of the New York Times. Another example is Fitterman’s own “Directory” (2009). What this poem puts before us is a North American mall directory in its physical layout, slightly shuffled so that each element gains that intensified presence and perpetual renewal that is consumer capitalism’s means of drawing us into the physical retail spaces of “Gymboree,” “GNC,” “Cinnabon,” and so on, as Goldman has argued of her fellow conceptualist’s work (“Rethinking” 11). This interest in underlying structures carries into conceptualist interactions with the internet. As Goldsmith writes in the early 2010s: “What we take to be graphics, sounds, and motions in our screen world is merely a thick skin under which resides miles and miles of language.” This is code and its lures with a “glimpse under the hood” of modernity’s motor (Uncreative Writing 16-17). Flarf resists. By working with search results and ignoring the algorithms behind them, Flarf poetry stays on the hyperinformation surface. Yet more problematic in the conceptualist view, however, Flarfists consciously shape those superficial materials, thereby giving subjective form to the largely impersonal pre-2009 procedures of Googling. That crafting recalls the lyric with its grounding in the speaking “I.” If we are not “overhearing” a subject’s thoughts and feelings, as in standard definitions of the lyrical, the results offer at least “a trace of the poet’s various subjective states” at the moment of search engine input and further collaging (Ashton 99). Such composing further tends to smooth over the contrasts of the material’s Googled beginnings and thereby distances the final product from the disjunctiveness that the affinities of Flarf with Dada encourage us to expect. While Dada aims for “continuous contradiction” and preaches the “distrust of unity” in its programs (Tzara 7677), Flarf composition is described with metaphors of connective craft:

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from the homespun registers of “stitching” to the higher arts of “sculpting” (see, e.g., Ashton 95 and Reed, “In Other Words” 778). Those are hardly the tropes of a tradition-busting avant-garde. They do, however, suggest something about the overt-guard properties of Flarf poetry. If not in its code, then certainly in its use, the “new media” of the “hyperinformation age” intersect with far older aesthetic drives and principles that we do not initially connect with the technological. Cybermulch: A Conclusion Once upon a time in the 1980s, electronic information space was envisioned as “Cyberspace": “a graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. . . . Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of date. Like city lights, receding . . .” (Gibson 51). The ideal of the impersonal at the heart of conceptualist poetics privileges procedures of program mimicry. The result is a vision of the electronic environment as a codeconstructed space in which information flows, but the undergirding holds in a manner akin to William Gibson’s now dusty conception of an ordered virtual world. As Craig Dworkin has written, conceptualism is primarily concerned with “database logic” which it aims to lay bare: from its coded undergirding to the “other, far more ominous, activities” that utilize this grid (56). In using the affordance of the search engine, Flarf illuminates more superficial, certainly less immediately chilling aspects of current information environments than the government surveillance that Dworkin has in mind: use, play, pleasure, and, not least, degeneration. These dimensions of internet experience do not necessarily depart from, nor disarm the hegemonies of our times. Yet, for this experience and the overall constitution of the internet as a networked resource these aspects are arguably pivotal. To solely focus on “database logic” blinds us to the wider dynamics of the interface. To Goldsmith’s oft-repeated adage—“If it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist”—we can add another: “Nothing on the internet ever goes away.” As with most commonplaces, that last statement is both accurate and misleading. It is accurate in the sense that data, once input, lingers; pace the promises of Facebook and online identity “cleanup”

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services and even the European Court of Justice’s recent 2014 declaration of a “right to be forgotten.” That “right” only applies to the indexing of information by Google in the European Union. The original content pages remain and any non-European search engine can easily lead users to what you would rather have forgotten (see, “Google Spain and Google”). At the same, “never goes away” misleads because this information changes over time and, above all, through access. This transformation differs from the specific physical deterioration of carrier media known as “bit rot,” technological lags that cut off access, and so-called “link death.” What occurs might rather be called hyperinformation “rot” and best described as progressive decontexualization. Searches, repostings, linking, cut-and-pastes, pinning, and the like all untether words and images from their original embedding. That is a kind of decomposition. But, as every gardener knows decomposition is as much a negation as a precondition for growth. A comparable cycle of degeneration and creation “makes” the internet: not as a “concept” or an abstract “cyberspace” architecture, but as an environment of interactions. Flarf, parsed out, equals the “barf” of the internet, “fluffed” up for use that seems, in the first instance, largely self-serving. Conceptualism might never “be about anything other than Conceptualism itself,” as Gardner once charged (1), but Flarf is just as much about the posings of its practitioners. In the end, however, that recourse draws attention to decomposition as a constitutive principle of Flarf’s sourcing ground, which has become our own principle common ground or interactive public sphere. Flarf makes art out of e-detritus: the byproduct, but also building blocks of the shared electronic world. In doing so, this poetry highlights the ludic and aesthetic dimensions of our participation in this environment. We play with online offerings and take pleasure in collection, juxtaposition, wit, riposte, and so on, whether on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, or in the composition practice called Flarf. These uses create the internet as we experience it. This perspective on the production of internet spaces lies between cyberutopianism and suspicion. In the former view, the web is radically democratic. Ideology critique powers the latter point of view, giving rise to formulations such as “corporate algorithm” and fostering understandings of the search engine as a “conduit” set up to transfer capitalist ideology directly to your desktop (Hoy 1, 4). Google is, without question, a corporation and, as such, a profit-keen enterprise. The role that this

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company plays in gatekeeping the internet, guiding our interactions with it, and, thereby, shaping online experience give us plenty of reason to “worry,” as a widely read critique of global “Googlization” counsels us to (see, e.g.,Vaidhyanathan). For example, one can well distrust the altruistic spin that Google gives its 2009 announcement of “Personalized Search for everyone.” From this day forward they are not so much implementing a technological change, as “helping people” (Horling and Kulick 1). But suspicion should not blind us to the fact search operations are user-cued, not corporate headquarters-scripted. The “personalized” algorithm mimics existing use patterns. Those who search for recipes and regularly check a website like epicurous.com will receive “hits” from this commonly frequented website before others, as Google outlines in the original announcement (1). In other words, personalized search optimizes what we already do with the resources of the internet or, alternatively phrased, what the internet affords us. The result is inadequately reduced to top-down indoctrination or even panoptical surveillance. What develops is rather an environment that can be a “bubble” of perpetually repeated, mutually reinforcing opinions (see, Pariser), but perhaps also hold the potential for more broadly “interconnected networks of meanings and uses” (Almquist and Lupton 12) Flarf draws our attention to both the echo chamber tendencies and expansion possibilities of internet use. The echoes can be heard most clearly in the reiteration of cliché, standardized consumer references, and the lowest common denominator of public opinion. Expansion, in contrast, shows itself in this poetry’s playful use of an internet that is not monolithic at all, but rather a mass that breaks down and can be built back up into new configurations. Above all, Flarf demonstrates, well before the implementation of expressly “Personalized Search,” the subjective drive of internet interactions and, thereby, the subjective grounds of the online environments we create. In our use, we are not being led by the “flow” of information as much as picking, choosing, and thereby giving a personal angle to what the “MAINSTREAM” that Flarf writes out in bold-faced capitals (Magee, mainstreampoetry). Such perspectives fit into the expanded ecopoetics that Durand has called for with particular eloquence, but hardly as a singular voice in contemporary ecological thinking (see also Nolan 88). Ecopoetics is a useful term for capturing interest and highlighting connections according Durand, but the category “itself needs to be flexible enough to ac-

