Ecocritical Aesthetics: Language, Beauty, and the Environment

232 Pages·2018·4.409 MB·

by  Peter Quigley, Scott Slovic, Arnold Berleant, Greta Gaard, Janine DeBaise, Mark Luccarelli, Cynthia Miller, Tyler Nickl, Serpil Oppermann, Shaun Anne Tangney, Frank Stewart, Tim Hunt, Werner Bigell, Yuki Masami

ECOCRITICAL AESTHETICS

ECOCRITICAL
AESTHETICS
L ,
anguage
B ,
eauty and the
e
nvironment
EDITED BY Peter Quigley AND Scott Slovic
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Contents
Acknowledgments · vii
Introduction / Peter Quigley · 1
Part 1. The Relevance of Beauty
1 “It Is Out of Fashion to Say So”: The Language of Nature and
the Rhetoric of Beauty in Robinson Jeffers / Tim Hunt · 23
2 Thoreau’s Poetics of Nature / Arnold Berleant · 41
3 The Pout’s Nest and the Painter’s Eye / Frank Stewart · 51
4 “Yet How Beautiful It Is!”: Work, Ethics, and Beauty in
Stegner’s Angle of Repose / Tyler Nickl · 63
5 Renaissance Aesthetics, Picturesque Beauty, the Natural
Landscape: An Essay Examining the Rise and Fall of the
Impulse toward Beauty / Mark Luccarelli · 77
Part 2. Beauty and Engagement
6 Toward an Ecofeminist Aesthetic of Reconnection / Greta Gaard · 97
7 Beauty and the Body: Toward an Ecofeminist Aesthetic That
Includes Loving Our Naked Selves / Janine DeBaise · 115
8 Dystopia and Utopia in a Nuclear Landscape: Emerging
Aesthetics in Satoyama / Yuki Masami · 129
9 Know Beauty, Know Justice: Why Beauty Matters in
the Classroom / ShaunAnne Tangney · 143
Part 3. Materiality, Transcendence, and Aesthetics
10 Nature’s Colors: A Prismatic Materiality in the Natural/
Cultural Realms / Serpil Oppermann · 157
11 From the Human to the Divine: Nature in the Writings
of the Tamil Poet-Saints / Cynthia J. Miller · 173
12 Beauty as Ideological and Material Transcendence / Werner Bigell · 187
13 Toward Sustainable Aesthetics: The Poetry of Food, Sex, Water,
Architecture, and Bicycle Riding / Scott Slovic · 201
Index · 215
Acknowledgments
This book originated with a panel titled “No Beauty, No Peace: Robinson Jef-
fers and the Politics of Beauty and Justice,” which I organized for the 2012 West-
ern Literature Association conference in Lubbock, Texas. The panel was made up
of old friends and longtime Jeffers scholars: David C. Morris, David Rothman,
and ShaunAnne Tangney. We had a spirited discussion with the audience fol-
lowing the papers, emerging from the session with a shared concern that beauty
is being eclipsed in contemporary critical discourse and specifically within the
environmental humanities. The four of us from the panel had lunch that day
with Barry Lopez and Scott Slovic, and Barry and Scott immediately recognized
that our ideas could form the basis of a meaningful book project. Back home in
Hawai‘i, I received important support from my doctoral student Eric San George
and my colleague Frank Stewart, both of whom have helped me plan this project
and offered encouragement and advice during the four years it’s taken to bring
it to fruition.
In acknowledging those who have contributed in major ways to this volume,
thanks must first go to all of the contributors to the collection. I appreciate their
excellent scholarship, their patience during the editorial and publishing process,
and their speedy and careful revisions of their initial manuscripts. I also wish to
thank Scott Slovic for his collaborative, informed, friendly, and eclectic approach
to the many voices that constitute this volume. Frankly, with his hectic travels all
over the world to speak and teach, while holding down teaching and administra-
tive duties in Idaho, I was amazed at his ability to apply studious attention to the
editorial details of this project and help propel us toward publication.
Peter Quigley
University of Hawai‘i,
Manoa
vii
viii | Acknowledgments
I have never been blind to the beauty of the literary works I’ve studied for
the past several decades as an ecocritic, but until Peter Quigley and company
beckoned Barry and me over to their table in Lubbock, aesthetics had always
seemed a somewhat secondary or tertiary dimension of my scholarly preoccu-
pations. Working on this project with Peter has driven home the meaning, the
importance, of beauty in all of my work—it will never recede into the background
again. I thank Peter for his intensity and enthusiasm, his commitment to the
cause—our collaboration has been an exciting one.
Peter and I both appreciate the support of the staff at Indiana University
Press and the excellent feedback from our anonymous reviewers. This project has
benefited greatly from their contributions.
There is so much to worry about as we consider the prognosis for environ-
mental protection and social justice in the coming years—but there is also much
to celebrate. This book is a celebration of cultural engagement with the natural
world, and it is also a recognition of how beauty in nature and beauty in human
artifacts can inspire attention and activism.
Scott Slovic
University of Idaho
PErmissions
William Stafford, “Maybe Alone on My Bike,” Smoke’s Way: Poems from Lim-
ited Editions, 1968–1981. Originally published in the New Yorker, April 4, 1964.
Copyright 1964 by William Stafford. Reprinted with the permission of The Per-
missions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.
Ofelia Zepeda, “B ’o e-a:g maṣ ’ab him g ju:kǐ / It Is Going to Rain.” Reprinted
with the permission of Ofelia Zepeda.
ix