So, I live in Mount Vernon, which I’m willing to bet everyone in this part of Maine has heard of, but maybe hasn’t found on a map or in their explorations driving around. This is because you could drive through ‘downtown’ Mt Vernon and have no idea you actually passed through a town. I grew up in Providence and Boston (mom and dad one living in each) and I like this whole living in the middle of nowhere thing. Therefore, my walk to the post office is counting as this week’s walk. I have yet to run into another person while walking around Mt Vernon. Sneaking up on small children who swim in the lake doesn’t count. Having been to the Midwest, I have to say I am not comfortable being in a place that doesn’t have immediate access to water. Regardless of the fact that water is directly essential to, uh, ahem, life, water is beyond important to my mental well-being. I don’t know exactly what it is about knowing that I’m able to be literally submerged with fish and various plants and who know what kinds of weird floating bits of trash every now and then that is simultaneously calming and pee-inducing, assuming of course that it’s running water. So, I guess what I’m really saying is that when I walk down to the post office I get to walk by the lake, and it’s refreshing.
About this Emerson guy, he was sort of, okay, really obsessed with the idea of Nature being an entity unto itself beyond just trees and plants and stuff outside a house. I’m cool with the idea of capital N Nature being something other than the literal stuff outside and meaning something metaphysical as opposed to convenient or just there. What really makes me dislike Emerson aside from his tendency towards the run-on sentence is his inability to recognize the fact that he sexualizes nature and it’s almost problematic to his distinctions of what nature’s existence does for man and how that interacts with his interpretation that man’s relationship with nature is purely spiritual. “Nature stretches out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of grandeur and grace; to the decoration of her darling child.” Granted, nature as a mother is not a new interpretation. These lines bring out the knee-jerk reaction of the violently passionate feminist in me. Who says nature follows man Mr. Emerson?! Why is man more important and nature serving his needs? To the decoration of her darling child i.e. man, she gives up things that were greater than him within her embrace. Here, nature is embracing man provided his thoughts equal hers and then she bends her lines of grandeur to his decoration. The majority of the time, he goes on about nature representing (although I struggle to find one instance where he uses the word represent) the spiritual connection and the ideal relationship of man and God. Now, clearly he subscribes to the all-encompassing Christian doctrine that God is a father-figure but even though he acknowledges that Nature is a mother, this mother is completely unrelated to the father he wants man to recognize and strive to emulate! In fact, the instances in which nature is portrayed as being convenient to man’s needs and spiritual completion outnumber the instances in which God is fulfilling a purpose to spirit. Nature as a bountiful mother is more than just a physical manifestation and spiritual love for trees and corn and meat and yummy vegetables. God as a father is interestingly not a sexual being even though he indirectly relates God to creation. However, mother, with her bounty and subservience, is providing for and creating man and his sustenance. Why isn’t the father, God, providing for man? Why is it that the physical needs of man are taken care of by a beautiful, perfectly created, varied in splendor and clothed in miracles, woman?!
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Night Walks and Emerson
Every night, I go for a 20 minute walk with my dog. So, going on walks is not something that will conflict with my daily life. Often, I take him into the woods just because I grew up in a very rural area and have always loved being in wooded areas. Actually, going on walks with my dog is one of my favorite parts of the day.
I suggest everyone try going on at least one of their walks after the sun sets. Everything takes on a completely different texture and feel. I admit that I scare easily, so sometimes I cut my night walks to ten minutes. The night time normally, though, is so calm and relaxing for me. The stars distracted me so much on my walk that I am writing about. I made myself dizzy from craning my neck so that I could look at them while walking. It's amazing to think about how huge the sky is. How much more is out there that we cannot see? How many of those stars are a part of a solar system with life? I remembered that I had wanted to be an astronomer when I was young because the stars and the universe fascinated me so much.
As I walked, I noticed how my dog explores EVERYTHING when he walks. He stops to sniff something constantly. Normally I would have gotten annoyed with him and told him to hurry up. Instead, I wondered why he is so interested in everything. Is he curious because he does not live outdoors like dogs are “meant” to?
On to Emerson, though!
I am very glad that I took Prof. Case’s forewarning concerning Emerson seriously. I do like many of his ideas and find it interesting, but he goes big, then bigger, then even bigger with few “smooth” transitions. I found it very interesting that he says that nature is actually for man. Emerson writes, “Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other’s hands for the profit of man” (7-8). He then continues with some beautiful imagery to support his argument. It makes complete sense for Emerson to believe that nature is meant to serve/is for man because he was a Christian man. I wonder what Emerson would think, write, or say if he saw how the world is now. I feel like man takes advantage of nature for the majority of the time. The section of beauty stuck out to me as well, especially when Emerson writes that even a corpse is beautiful in some way.
I suggest everyone try going on at least one of their walks after the sun sets. Everything takes on a completely different texture and feel. I admit that I scare easily, so sometimes I cut my night walks to ten minutes. The night time normally, though, is so calm and relaxing for me. The stars distracted me so much on my walk that I am writing about. I made myself dizzy from craning my neck so that I could look at them while walking. It's amazing to think about how huge the sky is. How much more is out there that we cannot see? How many of those stars are a part of a solar system with life? I remembered that I had wanted to be an astronomer when I was young because the stars and the universe fascinated me so much.
