Author: Kathleen Dean Moore
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318585
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Can the love reserved for family and friends be extended to a place? “Luminous essays” on nature and environmental stewardship (Booklist). Named one of the Top Ten Northwest Books of the Year by the Oregonian In this book, acclaimed author Kathleen Dean Moore, a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for Holdfast, reflects on how deeply the environment is entrenched in the human spirit, despite the notion that nature and humans are somehow separate. Moore’s essays, deeply felt and often funny, make connections in what can appear to be a disconnected world. Written in parable form, her stories of family and friends—of wilderness excursions with her husband and children, camping trips with students, blowing up a dam, her daughter’s arrest for protesting the war in Iraq—affirm an impulse of caring that belies the abstract division of humans from nature, of the sacred from the mundane. Underlying these wonderfully engaging stories is the author’s belief in a new ecological ethic of care, one that expands the idea of community to include the environment, and embraces the land as family. “Stands with the best tradition of nature writing.” —The Oregonian
The Pine Island Paradox
Author: Kathleen Dean Moore
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318585
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Can the love reserved for family and friends be extended to a place? “Luminous essays” on nature and environmental stewardship (Booklist). Named one of the Top Ten Northwest Books of the Year by the Oregonian In this book, acclaimed author Kathleen Dean Moore, a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for Holdfast, reflects on how deeply the environment is entrenched in the human spirit, despite the notion that nature and humans are somehow separate. Moore’s essays, deeply felt and often funny, make connections in what can appear to be a disconnected world. Written in parable form, her stories of family and friends—of wilderness excursions with her husband and children, camping trips with students, blowing up a dam, her daughter’s arrest for protesting the war in Iraq—affirm an impulse of caring that belies the abstract division of humans from nature, of the sacred from the mundane. Underlying these wonderfully engaging stories is the author’s belief in a new ecological ethic of care, one that expands the idea of community to include the environment, and embraces the land as family. “Stands with the best tradition of nature writing.” —The Oregonian
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
ISBN: 1571318585
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Can the love reserved for family and friends be extended to a place? “Luminous essays” on nature and environmental stewardship (Booklist). Named one of the Top Ten Northwest Books of the Year by the Oregonian In this book, acclaimed author Kathleen Dean Moore, a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for Holdfast, reflects on how deeply the environment is entrenched in the human spirit, despite the notion that nature and humans are somehow separate. Moore’s essays, deeply felt and often funny, make connections in what can appear to be a disconnected world. Written in parable form, her stories of family and friends—of wilderness excursions with her husband and children, camping trips with students, blowing up a dam, her daughter’s arrest for protesting the war in Iraq—affirm an impulse of caring that belies the abstract division of humans from nature, of the sacred from the mundane. Underlying these wonderfully engaging stories is the author’s belief in a new ecological ethic of care, one that expands the idea of community to include the environment, and embraces the land as family. “Stands with the best tradition of nature writing.” —The Oregonian
Riverwalking
Author: Kathleen Dean Moore
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156004619
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Twenty essays offer observations on rivers, life, love, loss, motherhood, happiness, evolution, and country music.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156004619
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Twenty essays offer observations on rivers, life, love, loss, motherhood, happiness, evolution, and country music.
Moral Ground
Author: Kathleen Dean Moore
Publisher: Trinity University Press
ISBN: 1595341056
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 503
Book Description
Moral Ground brings together the testimony of over eighty visionaries—theologians and religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturalists, activists, and writers—to present a diverse and compelling call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibility to our planet. In the face of environmental degradation and global climate change, scientific knowledge alone does not tell us what we ought to do. The missing premise of the argument and much-needed center piece in the debate to date has been the need for ethical values, moral guidance, and principled reasons for doing the right thing for our planet, its animals, its plants, and its people. Contributors from throughout the world (including North America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe) bring forth a rich variety of heritages and perspectives. Their contributions take many forms, illustrating the rich variety of ways we express our moral beliefs in letters, poems, economic analyses, proclamations, essays, and stories. In the end, their voices affirm why we must move beyond a scientific study and response to embrace an ongoing model of repair and sustainability. These writings demonstrate that scientific analysis and moral conviction can work successfully side-by-side. This is a book that can speak to anyone, regardless of his or her worldview, and that also includes a section devoted to “what next” thinking that helps the reader put the words and ideas into action in their personal lives. Thanks to generous support from numerous landmark organizations, such as the Kendeda Fund and Germeshausen Foundation, the book is just the starting point for a national, and international, discussion that will be carried out in a variety of ways, from online debate to “town hall” meetings, from essay competitions for youth to sermons from pulpits in all denominations. The “Moral Ground movement” will result in a newly discovered, or rediscovered, commitment on a personal and community level to consensus about our ethical obligation to the future. Contributors include: Fred W. Allendorf, Bartholomew I, Mary Catherine Bateson, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, Marcus J. Borg, J. Baird Callicott, Courtney S. Campbell, F. Stuart Chapin III, Robin Morris Collin, Michael M. Crow, Dalai Lama, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Brian Doyle, David James Duncan, Massoumeh Ebtekar, Jesse M. Fink, Dave Foreman, Thomas L. Friedman, James Garvey, Thich Nhat Hanh, Paul Hawken, Bernd Heinrich, Linda Hogan, bell hooks, Dale Jamieson, Derrick Jensen, John Paul II, Martin S. Kaplan, Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, Stephen R. Kellert, Robin W. Kimmerer, Barbara Kingsolver, Shepard Krech III, Ursula K. Le Guin, Hank Lentfer, Carly Lettero, Oren Lyons, Wangari Maathai, Sallie McFague, Bill McKibben, Katie McShane, Curt Meine, Ming Xu, N. Scott Momaday, Kathleen Dean Moore, Hylton Murray-Philipson, Gary Paul Nabhan, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Michael P. Nelson, Barack Obama, Ernest Partridge, John Perry, Edwin P. Pister, Carl Pope, Robert Michael Pyle, David Quammen, Daniel Quinn, Kate Rawles, Tri Robinson, Libby Roderick, Holmes Rolston III, Deborah Bird Rose, Jonathan F. P. Rose, Carl Safina, Scott Russell Sanders, Lauret Savoy, Nirmal Selvamony, Ismail Serageldin, Peter Singer, Sulak Sivaraksa, Gary Snyder, James Gustave Speth, Brian Swimme, Bron Taylor, Paul B. Thompson, George Tinker, Joerg Chet Tremmel, Quincy Troupe, Mary Evelyn Tucker, José Galizia Tundisi, Brian Turner, Desmond Tutu, Steve Vanderheiden, John A. Vucetich, Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Alan Weisman, Terry Tempest Williams, E. O. Wilson, and Xin Wei.
Publisher: Trinity University Press
ISBN: 1595341056
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 503
Book Description
Moral Ground brings together the testimony of over eighty visionaries—theologians and religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturalists, activists, and writers—to present a diverse and compelling call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibility to our planet. In the face of environmental degradation and global climate change, scientific knowledge alone does not tell us what we ought to do. The missing premise of the argument and much-needed center piece in the debate to date has been the need for ethical values, moral guidance, and principled reasons for doing the right thing for our planet, its animals, its plants, and its people. Contributors from throughout the world (including North America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and Europe) bring forth a rich variety of heritages and perspectives. Their contributions take many forms, illustrating the rich variety of ways we express our moral beliefs in letters, poems, economic analyses, proclamations, essays, and stories. In the end, their voices affirm why we must move beyond a scientific study and response to embrace an ongoing model of repair and sustainability. These writings demonstrate that scientific analysis and moral conviction can work successfully side-by-side. This is a book that can speak to anyone, regardless of his or her worldview, and that also includes a section devoted to “what next” thinking that helps the reader put the words and ideas into action in their personal lives. Thanks to generous support from numerous landmark organizations, such as the