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Critical Utopianism and Bioregional Ecocriticism
- University of Georgia Press
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212 In his important study of bioregional literary criticism, David Robertson discusses some of the key components of bioregionalism: a delineation of place in terms of a bioregion, which reflects properties of the natural world rather than human artifice; a holistic integration of the individual person with that bioregion; and the interconnectedness of physical world, human psychology, and spirituality. Bioregional literary criticism, Robertson continues, is characterized by the drive “to identify and understand the niche of writers in their bioregional habitat” (1017). Although Robertson deftly articulates several components of bioregionalism , much more is involved. As a concept and as an ecosocial movement, bioregionalism is compelling in part because it is highly inclusive. It assumes an interweaving of humans and nature, emphasizing the value of nature while also emphasizing human life within nature, making use of nature as one of its parts rather than merely contemplating it from the outside . It has a profound psychological and spiritual dimension (as Robertson highlights), while at the same time it is has social, political, and economic dimensions. It also works on the personal level as well as the social structural level. And it has on the one hand a pragmatic and reformist aspect of micro-level work being done now on the ground (such as farmers markets D av i d L a n d i s B a r n h i l l Critical Utopianism and Bioregional Ecocriticism We can . . . consider a bioregion as a unit of space where, by locating ourselves there, we place ourselves in a physical, mental, and spiritual relationship with the whole. David Robertson, “Bioregionalism in American Nature Writing” Utopianism & Ecocriticism 213 or cohousing), and on the other a radical, transformist, and utopian aspect, imagining and working toward an ideal society in harmony with the community of life. A fully developed bioregional literary criticism needs to draw on all of these aspects. Robertson says we place ourselves in a physical, mental, and spiritual relationship with the whole; I would add that we also place ourselves in a social, political, and economic relationship with the whole, a whole that includes human society in all its complexities, problems, and utopian potentials. The bioregional habitat we identify with, then, involves not merely physical space but also social structures, economic systems, and political power. Somehow those elements need to be part of bioregional literary criticism. When they are, the importance of the utopian dimension of bioregionalism becomes more evident. It is a conceptualization and application of utopian bioregional literary criticism that I articulate in this chapter. Adapted from “Some of the Places and Peoples Known to the Kesh” by Ursula K. Le Guin from Always Coming Home, with permission [18.191.87.65] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 20:54 GMT) David Landis Barnhill 214 C R I T I C A L U T O P I A N I S M A N D B I O R E G I O N A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M Utopianism as a social philosophy has suffered from bad press. It has been accused of being an irrelevant dreaming that fails to analyze society’s problems and a compensatory fantasy that keeps one from responding to those problems. In addition, critics argue that utopia consists of an ideal of perfection that is either impossible or at the least unachievable from where we are. And even if we could achieve it, utopias may turn out to have profoundly dystopian characteristics, in some cases a totalitarian imposition of happiness. But utopian thinkers, including literary critics, claim that utopian imagination is essential. If we have any hope of really discerning the outrages of today’s society and moving toward a better one, we must cultivate the ability to imagine something else.1 Antonio Gramsci has argued that one of the chief goals of those in power is precisely to suppress that ability. Thus we have conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s oft-repeated slogan about the global dominance of neoliberalism: “There is no alternative .” Utopianism asserts that there are alternatives. To use Lyman Tower Sargent’s term, utopianism is a form of “social dreaming” that enables us to imagine radically different positive alternatives (3). And bioregionalism in its utopian dimension does just that. Recent developments in utopian thought have revealed some of the significance of this social dreaming and have responded to critics of utopianism . One of the most important...