Preview

Summary Of Dana Phillips The Truth Of Ecology

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
716 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of Dana Phillips The Truth Of Ecology
Dana Phillips, who studies ecocriticism and American literature, employs his 2003 book The Truth of Ecology: Nature, Culture, and Literature in America as a critique of mainstream realist forms of ecocriticism. He places emphasis on the need for ecocriticism to be truly more interdisciplinary, and that ecocritics need to more fully incorporate the sciences, as well as the history and philosophy of those sciences. In its entirety the text suggests, in a somewhat defiant tone, how ecocriticism has operated erroneously in its conception and current practices, and how it might better operate if ecocritics enhanced their ecological/scientific knowledge and adhered to more theoretical foundations of literary criticism. Phillips’ text provides theoretical, cultural, philosophical, and historical backgrounds to support these claims. Specifically, in the fourth chapter titled “Art for Earth’s …show more content…
And in fact, aside from a poem discussed in the final chapter, seem to be the only thing that Dana Phillips talks about positively.
Peterson’s guide is used as an example of the effective use of representations that are sort of false, especially visually, but are represented that way purposefully to convey meaning and do the job of guiding readers in identifying birds. The stylized representations come from a scientific mind. The art and the science are there. But according to Dana Phillips, neither are too realistic. While Petersons’ body of work is not narrative, like most of the subject matter in ecocriticism, it does highlight a larger part of Phillips argument against realism (mimesis). In his analysis of A Field Guide to the Birds, Phillips shows how when one uses the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In his critique, “The Trouble with Wilderness or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” William Cronon argues against the romantic conceptualization of nature that a great portion of the environmentalist movement has embraced. Subsequently, Cronon revokes the Romantic and even quasi-religious notion that wilderness spaces are separate from those inhabited by man. He argues that by eliminating the divide in perception between the human constructs of the natural world and the civilized world, man will be encouraged to take more responsibility for his actions that negatively impact the environment. In prefacing his conclusion, he writes, “Home, after all, is the place where finally we make our living. It is the place for which we take responsibility,…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    That these creatures can be a sort of entertainment for the generations to come. It it very contradicting to his previous statements of wanting to de-extinct these animals just because it is the right thing to do. Doing so further lowers not only his credentials and how the readers feel about him, but on whether or not humans should be involved with anything genetic if it just leads to “pure thrill” and…

    • 976 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Never has a man left the embrace of nature once he found himself enamored by it; this infatuation is found in both John Muir’s and Aldo Leopold’s writing, a sense of wanting to protect this deity they call Mother Nature, a moral and ethical responsibility which every human being has to this Mother. Both John Muir and Aldo Leopold recount their almost romantic encounter with Mother Nature in their books Our National Parks and A Sand County Almanac, respectively. However, in both books it is notable that each man carries instilled in the very fiber of their being a sense of dissatisfaction toward the process of mechanization and industrialization; processes which unfortunately…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Man’s relationship with nature has forever been a focal point of human concern. Though fifty years apart contextually, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ridley Scott’s film Bladerunner (Director’s Cut), both canvass the horrible consequences of man’s sunderance from nature. While AF632 is a world where nature has been actively sacrificed for social stability, nature’s ostracism in LA 2019 is a side effect in man’s pursuit of economic progress. Both texts analyse the contextual concerns of each composer, raising questions about man’s place and interaction with…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In terms of cultivating and advancing the genre of modern naturalism, there is no greater contributor than Stephen Crane. The National Poetry Foundation called him one of “ America's foremost realistic writers” as well as giving him high praise in calling him a “skilled story crafter.” But even that doesn’t do Crane justice in the sense that he sparked a revolutionary classification of writing that would persist for the next hundred years. And even though Crane died relatively young, his pragmatic view on both war and common life would root him and his work in the writing community long after his death.…

    • 102 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “ Everybody’s Guilty – The Ecological Dilemma, “ author and professor of Human Ecology at University of California, Santa Barbara, Garrett Hardin, explains the current issue with invisible reverberations. Hardin calls attention to the readers about how innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment. “ We all acquiesce in the system of arrangements and practices that has created our ecological crisis” (Hardin, 40). In order to approve of our actions, individuals tend to hide from reality behind symbols and/or words. Incorporating rhetoric into our everyday lives does this.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As time has progressed, our society has increasingly accepted false reality. We can now each create the experience that we feel will appease our desires. Whether this be through picking a movie to watch, selecting a song to play, or striving to beat a video game, we have become masters of what is not truly present. This message perfectly embodies Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods, written in 2008. Writing to a pleasure-seeking, self-centered American society, Louv brings attention to the truth that we have lost interest and, therefore, respect for the natural world. In a melancholy and reminiscent tone, he writes in hope to begin a change, a return to a time where we were entertained by the world around us. Using paradox, polysyndeton, and parallel sentence structure as rhetorical strategies, Louv illustrates our gradual but definite separation from nature.…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    To get started thinking about the environment you are going to do some reading over the summer. I have chosen a list of books that are all well known and pertain to this course. As we go through the course, you will find yourself thinking about what you read and relate it to what we are learning. Your job this summer is to choose one of the books from this reading list and do the following assignment:…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Muir and Abbey

