In this Book
- Thoreaus Sense of Place: Essays in American Environmental Writing
- Book
- 2000
- Published by: University of Iowa Press
- Series: American Land & Life
summary
Recent Thoreau studies have shifted to an emphasis on the green" Thoreau, on Thoreau the environmentalist, rooted firmly in particular places and interacting with particular objects. In the wake of Buell's Environmental Imagination, the nineteen essayists in this challenging volume address the central questions in Thoreau studies today: how “green,” how immersed in a sense of place, was Thoreau really, and how has this sense of place affected the tradition of nature writing in America?
The contributors to this stimulating collection address the ways in which Thoreau and his successors attempt to cope with the basic epistemological split between perceiver and place inherent in writing about nature; related discussions involve the kinds of discourse most effective for writing about place. They focus on the impact on Thoreau and his successors of culturally constructed assumptions deriving from science, politics, race, gender, history, and literary conventions. Finally, they explore the implications surrounding a writer's appropriation or even exploitation of places and objects.
The contributors to this stimulating collection address the ways in which Thoreau and his successors attempt to cope with the basic epistemological split between perceiver and place inherent in writing about nature; related discussions involve the kinds of discourse most effective for writing about place. They focus on the impact on Thoreau and his successors of culturally constructed assumptions deriving from science, politics, race, gender, history, and literary conventions. Finally, they explore the implications surrounding a writer's appropriation or even exploitation of places and objects.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-viii
- Introduction
- pp. 1-12
- I. Relating to Place: "Between Me and It"
- Thoreau's Transcendental Ecocentrism
- pp. 28-43
- II. Imaging Place: Finding a Discourse to Match Discovery
- III. Socially Constructing Place
- Sauntering in the Industrial Wilderness
- pp. 165-178
- IV. Saving Place: Writing as Appropriation or Preservation of Nature
- Contributors
- pp. 281-284
- Works Cited
- pp. 285-300
- The American Land and Life Series
- pp. 311-312
Additional Information
ISBN
9781587293115
Related ISBN(s)
9780877457084, 9780877457206
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
50175130
Pages
324
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2000