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commodate the stream of information and rethinking and renaming that is ongoing around ecology,” but also “culture” and various forms of “science at the moment,” among them inevitably sciences of communication and information (“What is more natural”). That flexibility is not just about keeping the canon of “ecologically minded poetry” open. It is necessary for the larger project of ecological criticism, most broadly outlined by Timothy Morton as the thinking of radical interconnection: “Everything is interconnected. This is the ecological thought” (Thought 1; emphasis in the original). Such a project is in its own way avant-garde. Morton has irritated any number of presumptions, procedures, and institutional framings of the “social subsystem” that is ecological criticism by contesting Romantic notions of a reified “Nature” one can escape to. Ecology Without Nature is, from this perspective, both a book title and rallying cry. Just as important for such an endeavor, however, is a revision of the cultural pole of interconnection: the man-made world that subjects aim to escape from in fantasies of an idealized natural world. To pursue “the ecological thought” without fetters, we arguably require “Technology Without Determinism” as much as “Nature sans Reification.” Unlikely as it might initially seem, such a revamped 2.0 version of ecological thinking could well begin with the purposeful awfulness of Flarf. What this seemingly minor, but ultimately instructive early twenty-first-century practice illuminates is the productivity, rather than determinations, of our internet interactions. As Gardner concludes in his list of reasons “Why Flarf is Better then Conceptualism”: “Flarf is Compost” (1). That statement can be applied to the materials that Flarf poetry draws our attention to, but also potentially to the uses that we can make of Flarf’s analytical insights. Works Cited Almquist, Julku, and Julia Lupton. “Design-Oriented Research from the Humanities and Social Sciences.” Design Issues 26.1 (2010): 3-14. Print. Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. Print. Ashton, Jennifer. “Sincerity and the Second Person: Lyric after Language Poetry.” Intervl(le)s 11.2-111.1 (2008/2009): 94-108. Print.

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Bernstein Charles. The Flarf Files. Aug. 2003. epc.buffalo.edu. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Bürger, Peter. “Avant-Garde and Neo-Avant-Garde: An Attempt to Answer Certain Critics of Theory of the Avant-Garde.” Trans. Bettina Brandt and Daniel Purdy. New Literary History 41.4 (2010): 695-715. Print. ---. Theory of the Avant-Garde. Trans. Michael Shaw. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984. Print. Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: U of California P, 2008. Print. Degentesh, Kate. “. . . Let’s Rebuild The Twin Towers in Ny . . . On Your Pizza.” Arras 5 (2003): 12-13. Print. Durand, Marcella. “The Ecology of Poetry.” Ecopoetics 2 (2002): 58-62. Print. ---. “The Elegy of Ecopoetics.” Interim 29.1-2 (2011): 252-57. Print. ---. “What is more natural: thinking space and poetry” (Conversation with Sina Queryas). Harriet: A Poetry Blog. poetryfoundation. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Dworkin, Craig. “The Imaginary Solution.” Contemporary Literature 48 (2007): 29-60. Print. Dworkin, Craig, and Kenneth Goldsmith, ed. Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2011. Print. Eliot, T. S. “Philip Massinger.” 1920. Selected Essays. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1934. 181-98. Print. ---. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” 1919. Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1975. 37-44. Print. Eburne, Jonathan P., and Rita Felski, ed. What is an Avant-Garde? Special Issue of New Literary History 41.4 (Autumn 2010). Print. Fitterman, Robert. “Directory.” July/August 2009. poetryfoundation. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Fitterman, Robert, and Vanessa Place. Notes on Conceptualism. New York: Ugly Duckling P, 2009. Print. Gardner, Drew. flarforchestra.tumblr. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Gibson, James J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Mifflin, 1979. Print Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace, 1984. Print.