Kendeda Fund and Germeshausen Foundation, the book is just the starting point for a national, and international, discussion that will be carried out in a variety of ways, from online debate to “town hall” meetings, from essay competitions for youth to sermons from pulpits in all denominations. The “Moral Ground movement” will result in a newly discovered, or rediscovered, commitment on a personal and community level to consensus about our ethical obligation to the future. Contributors include: Fred W. Allendorf, Bartholomew I, Mary Catherine Bateson, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, Marcus J. Borg, J. Baird Callicott, Courtney S. Campbell, F. Stuart Chapin III, Robin Morris Collin, Michael M. Crow, Dalai Lama, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Brian Doyle, David James Duncan, Massoumeh Ebtekar, Jesse M. Fink, Dave Foreman, Thomas L. Friedman, James Garvey, Thich Nhat Hanh, Paul Hawken, Bernd Heinrich, Linda Hogan, bell hooks, Dale Jamieson, Derrick Jensen, John Paul II, Martin S. Kaplan, Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, Stephen R. Kellert, Robin W. Kimmerer, Barbara Kingsolver, Shepard Krech III, Ursula K. Le Guin, Hank Lentfer, Carly Lettero, Oren Lyons, Wangari Maathai, Sallie McFague, Bill McKibben, Katie McShane, Curt Meine, Ming Xu, N. Scott Momaday, Kathleen Dean Moore, Hylton Murray-Philipson, Gary Paul Nabhan, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Michael P. Nelson, Barack Obama, Ernest Partridge, John Perry, Edwin P. Pister, Carl Pope, Robert Michael Pyle, David Quammen, Daniel Quinn, Kate Rawles, Tri Robinson, Libby Roderick, Holmes Rolston III, Deborah Bird Rose, Jonathan F. P. Rose, Carl Safina, Scott Russell Sanders, Lauret Savoy, Nirmal Selvamony, Ismail Serageldin, Peter Singer, Sulak Sivaraksa, Gary Snyder, James Gustave Speth, Brian Swimme, Bron Taylor, Paul B. Thompson, George Tinker, Joerg Chet Tremmel, Quincy Troupe, Mary Evelyn Tucker, José Galizia Tundisi, Brian Turner, Desmond Tutu, Steve Vanderheiden, John A. Vucetich, Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Alan Weisman, Terry Tempest Williams, E. O. Wilson, and Xin Wei.
Rachel Carson
Author:
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 0791478238
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
HighwoodN. P. presents a profile of American biologist and author Rachel Louise Carson (1907-1964) as part of the GirlSite resource. The resource also offers access to additional information.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 0791478238
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
HighwoodN. P. presents a profile of American biologist and author Rachel Louise Carson (1907-1964) as part of the GirlSite resource. The resource also offers access to additional information.
Earth's Wild Music
Author: Kathleen Dean Moore
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1640093680
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
At once joyous and somber, this thoughtful gathering of new and selected essays spans Kathleen Dean Moore's distinguished career as a tireless advocate for environmental activism in the face of climate change. In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of wolves, bellow of whales, laughter of children, and shriek of frogs, even as she warns of the threats against them. Each group of essays moves, as Moore herself has been moved, from celebration to lamentation to bewilderment and finally to the determination to act in defense of wild songs and the creatures who sing them. Music is the shivering urgency and exuberance of life ongoing. In a time of terrible silencing, Moore asks, who will forgive us if we do not save nature's songs?
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1640093680
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
At once joyous and somber, this thoughtful gathering of new and selected essays spans Kathleen Dean Moore's distinguished career as a tireless advocate for environmental activism in the face of climate change. In this meditation on the music of the natural world, Moore celebrates the call of loons, howl of wolves, bellow of whales, laughter of children, and shriek of frogs, even as she warns of the threats against them. Each group of essays moves, as Moore herself has been moved, from celebration to lamentation to bewilderment and finally to the determination to act in defense of wild songs and the creatures who sing them. Music is the shivering urgency and exuberance of life ongoing. In a time of terrible silencing, Moore asks, who will forgive us if we do not save nature's songs?
Great Tide Rising
Author: Kathleen Dean Moore
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619027569
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Even as seas rise against the shores, another great tide is beginning to rise—a tide of outrage against the pillage of the planet, a tide of commitment to justice and human rights, a swelling affirmation of moral responsibility to the future and to Earth's fullness of life. Philosopher and nature essayist Kathleen Dean Moore takes on the essential questions: Why is it wrong to wreck the world? What is our obligation to the future? What is the transformative power of moral resolve? How can clear thinking stand against the lies and illogic that batter the chances for positive change? What are useful answers to the recurring questions of a storm–threatened time – What can anyone do? Is there any hope? And always this: What stories and ideas will lift people who deeply care, inspiring them to move forward with clarity and moral courage?