As I walked, I noticed how my dog explores EVERYTHING when he walks. He stops to sniff something constantly. Normally I would have gotten annoyed with him and told him to hurry up. Instead, I wondered why he is so interested in everything. Is he curious because he does not live outdoors like dogs are “meant” to?
On to Emerson, though!
I am very glad that I took Prof. Case’s forewarning concerning Emerson seriously. I do like many of his ideas and find it interesting, but he goes big, then bigger, then even bigger with few “smooth” transitions. I found it very interesting that he says that nature is actually for man. Emerson writes, “Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other’s hands for the profit of man” (7-8). He then continues with some beautiful imagery to support his argument. It makes complete sense for Emerson to believe that nature is meant to serve/is for man because he was a Christian man. I wonder what Emerson would think, write, or say if he saw how the world is now. I feel like man takes advantage of nature for the majority of the time. The section of beauty stuck out to me as well, especially when Emerson writes that even a corpse is beautiful in some way.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Welcome!
Course Description:
In this class we will explore the concept of environment in American writing from the 19th century to the present. We will address fundamental questions about the relation between nature and culture at play in American thinking about the environment, and explore what it means to undertake the uniquely human practice of writing as a means to evoke, describe or connect to the non-human world. We will begin with Thoreau’s Walden, and end with contemporary environmental writers including Leslie Marmon Silko, Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard. Along the way we will also engage theoretical frameworks for thinking about nature proposed by Leo Marx, Lawrence Buell, and others. Students will develop their own practices of writing about place, which will inform our on-going conversation about the meaning of “environmental writing” and its role in our contemporary, endangered world.
About the blog:
As a way of both tracking and extending our ongoing in-class conversations, I will moderate a blog devoted to this class. Over the course of the semester, each student will be required to contribute at least six posts and six responses to the class blog, which all students will be required to read each week before discussion on Monday. Each week that you are assigned a blog post, set aside some time (20 minutes or so) for a silent, solitary walk. You should walk for at least 15 minutes, leave your cell phone behind, and try your best to be completely silent during the walk. (It’s a good idea to walk away from the center of campus, so you won’t run into people). Your blog posts should be both a response to your immediate environment and a reflection on the week's readings. Blog posts should include quotations from the text(s) to which they respond, but otherwise the form these entries take is entirely up to you.
You will write blog posts every other week, according to the schedule on your syllabus. On the weeks during which you are not writing for the blog, you will be expected to respond to one of the entries posted by your peers before class discussion on Monday. Comments should refer to particular points made in the original entry.
Writing for the blog need not be formal in tone, but it should be written and proofread carefully. Entries and comments will be graded for their originality, clarity, style and level of detail. You will not be graded per individual blog post, but will be given a midterm and final blog/comment grade. Blog entries should be 500 words, minimum. Responses should be 200 words, minimum. In addition to the required posts, other reflections, photographs, links, etc. are also highly encouraged!
In this class we will explore the concept of environment in American writing from the 19th century to the present. We will address fundamental questions about the relation between nature and culture at play in American thinking about the environment, and explore what it means to undertake the uniquely human practice of writing as a means to evoke, describe or connect to the non-human world. We will begin with Thoreau’s Walden, and end with contemporary environmental writers including Leslie Marmon Silko, Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard. Along the way we will also engage theoretical frameworks for thinking about nature proposed by Leo Marx, Lawrence Buell, and others. Students will develop their own practices of writing about place, which will inform our on-going conversation about the meaning of “environmental writing” and its role in our contemporary, endangered world.
About the blog:
As a way of both tracking and extending our ongoing in-class conversations, I will moderate a blog devoted to this class. Over the course of the semester, each student will be required to contribute at least six posts and six responses to the class blog, which all students will be required to read each week before discussion on Monday. Each week that you are assigned a blog post, set aside some time (20 minutes or so) for a silent, solitary walk. You should walk for at least 15 minutes, leave your cell phone behind, and try your best to be completely silent during the walk. (It’s a good idea to walk away from the center of campus, so you won’t run into people). Your blog posts should be both a response to your immediate environment and a reflection on the week's readings. Blog posts should include quotations from the text(s) to which they respond, but otherwise the form these entries take is entirely up to you.
You will write blog posts every other week, according to the schedule on your syllabus. On the weeks during which you are not writing for the blog, you will be expected to respond to one of the entries posted by your peers before class discussion on Monday. Comments should refer to particular points made in the original entry.
Writing for the blog need not be formal in tone, but it should be written and proofread carefully. Entries and comments will be graded for their originality, clarity, style and level of detail. You will not be graded per individual blog post, but will be given a midterm and final blog/comment grade. Blog entries should be 500 words, minimum. Responses should be 200 words, minimum. In addition to the required posts, other reflections, photographs, links, etc. are also highly encouraged!
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