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Goldman, Judith. “From ʻdicktée.’” Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing. Ed. Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2011. 243-45. Print. ---. “Re-thinking ʻNon-retinal Literature’: Citation, ʻRadical Mimesis,’ and Phenomenologies of Reading in Conceptual Writing.” Postmodern Culture 22.1 (2011). projectmuse. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Goldsmith, Kenneth. Day. Great Barrington: The Figures, 2003. Print. ---. “Flarf is Dionysus. Conceptual Writing is Apollo. July/August 2009. poetryfoundation. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. ---. “If It Doesn’t Exist on the Internet, It Doesn’t Exist” (Presented at Elective Affinities Conference, University of Pennsylvania, September 27, 2005). epc.buffalo.edu. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. ---. “Kenneth Goldsmith reads poetry at White House Poetry Night.” youtube. 12 Mai 2011. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. ---. Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. New York: Columbia UP, 2011. Print. “Google Spain and Google.” C-131/12. European Court of Justice. 2014. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. Horling, Bryan and Matthew Kulick. “Personalized Search for everyone.” Google: Official Blog. 5 Dec. 2009. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. Hoy, Dan. “The Virtual Dependency of the Post-Avant and the Problematics of Flarf: What Happens When Poets Spend Too Much Time Fucking Around on the Internet.” Jacket 29 (April 2006). Web. 12 Feb. 2015. James, Henry. “American Letters.” Literary Criticism: Essays on Literature, American Writers, English Writers. New York: The Library of America, 1984. 651-702. Print. Koeneke, Rodney. “Pizza Kitty.” mainstreampoetry. Web. 15 Sept. 2015. Lazer, Hank. “American Poetry and Its Institutions.” The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945. Ed. Jennifer Ashton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013. 158-72. Print. Levine, Caroline. Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2015. Print. McCaffery, Larry. “Language Writing.” The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945. Ed. Jennifer Ashton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013. 143-57. Print. Magee, Michael. mainstreampoetry. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.

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---. “Why Flarf is Better Than Conceptualism.” 19 April 2010. mainstreampoetry. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Mesmer, Sharon. “I Wanna Make Love to You on Mission Accomplished Day.” Postmodern American Poetry. Second Ed. Ed. Paul Hoover. New York: Norton, 2013. 696. Print. Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2010. Print. ---. Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007. Print. Nolan, Sarah. “Un-natural Ecopoetics: Natural/Cultural Intersections in Poetic Language and Form.” New International Voices in Ecocriticism. Ed. Serpil Oppermann. Lanham: Lexington, 2015. 87-99. Print. Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You. New York: Penguin, 2011. Print. Perloff, Marjorie. Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2010. Print. Peters, John Durham. The Marvelous Clouds: Toward A Philosophy of Elemental Media. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 2015. Place, Vanessa. “Notes on Why Conceptualism is Better Than Flarf.” 18 Oct. 2010. conceptualwriting101. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Poetry.com. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Reed, Brian M. “In Other Words: Postmillennial Poetry and Redirected Language.” Contemporary Literature 52.4 (2011): 756-90. Print. ---. Nobody’s Business: Twenty-First Century Avant-Garde Poetics. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2013. Print. Sheringham, Michael. “Pierre Alfier and Jakob von Uexküll: Evidence and Experience in Le Chemin familier du poisson combatif.” SubStance 39.3 (2010): 105-27. Print. Sullivan, Gary. “Jacket Flarf feature: Introduction.” Jacket 30 (July 2006). Web. 12 Feb. 2016. Tranter, John. “What was Flarf? A Jacket 30 special feature.” Jacket 2. Web. 27 Feb. 2016. Tzara, Tristan. “Seven Dada Manifestos.” The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology. Ed. and trans. Robert Motherwell. Second Ed. Cambridge: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1989. 75-86. Print.

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Uexküll, Jakob von. Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen. 1934. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1956. Print. Vaidhyanathan, Siva. The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry). Berkeley: U of California P, 2011. Print.

