American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism: The Middle Place by Joni Adamson (review)

Reviews quotation, providing somewhat less insight and less ofa rationale for reading her book (rather than simply those ofthewriters she encapsulates).Adamson attempts to balance her literary critic's voice with more lyrical and personal passages describing her own situatedness as an ecocritic and teacher of minority students, although she doesn't match the richness ofAbbey, Erdrich, and other authors against whose writing hers is juxtaposed. On the other hand, as literary criticism goes, the book's prose is above average: more pleasant to read than Derrida, ifnot Thoreau. And the personal, deeply felt nature ofAdamson's argument is effective and appreciated. While the core ofAdamson's argument is clear from the outset, following her chain ofreasoning requires some patience. At times, Adamson's application ofan environmental theme to American Indians' writings seems tacked on to an extent that borders on the essentialist. And her claim that the language we use is integral to our environmental positions initially appears somewhat airy. Yet, by the end, Adamson haswrapped up most ofthe loose ends, and in the process has offered up intelligent, sensitive, and pedagogically useful readings ofsome major literary figures .This book iswell worth reading andseems useful, possiblyessential, forgraduate - and professional-level work on environmental writing and ecocriticism. ¿& Joni Adamson. American Indian Literature, EnvironmentalJustice, and Ecocriticism: TheMiddle Place. Tucson: University ofArizona Press, 2001. 213p. Michael Lundblad University of Virginia As the field ofecocriticism has continued to grow in the past decade, a split has emerged among its practitioners over the question ofhow to respond to much of contemporary literary theory. Some ecocritics continue to argue that protecting endangered species and preservingwilderness areas are agendas "outside" the questions raised by post-structuralist thinkers. But others have engaged the theoretical insights ofthe past thirtyyears or so and risen to the challenge ofplacing environmental concerns into the context ofsocial justice issues. Joni Adamson's work in the field ofecocriticism has been crucial in this regard, particularly for her intervention into the way "environmentalism" and "environmental literature" often privilege the solitary, white, male sojourn into the wilderness. Adamson's recent book, American Indian Literature, EnvironmentalJustice, and Ecocriticism: The MiddlePUce, brings the ethical imperative ofpaying attention to race, class, genFALL 2002 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 115 der, and community into dialogue with mainstream environmentalism, even as it raises questions about viable methodologies for the future ofecocriticism. Adamson's method is to practice what ecocritic Scott Slovic has called "narrative scholarship," a kind ofcriticism that incorporates the critic's personal experience into discussions ofliterary texts. While her book is about American Indian literature, for example, Adamson narrates her own role as teacher at the University ofArizona inTucson and describes her visits to the nearbyTohono O'odham Nation. Stories from her classrooms intersect with larger narratives about retention rates ofAmerican Indian students at the universityand college prep programs to improve the success of Indian students coming from reservations. Adamson weaves these stories together as she discusses a range ofAmerican Indian authors, including Ofelia Zepeda, Simon Ortiz, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, and Leslie Marmon Silko. But her primary objective with each writer is to judge whether they offer models for sustainable communities and formulas for resisting hegemonic powers. This approach leads her to such conclusions as, "characters in the literature of environmental justice must be persons of action" (xx); and, these characters must be "capable ofrepresenting themselves and their people from their own perspective" (130).The question for me, though, is whethersuch an approach sets up a litmus test for judging literary works, rather than offering a more theoretically rigorous framework that might be useful for discourse analysis. Questions about such "theorizing" are certainlymore appropriate for academic audiences, and it is true thatAdamson generallycalls for an ecocriticism thatwould be useful to a broader readership. She argues thatAmerican Indian authors should be considered theorists themselves and that advocating such ideas as a "garden ethic" (borrowed from journalist and author Michael Pollan) is a way ofcalling for "literary and cultural critics to bring their theoretical workdown to earth" (97). ButAdamson is also explicit in her call for a "more satisfying, theoretically coherent ecocriticism" (50), and thus her conclusions seem to warrant careful consideration by both ecocritics and postmodernist thinkers in general. Her central...