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619027569
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218
Book Description
Even as seas rise against the shores, another great tide is beginning to rise—a tide of outrage against the pillage of the planet, a tide of commitment to justice and human rights, a swelling affirmation of moral responsibility to the future and to Earth's fullness of life. Philosopher and nature essayist Kathleen Dean Moore takes on the essential questions: Why is it wrong to wreck the world? What is our obligation to the future? What is the transformative power of moral resolve? How can clear thinking stand against the lies and illogic that batter the chances for positive change? What are useful answers to the recurring questions of a storm–threatened time – What can anyone do? Is there any hope? And always this: What stories and ideas will lift people who deeply care, inspiring them to move forward with clarity and moral courage?
The Pine Islands
Author: Marion Poschmann
Publisher: Coach House Books
ISBN: 1770566287
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2019 AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "Readers who like quiet, meditative works will enjoy this strangely affecting buddy story." —Publishers Weekly "Rather than tying up the loose ends, she leaves them beautifully fluttering in the wind, and you do not feel lost in that experience. The writing is poetic and it’s worth savouring." —Angela Caravan, Shrapnel A bad dream leads to a strange poetic pilgrimage through Japan in this playful and profound Booker International-shortlisted novel. Gilbert Silvester, eminent scholar of beard fashions in film, wakes up one day from a dream that his wife has cheated on him. Certain the dream is a message, and unable to even look at her, he flees - immediately, irrationally, inexplicably - for Japan. In Tokyo he discovers the travel writings of the great Japanese poet Basho. Keen to cure his malaise, he decides to find solace in nature the way Basho did. Suddenly, from Gilbert's directionless crisis there emerges a purpose: a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the poet to see the moon rise over the pine islands of Matsushima. Although, of course, unlike the great poet, he will take a train. Along the way he falls into step with another pilgrim: Yosa, a young Japanese student clutching a copy of The Complete Manual of Suicide . Together, Gilbert and Yosa travel across Basho's disappearing Japan, one in search of his perfect ending and the other a new beginning. Serene, playful, and profound, The Pine Islands is a story of the transformations we seek and the ones we find along the way.
Publisher: Coach House Books
ISBN: 1770566287
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2019 AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "Readers who like quiet, meditative works will enjoy this strangely affecting buddy story." —Publishers Weekly "Rather than tying up the loose ends, she leaves them beautifully fluttering in the wind, and you do not feel lost in that experience. The writing is poetic and it’s worth savouring." —Angela Caravan, Shrapnel A bad dream leads to a strange poetic pilgrimage through Japan in this playful and profound Booker International-shortlisted novel. Gilbert Silvester, eminent scholar of beard fashions in film, wakes up one day from a dream that his wife has cheated on him. Certain the dream is a message, and unable to even look at her, he flees - immediately, irrationally, inexplicably - for Japan. In Tokyo he discovers the travel writings of the great Japanese poet Basho. Keen to cure his malaise, he decides to find solace in nature the way Basho did. Suddenly, from Gilbert's directionless crisis there emerges a purpose: a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the poet to see the moon rise over the pine islands of Matsushima. Although, of course, unlike the great poet, he will take a train. Along the way he falls into step with another pilgrim: Yosa, a young Japanese student clutching a copy of The Complete Manual of Suicide . Together, Gilbert and Yosa travel across Basho's disappearing Japan, one in search of his perfect ending and the other a new beginning. Serene, playful, and profound, The Pine Islands is a story of the transformations we seek and the ones we find along the way.
High Tech Trash
Author: Elizabeth Grossman
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597263834
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The Digital Age was expected to usher in an era of clean production, an alternative to smokestack industries and their pollutants. But as environmental journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals in this penetrating analysis of high tech manufacture and disposal, digital may be sleek, but it's anything but clean. Deep within every electronic device lie toxic materials that make up the bits and bytes, a complex thicket of lead, mercury, cadmium, plastics, and a host of other often harmful ingredients. High Tech Trash is a wake-up call to the importance of the e-waste issue and the health hazards involved. Americans alone own more than two billion pieces of high tech electronics and discard five to seven million tons each year. As a result, electronic waste already makes up more than two-thirds of the heavy metals and 40 percent of the lead found in our landfills. But the problem goes far beyond American shores, most tragically to the cities in China and India where shiploads of discarded electronics arrive daily. There, they are "recycled"-picked apart by hand, exposing thousands of workers and community residents to toxics. As Grossman notes, "This is a story in which we all play a part, whether we know it or not. If you sit at a desk in an office, talk to friends on your cell phone, watch television, listen to music on headphones, are a child in Guangdong, or a native of the Arctic, you are part of this story." The answers lie in changing how we design, manufacture, and dispose of high tech electronics. Europe has led the way in regulating materials used in electronic devices and in e-waste recycling. But in the United States many have yet to recognize the persistent human health and environmental effects of the toxics in high tech devices. If Silent Spring brought national attention to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides, High Tech Trash could do the same for a new generation of technology's products.
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597263834
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The Digital Age was expected to usher in an era of clean production, an alternative to smokestack industries and their pollutants. But as environmental journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals in this penetrating analysis of high tech manufacture and disposal, digital may be sleek, but it's anything but clean. Deep within every electronic device lie toxic materials that make up the bits and bytes, a complex thicket of lead, mercury, cadmium, plastics, and a host of other often harmful ingredients. High Tech Trash is a wake-up call to the importance of the e-waste issue and the health hazards involved. Americans alone own more than two billion pieces of high tech electronics and discard five to seven million tons each year. As a result, electronic waste already makes up more than two-thirds of the heavy metals and 40 percent of the lead found in our landfills. But the problem goes far beyond American shores, most tragically to the cities in China and India where shiploads of discarded electronics arrive daily. There, they are "recycled"-picked apart by hand, exposing thousands of workers and community residents to toxics. As Grossman notes, "This is a story in which we all play a part, whether we know it or not. If you sit at a desk in an office, talk to friends on your cell phone, watch television, listen to music on headphones, are a child in Guangdong, or a native of the Arctic, you are part of this story." The answers lie in changing how we design, manufacture, and dispose of high tech electronics. Europe has led the way in regulating materials used in electronic devices and in e-waste recycling. But in the United States many have yet to recognize the persistent human health and environmental effects of the toxics in high tech devices. If Silent Spring brought national attention to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides, High Tech Trash could do the same for a new generation of technology's products.
The Chimp Paradox
Author: Steve Peters
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110161062X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Your inner Chimp can be your best friend or your worst enemy...this is the Chimp Paradox Do you sabotage your own happiness and success? Are you struggling to make sense of yourself? Do your emotions sometimes dictate your life? Dr. Steve Peters explains that we all have a being within our minds that can wreak havoc on every aspect of our lives—be it business or personal. He calls this being "the chimp," and it can work either for you or against you. The challenge comes when we try to tame the chimp, and persuade it to do our bidding. The Chimp Paradox contains an incredibly powerful mind management model that can help you be happier and healthier, increase your confidence, and become a more successful person. This book will help you to: —Recognize how your mind is working —Understand and manage your emotions and thoughts —Manage yourself and become the person you would like to be Dr. Peters explains the struggle that takes place within your mind and then shows you how to apply this understanding. Once you're armed with this new knowledge, you will be able to utilize your chimp for good, rather than letting your chimp run rampant with its own agenda.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110161062X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Your inner Chimp can be your best friend or your worst enemy...this is the Chimp Paradox Do you sabotage your own happiness and success? Are you struggling to make sense of yourself? Do your emotions sometimes dictate your life? Dr. Steve Peters explains that we all have a being within our minds that can wreak havoc on every aspect of our lives—be it business or personal. He calls this being "the chimp," and it can work either for you or against you. The challenge comes when we try to tame the chimp, and persuade it to do our bidding. The Chimp Paradox contains an incredibly powerful mind management model that can help you be happier and healthier, increase your confidence, and become a more successful person. This book will help you to: —Recognize how your mind is working —Understand and manage your emotions and thoughts —Manage yourself and become the person you would like to be Dr. Peters explains the struggle that takes place within your mind and then shows you how to apply this understanding. Once you're armed with this new knowledge, you will be able to utilize your chimp for good, rather than letting your chimp run rampant with its own agenda.