Contributors NASSIM WINNIE BALESTRINI, American Studies, Karl-FranzensUniversität Graz, Attemsgasse 25/II, 8010 Graz, Austria JULIANE BRAUN, North American Studies Program, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Regina-Pacis-Weg 5, 53113 Bonn, Germany MICHAELA CASTELLANOS, Department of Humanities, Mid Sweden University, 851 70 Sundsvall, Sweden JAMES DORSON, Department of Literature, John-F.-Kennedy-Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Lansstr. 7-9, 14195 Berlin, Germany CATRIN GERSDORF, American Studies, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany INGRID GESSNER, American Studies, Universität Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany EMMANUEL TRISTAN KUGLAND, American Studies, Christian-AlbrechtsUniversität zu Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, 24098 Kiel, Germany GESA MACKENTHUN, North American Literature and Culture, Universität Rostock, August-Bebel-Straße 28, 18051 Rostock, Germany WOJCIECH MAŁECKI, Institute of Polish Philology, University of Wrocław, Plac Nankiera 15, 50-140 Wrocław, Poland MICHELLE MART, History Department, Penn State Berks, The Pennsylvania State University, Tulpehocken Road, P.O. Box 7009, Reading PA 19610, USA

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Contributors

SYLVIA MAYER, Amerikastudien/Anglophone Literaturen und Kulturen, Universität Bayreuth, Universitätsstraße 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany FRANK MEHRING, North American Studies, Radboud University, PO Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, Netherlands JOHN M. MEYER, Department of Politics, Humboldt State University, 1 Harpst Street, Arcata, CA 95521, USA SASCHA PÖHLMANN, American Studies, Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität München, Schellingstr. 3, 80799 München, Germany ANTONIA PURK, American Literature, Universität Erfurt, Postfach 900 221, 99105 Erfurt, Germany J. JESSIE RAMÍREZ, American Studies, Goethe-Institut Frankfurt am Main, Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1, 60629 Frankfurt am Main, Germany HEIKE SCHÄFER, American Studies, Universität Konstanz, Fach 158, Universitätsstr. 10, 78457 Konstanz, Germany MARYANN SNYDER-KÖRBER, Department of Literature, John-F.Kennedy-Institute for North Amerian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Lansstraße 7-9, 14195 Berlin, Germany JULIE SZE, American Studies, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95615, USA BABETTE B. TISCHLEDER, Seminar für Englische Philologie, Abt. Nordamerikastudien, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Käte-HamburgerWeg 3, 37073 Göttingen, Germany LAURENZ VOLKMANN, Englische Fachdidaktik, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Ernst-AbbePlatz 8, 07743 Jena, Germany

Contributors

485

BORIS VORMANN, Political Science, John-F.-Kennedy-Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Lansstraße 7-9, 14195 Berlin, Germany FRANK ZELKO, Department of History, University of Vermont, 201 Wheeler House, 133 S. Prospect Street, Burlington, Vermont 05405, USA

isbn 978-3-8253-6605-6

Democracy, Culture, Environment

America After Nature

American Studies ★ A Monograph Series

America After Nature

s the greatest lessons of Nature through the universe are perhaps the lessons of variety and freedom, the same present the greatest lessons also in New World politics and progress.” In the opening sentence of Democratic Vistas, a text that responds to the United States’s devastating experiences of the Civil War, Walt Whitman reminds his readers that the nation should continue to find its political ideals and cultural purposes in “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Whitman’s concept of nature was anchored in the ideas of eighteenth-century natural rights philosophy, but also in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s definition of nature “in the common sense” as a totality of essences unaltered by human labor and industry. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, nature undergoes what Ursula K. Heise described as a “massive restructuring,” a process that manifests itself in many ways: as urbanization, climate change, and in a reduction of ecological variety. Whitman’s contention that nature provides the concepts and ideas at the core of America’s political, cultural, and social structure, and Heise’s suggestion that nature’s massive restructuring will not remain without consequences for the political, social, and economic constitution of modern culture(s), offer the conceptual and historical frame for the essays collected in this volume. They all investigate the social, political, ethical and aesthetic questions and controversies that are raised in the study of America in a “postnatural world” (McKibben).

gersdorf · braun (Eds.)

gersdorf · braun (Eds.) America After Nature

catrin gersdorf juliane braun (Eds.)

Volume 270