Dark Nature

Anti-Pastoral Essays in American Literature and Culture

Contributions by Frederico Bellini, Gina Claywell, Jesse Curran, Sarah Daw, Monika M. Elbert, Isabel Galleymore, Mark Henderson, Joseph Heumann, Elizabeth Kubek, David LaRocca, Matthew Masucci, T. Mera Moore Lafferty, Robin Murray, Rachel Paparone, Dana Prodoehl, Jennifer Schell, Anette Vandsoe Edited by Richard Schneider

Not available to order

Publication date:

04 October 2016

Length of book:

290 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498528122

In The Ecological Thought, eco-philosopher Timothy Morton has argued for the inclusion of “dark ecology” in our thinking about nature. Dark ecology, he argues, puts hesitation, uncertainty, irony, and thoughtfulness back into ecological thinking.” The ecological thought, he says, should include “negativity and irony, ugliness and horror.” Focusing on this concept of “dark ecology” and its invitation to add an anti-pastoral perspective to ecocriticism, this collection of essays on American literature and culture offers examples of how a vision of nature’s darker side can create a fuller understanding of humanity’s relation to nature. Included are essays on canonical American literature, on new voices in American literature, and on non-print American media. This is the first collection of essays applying the “dark ecology” principle to American literature.

Dark Nature and the American Canon

Gina Claywell, “’Famine is a Frightful Monster’: Constructing Nature in Colonial Road Trips by Sarah Kemble Knight and William Byrd II”
Elizabeth Kubek, “‘Passage into New Forms’: The Negative Ecologies of Charles Brockden Brown”
Mark Henderson, “Dutchmen on the Brink: The Ghost Ship as Avatar of Dark (American) Nature in Poe’s ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’”
Jesse Curran, “Thoreau’s Week and the Work of the Eco-lament”
Frederico Bellini, “The Gnostic Dark Side of Nature in Herman Melville and Cormac McCarthy: Carrying the Fire out of Arcadia”
Jennifer Schell, “Fiendish Fumaroles and Malevolent Mud Pots: The EcoGothic Aspects of Owen Wister’s Yellowstone Stories”
Monika M. Elbert, “Frontiersmen, Robber Barons, Architects, and the Darkening Aesthetics of Nature in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady”

Richard J. Schneider, “The Dark Side of Two Nature Writing Genres: Nature Noir and Wisconsin Death Trip”

‘Nature’ in Cold War American Literature”
11. Rachel Paparone, “Anti-pastoral Imagery and the Search for Cajun Identity”
The Wilding”
Southern Reach Trilogy”

16. Robin Murray and Joseph Heumann, “Eco-Horror Cinematic Techniques in Television Nature Documentaries: Monsters Inside Me and the Dark Side of Nature”
17. David LaRocca, “Hunger in the Heart of Nature: Werner Herzog’s Anti-Sentimental Dispatches from the American Wilderness (Reflections on Grizzly Man)”

Building on Timothy Morton’s concept of 'dark ecology,' Richard Schneider, a leading Thoreau scholar, has assembled a wide-ranging collection of essays that explore an American literary tradition of disturbing, sinister, and fearful encounters with nature. These 'anti-pastoral' writings provide new perspectives on the continually expanding discourse of ecocriticism.