The Aesthetics of Island Space
Author: Johannes Riquet
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192568531
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Oxford Textual Perspectives is a series of informative and provocative studies focused upon literary texts (conceived of in the broadest sense of that term) and the technologies, cultures, and communities that produce, inform, and receive them. It provides fresh interpretations of fundamental works and of the vital and challenging issues emerging in English literary studies. By engaging with the materiality of the literary text, its production, and reception history, and frequently testing and exploring the boundaries of the notion of text itself, the volumes in the series question familiar frameworks and provide innovative interpretations of both canonical and less well-known works. The Aesthetics of Island Space discusses islands as central figures in the modern experience of space. It examines the spatial poetics of islands in literary texts, from Shakespeare's The Tempest to Ghosh's The Hungry Tide, in the journals of explorers and scientists such as James Cook and Charles Darwin, and in Hollywood cinema. It traces the ways in which literary and cinematic islands have functioned as malleable spatial figures that offer vivid perceptual experiences as well as a geopoetic oscillation between the material energies of words and images and the energies of the physical world. The chapters focus on America's island gateways (Roanoke and Ellis Island), visions of tropical islands (Tahiti and imagined South Sea islands), the islands of the US-Canadian border region in the Pacific Northwest, and the imaginative appeal of mutable islands. It argues that modern voyages of discovery posed considerable perceptual and cognitive challenges to the experience of space, and that these challenges were negotiated in complex and contradictory ways via poetic engagement with islands. Discussions of island narratives in postcolonial theory have broadened understanding of how islands have been imagined as geometrical abstractions, bounded spaces easily subjected to the colonial gaze. There is, however, a second story of islands in the Western imagination which runs parallel to this colonial story. In this alternative account, the modern experience of islands in the age of discovery went hand in hand with a disintegration of received models of understanding global space. Drawing on and rethinking (post-)phenomenological, geocritical, and geopoetic theories, The Aesthetics of Island Space argues that the modern experience of islands as mobile and shifting territories implied a dispersal, fragmentation, and diversification of spatial experience, and it explores how this disruption is registered and negotiated by both non-fictional and fictional responses.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192568531
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Oxford Textual Perspectives is a series of informative and provocative studies focused upon literary texts (conceived of in the broadest sense of that term) and the technologies, cultures, and communities that produce, inform, and receive them. It provides fresh interpretations of fundamental works and of the vital and challenging issues emerging in English literary studies. By engaging with the materiality of the literary text, its production, and reception history, and frequently testing and exploring the boundaries of the notion of text itself, the volumes in the series question familiar frameworks and provide innovative interpretations of both canonical and less well-known works. The Aesthetics of Island Space discusses islands as central figures in the modern experience of space. It examines the spatial poetics of islands in literary texts, from Shakespeare's The Tempest to Ghosh's The Hungry Tide, in the journals of explorers and scientists such as James Cook and Charles Darwin, and in Hollywood cinema. It traces the ways in which literary and cinematic islands have functioned as malleable spatial figures that offer vivid perceptual experiences as well as a geopoetic oscillation between the material energies of words and images and the energies of the physical world. The chapters focus on America's island gateways (Roanoke and Ellis Island), visions of tropical islands (Tahiti and imagined South Sea islands), the islands of the US-Canadian border region in the Pacific Northwest, and the imaginative appeal of mutable islands. It argues that modern voyages of discovery posed considerable perceptual and cognitive challenges to the experience of space, and that these challenges were negotiated in complex and contradictory ways via poetic engagement with islands. Discussions of island narratives in postcolonial theory have broadened understanding of how islands have been imagined as geometrical abstractions, bounded spaces easily subjected to the colonial gaze. There is, however, a second story of islands in the Western imagination which runs parallel to this colonial story. In this alternative account, the modern experience of islands in the age of discovery went hand in hand with a disintegration of received models of understanding global space. Drawing on and rethinking (post-)phenomenological, geocritical, and geopoetic theories, The Aesthetics of Island Space argues that the modern experience of islands as mobile and shifting territories implied a dispersal, fragmentation, and diversification of spatial experience, and it explores how this disruption is registered and negotiated by both non-fictional and fictional responses.