Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics

Contents

vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Environmental Hermeneutics 1 David Utsler, Forrest Clingerman, Martin Drenthen, and Brian Treanor Part I: Interpretation and the Task of Thinking Environmentally 1 Environmental Hermeneutics Deep in the Forest 17 John van Buren 2 Morrow’s Ants: E. O. Wilson and Gadamer’s Critique of (Natural) Historicism 36 Mick Smith 3 Layering: Body, Building, Biography 65 Robert Mugerauer 4 Might Nature Be Interpreted as a “Saturated Phenomenon”? 82 Christina M. Gschwandtner 5 Must Environmental Philosophy Relinquish the Concept of Nature? A Hermeneutic Reply to Steven Vogel 102 W. S. K. Cameron Contents viii Contents Part II: Situating the Self 6 Environmental Hermeneutics and Environmental/ Eco-Psychology: Explorations in Environmental Identity 123 David Utsler 7 Environmental Hermeneutics with and for Others: Ricoeur’s Ethics and the Ecological Self 141 Nathan M. Bell 8 Bodily Moods and Unhomely Environments: The Hermeneutics of Agoraphobia and the Spirit of Place 160 Dylan Trigg Part III: Narrativity and Image 9 Narrative and Nature: Appreciating and Understanding the Nonhuman World 181 Brian Treanor 10 The Question Concerning Nature 201 Sean McGrath 11 New Nature Narratives: Landscape Hermeneutics and Environmental Ethics 225 Martin Drenthen Part IV: Environments, Place, and the Experience of Time 12 Memory, Imagination, and the Hermeneutics of Place 245 Forrest Clingerman 13 The Betweenness of Monuments 264 Janet Donohoe 14 My Place in the Sun 281 David Wood 15 How Hermeneutics Might Save the Life of (Environmental) Ethics 297 Paul van Tongeren and Paulien Snellen Contents ix Notes 313 A Bibliographic Overview of Research in Environmental Hermeneutics 365 List of Contributors 373 Index 377 ...