    • 1014 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It is difficult to find writers more passionate about the natural environment than John Muir and Edward Abbey. Both Muir in a section from his book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf and Abbey in a chapter titled Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks channel anger and frustration at the environmental policies of their time into literature that argues fervently for preservation of national parks and other areas of wilderness. In Hetch Hetchy Valley, Muir reverently describes in vivid detail the beautiful landscape of a river valley in Yosemite called the Hetch Hetchy Valley, condemning anyone who supports a government plan to dam the Hetch Hetchy River and flood the valley. In a famous quote Muir says, “no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man” (Muir 112). Abbey employs a highly sarcastic and satirical tone to outline the consequences of further expansion of roads and highways into national parks. He aims to incite anger with sharp language and insults to draw the reader in emotionally. “This is a courageous view, admirable in its simplicity and power… It is also quite insane” (Abbey 422). Both pieces easily stand alone, but when looked at together they suggest even more strongly that it is deceptive and dishonest to advertise industrialization of wilderness as any kind of favorable progress for society. This “progress” does not actually benefit anyone. Those who proclaim this as their reason for supporting industrial development are more likely motivated by the short-term economic benefits they will receive.…

    • 1014 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Sand County Almanac

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Everyone has their own opinion about environmentalism. Some support it all the way, some people absolutely can’t stand it, and then there are those like me that fall in between. A Sand County Almanac and Silent Springs are two of the most influential pieces of environmental literature ever written. Parts of them didn’t exactly convince me and parts of them shocked me so much I think twice on certain aspects of my life. In this short response paper I will talk about what stood out the most to me and what I think society was most influenced by.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the years, the planet’s luscious greenery, vast bodies of ocean, and clear blue skies have declined at a steady rate with the overtake of industrial buildings and pollution from technology . For the explorers and hard-core transcendentalists who devote themselves to living on the healthy and undeveloped parts of the world, nature and “the life and simple beauty of it is too good to pass up.” (McCandless 12/7/16) If technological advancements continue to occupy most of Earth, this appreciative view of the planet will no longer be attractive to those whose lives depend and thrive upon its bare soil. To some Transcendentalist preachers, like Henry David Thoreau, nature is also perceived as “daily to be shown matter to come in contact with,” giving people a chance to ask “Who are we?…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Continually throughout history humanity’s connection to the natural world has been probed, celebrated, mocked and forgotten in a haphazard cycle that has been classified as human nature. Through a comparison of Mary Shelley’s 19th Century didactic novel, ‘Frankenstein’ (the Modern Prometheus) and the director’s cut of Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’, a common conception of man’s place amongst nature is posed as being submissive to her dominance. Though each text shares the same values each represents its core concepts in a manner inimitable to its context, ultimately critiquing the respective society’s, bringing to light the fears that the majority of society refused to acknowledge at the time. These fears centre mainly around three broad concepts; scientific discovery, industrial development and religion, which collectively invite consideration of humanity’s unabridged connection with the natural world and how it has been altered over time.…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Compare and Contrast

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Caring for and preserving the environment is an issue that gains interest daily. In the essays “How to Poison the Earth” by Linnea Saukko and “Chronicles of Ice” by Gretel Ehrlich both authors make excellent points about how to save and conserve the planet Earth. Ehrlich and Saukko go about making these points in two completely different ways though although they do have their similarities. Saukko uses a more sarcastic and ironic way to prove her point while Ehrlich uses a more serious and detailed way to prove hers.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It is a terrible yet bittersweet coincidence that I am writing a response to Timothy Morton’s “Queer Ecology” as my friends and family in the Philippines are being besieged by yet another tropical cyclone. Terrible because I feel guilty sitting cozily in front of my screen while halfway around the world hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who live in areas at risk of flash floods, landslides and storm surges are struggling to be evacuated as Ruby (the misleadingly sweet name the cyclone has been baptized with) maintains its Super Typhoon strength. Bittersweet because there is nothing like a natural disaster to make us humans reacquaint ourselves with our fragility and decenter us from our self-proclaimed status as the invincible rulers of this planet. This decentering also extends to aspiring academics like me who seek to thrive in a poststructuralist milieu; I again confront the realization that linguistic and textual discourses, no matter how brilliantly formulated, will not be able to impede or contain nature’s raw, material force. Morton also expounds on this ‘humiliation’, saying that humans are merely beings that exist in a ‘universe of autonomous processes’ (278).…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Literture.Doc

    • 1978 Words
    • 8 Pages

    One of S.T. Coleridge's many passions was "the Science of Words, their use and abuse and the incalculable advantages attached to the habit of using them appropriately..." (Aids to Reflection 7). This passion drove Coleridge to coin over 600 words, including "psychosomatic," "romanticize," "supersensuous," and memorable phrases like "the willing suspension of disbelief." (In fact, the new electronic edition of the Oxford English Dictionary lists Coleridge as #59 in the "Top 1000 sources for quotations," only a few slots behind the Bible). He also coined the word "desynonymize" in the belief that clarity in language went hand in hand with clarity in thinking. The importance of words, and coining new ones where necessary, is precisely where Ashton Nichols begins his intriguing book. Nichols invents a word -- "Urbanature" -- in order forge a new understanding of our relationship to the natural world. This term (which, as Nichols helpfully points out, rhymes with "furniture") "suggests that nature and urban life are not as distinct as human beings have long supposed ...all human and nonhuman lives, as well as all animate and inanimate objects around those lives, are linked in a complex web of interdependent interrelatedness" (xiii). Likewise, Nichols refashions the term "roosting" to describe "a new way of living more self-consciously on the earth" by creating more temporary, environmentally sensitive homes in the surrounding environment (3). By engaging these terms, and examining their eighteenth and nineteenth century antecedents, Nichols hopes to renew our views of nature at a time of increasing peril for our urban, suburban, rural, and wild environments. Nichols interweaves several types of sources and methodologies in this project: Romantic and Victorian poetry and prose, the history of science,…

    • 1978 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays