Cronon and Thoreau

After reading both works, I really feel a bit more drawn to Cronon. Thoreau certainly makes valid points, about how we should love and appreciate nature, but as Cronon points out in that same appreciation and love we are making nature into something specific to us, and our love of it. If we have the idea in our heads of Niagra Falls or California's redwood forests' majesty before we ever go there, then we're more likely to transplant those ideas onto the actual locations when we actually arrive, even if the reality doesn't quite match up. Hence, physical nature becomes merged with our mental image of it, making "Nature" more a concept in our heads than a forest or unspoiled stream. The physical reality is being shaped by our thoughts and perceptions, and is thus despoiled in a new way.

Thoreau thinks of nature as a true representation of the divine, but Cronon points out that previously untamed wilderness was viewed as a terrifying, evil place. Native Americans were often seen as demons simply through their close connection to the woods. So Thoreau, when he goes off to putter around Walden, is really just seeing what he wants to see: a pristine, beautiful, unspoiled creation. Cronon just seems to offer a more realistic, less idyllic view to me.

Thoreau idealizes the wilderness to a ridiculous degree, not just as a place of beauty, but also in how he applies other thoughts to it. He goes on and on about how one can learn more there than in a classroom, or most any civilized place for that matter, whether about life skills or intellectually, when in some cases that simply isn't true. Yes, you can grow as a person and have wonderful experiences outside, but you're not going to learn how to be a locksmith, or speak Spanish by walking around in the woods. Depending on what you want to do with your life, and what your interests are, strolling around under trees or by a stream may not be for you. Cronon helps point out this silliness, partially in our "dualistic vision" of nature.

Most of us do not live off the land. It is not our home. So we cannot simply say it is better than our houses, and must try to learn to see it a bit more objectively, just as we must look at our human made habitat objectively.

Fast Food Nation

After leaving Eric Schlosser's lecture on Monday, I could only feel disgust for the route our nation has taken in it's efforts for conformity and cheapness. Eric's lecture was nothing more then pure honesty and none bias. His concepts were shaped solely by his research of the fast food industry. He was not told what to write or think; he only acted on what he saw. This idea is one that has stuck with me throughout the speech.

When Eric first began to speak he told us how he had little interest in doing a piece on the fast food industry. It was through research of fast food company that he became so angered and upset with the way our nation is headed. The fact that places like McDonald's strive for a slogan "One Taste Worldwide" is disgusting to me as well. It's sad that low income families have little chance to escape this taste. What is even sadder is that these families are subjecting their children to illness such as salmonella and obesity because of the cheap food they are eating. But these families do not have much choice, If you have cheap prices then you have a cheap product. Something which does not bother McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC, etc.

That brings me to my next point. The slaughterhouses and poultry plants which provide meat to these fast food industries are a stain on the United States. Instead of having farms across the U.S. breeding natural cattle, we are processing genetically enhanced cattle which are crammed into unsanitary living quarters. Also these cattle are being slaughtered and their meats are getting blended together. When it comes down to it your eating 1000 different cattle but it only takes one with a sickness to make your child or grandmother very ill. Eric compared this to having multiple sex partners and trying not to get a disease. Yeah, that put it into perspective for everyone in the auditorium. The same can be said about the chickens who are being tortured and forced to sleep in the smallest space imaginable. Not to mention they are sleeping in their feces and probably have not moved for their entire lives. This is what we are subjecting these animals to. Is it really worth a unhealthy meal?

This is animal cruelty on the highest level and we just turn our heads and ignore it. For what? A three dollar meal which has the potential to give us extreme illness and turn us into an obese nation. Something needs to be done about the food we eat asap. We need to support local organic farms, get involved with community events that celebrate this logical way to eat. Stop conforming to the blood sucking executives who could care less about your health. The idea of cheapness is nice but when it is destroying the future of your nation then it must be rectified. People should care who they are giving their money to, the same way a organization should care about its customers.

Toxic Discourse

For this week's blog entry, I will be looking at an example of toxic discourse as I was not able to attend the lecture last night.
In an excerpt from his book, Writing for an Endangered World, Lawrence Buell introduces his concept of toxic discourse, which he defines as, "expressed anxiety arising from perceived threat of environmental hazard due to chemical modification by human agency" (30-31). Buell argues that toxic discourse has not been given enough attention mainly because of two reasons. The first being that certain other issues, such as health or property, are considered higher priorities in society. The second is what Buell calls a "more "tribal" factor" and deals with the way in which the issues have been presented to the public by the people who are engaging in the discussion. Buell goes on to say that this discourse comes from social and individual panic. The anxiety is always intense and is magnified by what he calls "unsettling events."
Hurricane Katrina is a prime example of an "unsettling event" that had a huge impact on the American society and put the country in a state of panic. It's strange to me that five years have already gone by since the hurricane. I feel like it happened only last year for some reason. This might be in part because the situation was handled so incredibly poorly that it was talked about on the news almost daily for what? Six months or even longer than that after it occurred. I could be wrong on that but all I remember is constantly hearing about how little the government was helping the less privileged section of New Orleans get back on its feet and how much FEMA sucked at life. Anyhow, I think this event really made people realize that hey, maybe those scientist dudes aren't totally full of crap, maybe we actually could have some of our cities under water in however many years. I think the most important/terrifying thing we came to realize is that when stuff like that happens, our government might not be there to help as much as we think it will. This is just another enormous reason why we have to start making big changes; we don't really know if anyone's going to be there to help when things like Katrina happen. Beyond Katrina, we are seeing more and more of these intense natural disasters occurring. That tsumani in 2004, the earthquake in Haiti, the flooding in Pakistan are a few that come to mind and hey! we even had one last week with that big tornado that ripped the high school apart (obviously that's not on the same scale as the first three, but you get the point). All these things that are happening make it harder and harder to brush the environmental crisis to the side. It looks like toxic discourse is going to slowly gain more attention as people start to panic more and more frequently. Here's to hoping the next climate conference isn't as much of a bust as the last one.

Grassroots must challenge McDonalds

Today I was fortunate enough to see Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark side of all The American-American Meal, discuss the rhetoric behind America’s fast food giants about the hidden marketing tactics towards small children and how that has resulted in a nation that is addicted to the cheap and tasty fast food.

An interesting point that Schlosser discussed was how these fast food giants target children as early as nice months old using Walt Disney’s tactics of using adorable cartoon characters that would appeal to small children. McDonalds did not figure this out by themselves. There was one point in McDonald's history where they thought they should dispose of the arch to save money. But instead of making a hasty move, they hired scientist to do some research to see if the arch attracts young children and retains their loyalty though out their lives.

The conclusion of the study stated that the McDonald’s golden arch is the “mother’s breast of McDonalds” and that more importantly, small children are attracted to the arch at a very young age, and that many of the children do retain brand loyalty thought out their lives. The same principles that attract children to the arch can also be applied to cute characters. So McDonalds corporation created Ronald McDonald, a red headed clown who is geared towards making children laugh, and a whole wide range set of cartoon characters that all love to eat hamburgers. The basic theory behind this is that if one sees a peer doing something and enjoying it, that they will also feel compelled to do it to fit in that group. McDonald’s tactics to target young children have caused a whole generation of children heart diseases, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and especially diabetes.

McDonald’s toxic discourse has truly created an unprecedented amount of unhealthy food in the United States, and people who are suffering from multiple diseases at very young ages. Congress has been really lax about coercing McDonald’s to change their marketing tactics towards children. Michelle Obama has attempted to fight the major conglomerate, but has made little success. The largest voice out there right now who is targeting McDonald’s and demanding them to change their tactics is Eric Schlosser. He has created a wave of lawyers, consumers and even congressmen who are determined to change the way McDonald’s markets. But the question remains, is that enough to take on a multi billion dollar company?

Unfortunately, the big bucks McDonald’s pay lobbyist to shut up congressmen has made the chances of congress actually passing any laws that will prevent their money hungry marketing practices are very low. What must be done is that normal people, like you and I, must create grassroots organizations to fight against the way McDonald’s targets children. We need butchers, lawyers, college students, professors, doctors, nutritionist, and anyone who wants to see our children live healthy lives to join together under the cause. These grassroots organizations don’t simply have to be towards McDonald’s marketing strategies, but towards a whole range of issues such as the unsafe and unsanitary production of food, and the a way to make the food more healthy. The painful truth is that as long as McDonald’s isn’t pressured to change their ways, they won’t change. They are making money. It will take millions of concerned and organized individuals to challenge McDonald’s to make our country healthier, and to prevent our children from being targeted.

Group One Reading Handout

Garrard

Garrard’s “Positions” chapter of Ecocriticism lays out the various approaches, philosophies, and rhetoric of different groups towards the environment and the human effect on nature. For most of the positions, with the exception of Cornucopia, he explores the benefits and the failings of the various schools of thought, being both critical and complimentary.

Garrard defines the ‘cornucopian’ position as one that denies the negative effect of man on nature, not just that it isn’t necessary to put a stop to it but that scarcity itself is a function of economy rather than ecology. The position is set against environmentalist principles in that it sees no problem with the destruction nature and therefore seeks no solution. This way of thinking is very difficult to argue against because even the somewhat apocalyptic environmental slogan “Mommy what were forests like?” does not disturb these kinds of people because trees are only useful as a commodity and when they are gone will be replaced by a different commodity. Garrard points out the somewhat obvious point that this position is supported by those with a stake in industrial society and that Americans (and developed countries as a group) are able to accept the pollution of the Earth because much of industry has been relocated to undeveloped regions. Capitalism is seen as the instrument of innovation that will provide the answers to the idea of scarcity. The logic is tight and near impenetrable because as Garrard points out, “...cornucopians take little or no account of the non-human environment except insofar as it impacts upon human wealth or welfare.” (18)

Environmentalism is the most widespread position partly due to the fact that it is a broad definition related to some amount of care for the environment. Garrard asserts that most who consider themselves to be environmentalists do not wish for or actively create radical social change and are instead content to recycle and/or enjoy nature away from their home rather than live in an environment with less human impact. This criticism is very similar to Cronin’s assertion that environmentalists can separate the effects of their way of life on the world because of the wilderness they choose to preserve, that somehow the existence of pristine sublime landscapes makes up for the thousands of square miles of suburban sprawl. Garrard characterizes environmentalism as a lukewarm philosophy that is mostly helpful but contains a dangerous amount of complacency.

Deep Ecology is portrayed as a more radical idealism that seeks to undo damage rather than to just slow it down or prevent its spread to certain areas. Some of the ecocentric ideas are quite literally anti-human, such as the necessity for population control which makes deep ecology an alienating position for most people in the mainstream. It is unfortunate that the public at large sees this kind of thinking as radical to the point of being impossible to synthesize into the western notion of civilization and mainstream thought as deep ecology has great potential value to the earth and humanity itself. This is because deep ecology sets itself against the western philosophical tenant of “the dualistic separation of humans from nature” that is responsible for the environmental crisis. Population control does make logical sense but the very words are so inflammatory that the actual reasoning behind it is unlikely to ever be considered in an objective way. Deep ecology thinking is at the heart of many environmentalist groups and Garrard makes mention of Friends of the Earth, Earth First! and Sea Shepherd in particular.

Ecofeminism claims that men are responsible for the exploitation and destruction of nature, using logic and reason rather than emotion and the exaltation of nature, as ecology minded women do. Radical ecofeminism contains tenants that are inflammatory to its mainstream members, such as the idea that biological factors contribute to females' connection to nature rather than gender being entirely constructed by society. Ecofeminism has the obvious potential to alienate men by separating them from ecological thinking, as well as from women, rather than presenting a critique of gender roles as other types of feminism provide.

Social Ecology and Eco-Marxism also take an approach that sees additional causes to the environmental crisis beyond anthropocentric attitudes toward civilization, with a focus on the political nature of ecological issues. Eco-Marxists and social ecologists believe that "environmental problems cannot be clearly divorced from things more usually defined as social problems such as poor housing or lack of clean water." Poverty is connected to pollution and ecological disruption and Eco-Marxism asserts that the exploitation of the lower classes is connected to the exploitation of nature and sees the solution as a socialist oriented revolution. Social ecologists see power relations as the primary problem in man's relation to nature and prefer the ideal of a "decentralized society of non-hierarchical affiliations avowedly derived from an anarchistic political tradition" and makes reference to communal living. The value of these similar philosophies is that they identify the logical problems that cause environmental problems rather than merely the structures and institutions of a flawed system.

Martin Heidegger represents a complicated ecological critique of society's need to define things that often results in confusing an issue rather than simply letting what is, be. Garrard mentions that Heidegger tends to alienate readers with his notoriously difficult rhetoric and "anti-rational" thinking and of course the fact that he was an enthusiastic Nazi during World War II. However Garrard seems to think that his politics should be set apart from his ecological opinions that hold, in his mind, an intrinsic value worth adapting to the environmentalist school of thought.

Thoreau

In Thoreau’s piece “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” Thoreau thrusts the reader into the classical trope of ecological literature. Thoreau embodies the idea of the retreat from the city to the countryside, and as the work progresses one can see how in his personal life he was an environmentalist and how he inspired so many deep ecologists. Thoreau describes his activities in the wilderness as though he “made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it”(Thoreau, 8). Again, Thoreau is symbolizing a deep appreciation for the natural world which other writers such as Hogan, Sanders and Momaday conveyed in their writings. Many deep-ecologists and environmentalists seek to mythologize Thoreau and his stay in the wilderness, while as Solnit points out that the reality is that he was really more invested in society than the romanticizing of his isolation would have you believe. Thoreau had an appreciation for the wilderness but also spent the majority of his life in the city. Thoreau had an appreciation for both of these things and ideally lived a life in which a man harmoniously lived in both of them. Thoreau saw going into the wilderness as a solution to many of the social problems and the social injustices of the world. This, ties into Cronin’s ideas of preserving sublime wilderness while also preserving suburban sprawl where the like destroys much more. The truth is, is that there must be a balance between the two. This balance sets the bar for which many aspects of social ecology.

Cronin

Cronin’s piece, “Uncommon Ground,” is about the wilderness versus the western world. Preserving a grandiose landscape does not validate wastefulness in other areas. Nature is a distant element in the western world and we, as those a part of western civilization, have lost our reality to the wilderness by economizing it. Therefore, nature is a term that is separate from its original meaning of a natural environment. It has evolved into a cultural construction that cannot be tamed or resurrected. Furthermore, the wilderness, or frontier, and the sublime converge as they “remake [the] wilderness in their own image, freighting it with moral values and cultural symbols (Cronin, 72).” However, their parallels recreate an environment that divides into the natural and the deconstruction. The frontier still serves as a foundation for nature and its inhabitants. It has its beauty of wilderness landscape and traces back to its religious roots to the Old Testament where everything was perfect and enchanting. No human could destroy or interrupt the order of the wilderness. However, as the wilderness is described today as being in disarray and chaos, human contact deconstructed the perfection and peacefulness of the wilderness, thus creating a contaminated environment.

“The immeasurable height/Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,/The stationary blasts of waterfalls,/And in the narrow rent at every turn/Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,/The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,/The rocks that muttered close upon the ears,/Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side/As if a voice were in them, the sick sight/And giddy prospect of the raving stream,/The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,/Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light/Were all like workings of one mind, the features/Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree;/Characters of the great Apocalypse,/The types and symbols of Eternity,/Of first, and last, and midst, and without end” (William Wordsworth, “The Prelude,”536).

The focus of the quote is on the beauty God has bestowed upon the landscape which is good. The presence of God implies hope. However, this representation is criticized by his understanding and belief of the wilderness as he sees it as unclean.

As we live today, Cronin argues that the urbanization of the world has left the wilderness in ruins. He argues that our audacity to refer to the wilderness as home is aloof. As humans, we take no responsibility for our lifestyles as we continue to harm the reproduction of the wilderness. As with Cronin’s trope of environmentalism, Thoreau’s too mentions his personal life about life in the wilderness and how it differs from the city. Also, Solnit’s social-ecological and eco-Marxism buttresses the idea that humans should not give up their modern lifestyles because capitalism and environmentalism can coexist. Lastly, Silko’s piece as a form of resistance between feminine (nature) and masculinity (destruction) coincide with Cronin’s argument about the frontier’s demise. However, with nature was triumphant.

Solnit

Rebecca Solnit’s piece “The Thoreau Problem” is directly related to the tropes of social ecology as well as eco-Marxism. The main points that Solnit is making in this piece is the direct relationship between ecology, society and culture. Solnit is making the case that these things do relate to each other, and because of that we must not try and confine the people who we now see as the pioneers who defined what we now know as deep-ecology as hypocritical because they lived their lives in more than one set way. This can be seen in Solnit’s writing, described as: “This compartmentalizing of Thoreau is a microcosm of a larger partition in American thought, a fence built in the belief that places in the imagination can be contained. Those who deny that nature and culture, landscape and politics, the city and the country are inextricably interfused have undermined the connections for all of us”. This interfusion of aspects serves as a catalyst to the idea that ecology has just as much to do with society and culture as it does the preservation of what we now deem as nostalgic and sublime beauty. The linking of these things means that an aspect of this discourse cannot be one sided; that one cannot have one without the other. That a difference of opinion can coexist, and can live harmoniously together:

“Conventional environmental writing has often maintained a strict silence on or even an animosity toward the city, despite its importance as a lower-impact place for the majority to live, its intricate relations to the rural, and the direct routes between the two. Imagining the woods or any untrammeled landscape as an unsocial place, an outside, also depends on erasing those who dwelt and sometimes still dwell there, the original Americans—and one more thing that can be said in favor of Thoreau is that he spent a lot of time imaginatively repopulating with Indians the woods around Concord, and even prepared quantities of notes for a never-attempted history of Native America”.

With this broader viewpoint and being able to live in and enjoy both society, and nature, Solnit argues that Thoreau was truly fighting for social equality and justice. By trying to take the knowledge that he had gained through the city, and the wisdom that he had gained through the country and combining them both, there was great possibility for genius and revolutionary thought; these new thoughts with which many people did not seem to take easily to the idea of. Only now can we see the magnitude of good in his ideas. If “black slavery spoiled his country walks”, it spoiled the walks of enslaved people even more. Thus the unresisting walk to jail. “Eastward, I go only by force; but westward I go free,” Thoreau wrote. His thoughts on the matter might be summed up this way: You head for the hills to enjoy the best of what the world is at this moment; you head for confrontation, for resistance, for picket lines to protect it, to liberate it. Thus it is that the road to paradise often runs through prison, thus it is that Thoreau went to jail to enjoy a better country, and thus it is that one of his greatest students, Martin Luther King Jr., found himself in jail and eventually in the way of a bullet on what got called the long road to freedom, whose goal he spoke of as the mountaintop”.

Crumb

R. Crumb’s illustrations are known for bringing truth into the light through comedy, metaphor, and, though later in his career, shocking visual art. In A Short History of America, 12 drawn panels depict a landscape that goes from completely natural, through industrial development, all the way up to contemporary urban/suburban sprawl. The first panel shows only flora and fauna, then insert a train track, followed closely by a modest house and plow, soon after there’s power lines, then a neighborhood, street names and mail boxes, through to business development, automobiles, and more power lines. The final panel is clearly developed with convenience stores, gas stations, and public transportation. Crumb is exhibiting a type of social-ecology, as he clearly does believes that social issues cannot be separated from environmental problems. Crumb could also be interpreted as an eco-Marxist because he is unveiling superficial class structures through signage, familiar brand names, and clear-and-present infrastructure. Is Crumb just experiencing wilderness nostalgia? Was the world a better place when deer were the only inhabitants in any given field? Have we experienced progress or regress? It depends on who you ask. Thoreau, who Crumb’s 12-panel piece could be closely connected to, would say the first panel’s pastoral motif is more representative of The Good Life. Solnit’s work could also work well with Crumb’s A Short History of America, due to Solnit’s close relationship with social ecology and eco-Marxism.

McKibben

McKibben’s The End of Nature is a biting look at one author’s relationship with the wilderness. It is clear from the very first sentences that McKibben does not view his fellow humans as brothers and sisters, but metaphorically as “stumps” or “trash”. He is a scathing social ecologist who sees human activity as one in the same as environmental activity. Since the earth has been warming, McKibben has been analyzing the effects on climate of not only our behaviors, but our minds as well. To McKibben, soon “the world outdoors will mean much the same thing as the world indoors, the hill the same thing as the house” (McKibben, 719). He has an utter distaste for humans and what they have done to the environment. The End of Nature can also be considered a deep-ecology piece, seeing as it is rigid in its criticism of man’s carbon impact. He continues to explain swimming [living] in a lake [the earth] with and without the presence of boats [industry]. Without the boat, he and his wife swim with only their senses of self. With the boat, swimmers plan and plot the simplest and most human responses to swimming. McKibben finds himself wondering where the boat is, and what shall he do should he be forced to interface with it. “It’s that the motorboat gets into your mind. You’re forced to think, not feel-to think human society and of people” (McKibben 720). McKibben can be connected to Jewette, Williams, and Silko, all for the same reason: these readings are all showing deep resistance to development, city-life, and sometimes even progress itself.

Sanders

Scott Russell Sanders’ story entitled “After the Flood” is deeply rooted in Pastoral ecology. The main trope of this piece is nostalgia, and how it is in direct relation to social ecology and the actions that people take (again tying into the idea that society and culture are interwoven with ecology). His piece about being back in the area which he grew up and the feelings which he has about it can greatly be related to themes brought up in Hogan’s work. Sanders also makes one of the most moving cases on how great of an effect people have on ecology, especially in terms of one’s homeland:

“The word nostalgia was coined in 1688 as a medical term, to provide an equivalent for the German word meaning homesickness. We commonly treat homesickness as an ailment of childhood, like mumps or chickenpox, and we treat nostalgia as an affliction of age. On our lips, nostalgia usually means a sentimental regard for the trinkets and fashions of an earlier time, for an idealized past, for a vanished youth. We speak of a nostalgia for the movies of the 1930s, say, or the haircuts of the 1950s. It is a shallow use of the word. The two Greek roots of nostalgia literally mean return pain. The pain comes not from returning home but from a longing to return. Perhaps it is inevitable that a nation of immigrants–who shoved aside the native tribes of this continent, who enslaved and transported Africans, who still celebrate motion as if humans were dust motes–that such a nation should lose the deeper meaning of this word. A footloose people, we find it difficult to honor the lifelong, bone-deep attachment to place. We are slow to acknowledge the pain in yearning for one’s native ground, the deep anguish in not being able, ever, to return”.

This longing to return to a time which was simpler and to a meaningful closeness to place is lost by the inevitable progress by which the comforts that society gives us, also takes away the space, the Eden, which used to be our own. I believe this feeling that Sanders is describing serves as the caveat in which deep-ecology is rooted, and the importance of just how much we must remember and revere the places and the landscapes that we have come from.

Williams

Terry Tempest Williams’ piece combines elements of ecofeminism and social ecology along with a general tone of environmentalism. It is much more than coincidence that the primary sufferers of cancer from the nuclear testing are women and that the price they pay is losing their breasts, a disfigurement of their femininity at the hands of the male run army who are literally nuking the desert in the back yards of their Mormon community. The short story melts into the dream world several times, a device that shows the absurdity of a government nuking its own land and infecting law abiding citizens with cancer and death. This absurdity reaches a fever pitch when several courts, including the Supreme Court, refused to let the government take responsibility not because the army had done no wrong but because the government is sovereign and therefore the government is immune from doing such wrongs. Environmentalism aside this sort of behavior is ludicrous, the sort of thing a brat of a child would imagine and the fact that America acted like a nuclear bomb dropping Veruca Salt and endangered the lives of docile, patriotic citizens is despicable and shocking but unfortunately not really that surprising after reflection. Yet looking at this through a social ecologist lens it is clear that the government is without a powerful conscience and has little respect for human life, let alone the lives of owls or lichens. As far as human poisoning of the world goes you would be hard pressed to find a better example than the intentional creation of a nuclear explosion and fallout, the very image of a mushroom cloud contains within it the instant consumption of life accompanied by a lasting infection of the very earth for decades, perhaps even centuries. The male use of science and technology to conquer even the atom to destroy on such a monumental level ends up taking away the female’s ability to provide breast milk for a child. As in Jewett’s piece there is a clear feeling of the rape of the feminized natural world and the female characters that inhabit it.

Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko’s piece, “Storyteller,” is a rebellion between the Eskimo culture and the American culture creates an eco-feminist and pastoral trope. In the social ecological circumstance, the protagonist is in a fight against assimilation as she rebels against the foreign culture in which she is submerged. From an eco-feminist perspective, she uses her “natural” superiority against the “old man” by resisting him which supersedes his masculinity. Her resistance and rebellion towards the western culture set the tone for pastoral trope and reflects her identity because she unfolds the murder of her parents by the community’s trusted storekeeper.

“I will not change the story, not even to escape this place and go home. I intended that he die. The story must be told as it is” (Silko, 31).

Silko uses nature to kill. Also, as a storyteller, she is inclined to tell the truth and relate her stories to the community. Her stories’ significance reflects and disturbs the eco-feminist perspective by way of essentialism versus constructionism. The storekeeper is represented by the patriarchal culture as a respected man in charge, and the woman is constructed by her performance in the feminine role. But, by taking charge in a murder, the woman dominates the masculine force. She is connected to Williams’ piece, Refuge, where women are associated with activism and focused on women’s suffering. She is also connected to Jewett’s “A White Heron” as the two protagonists, women, are unappreciated and demoralized by men. They are represented by nature, yet they are abused and mishandled.

Jewette

Ecofeminism proposes that females are more in contact with nature, their menstrual cycle in tune with the lunar rhythms and the feminized landscape that is in constant danger of male intrusion and exploitation.

Sarah Orne Jewett’s A White Heron personifies the feminine spirit of the forest in the young loner Sylvia who spends her days in the forest climbing trees and retrieving the cow that provides her and her grandmother milk. There is a strong ecofeminist strain in the story, even going so far as to label the young hunter the “enemy” in his first appearance. While Sylvia chooses to enjoy the forest in a symbiotic and gentle way the hunter kills and packages the birds he loves, a dynamic that shows the opposite ways he (and perhaps men in general) interact with the natural world. The ornithologist brings strong characteristics of western culture into the forest: science, money, and a rifle, all tied together by the masculine desire to conquer. For Sylvia interacting with the forest means climbing the highest tree and being part of the marvelous scene of natural beauty while the unnamed hunter comes to kill and stuff the rare and elusive white heron so he can take it back to his civilization as a sort of trophy. Jewett’s version of ecofeminism is similar to Silko’s, the main character is set in opposition to a man who doesn’t appreciate or understand nature as the woman does. Both stories have a strong sense of the pastoral and virgin land being exploited by men who appreciate only the parts of nature they perceive as valuable in a way that deep ecologists would most likely attribute to the mental separation of humans from nature in western culture.

Hogan

Linda Hogan’s Dwellings is an essay that is comprised of short paragraphs, all dealing with various types of home, within and outside of “nature”. The piece details the behaviors and philosophical meaning behind different types of dwellings, and how their inhabitants (human or animal) interact with nature. Hogan is highly descriptive in her explanations of massive bee hives, owls nests, and native peoples; but perhaps most significantly, Hogan is descriptive of her interactions with the land. Hogan, lacking any real call for social change, could be considered a pastoral environmentalist. Her relationship with pastoralism is clear in her outwardly poetic style in regards to the wilderness, her longing for nostalgia, and her very distant philosophical appreciation of the Zia people. Hogan also is an example of a female nature writer who does not reflect from an eco-feminist perspective, as gender is not a noted feature in Dwellings. Hogan’s writing can be connected to Sanders’ because of its analysis of “home” and its impact on wilderness literature. Dwellings also can be connected to Henry David Thoreau’s writings in the sense that, at one point, Hogan longs for solitude in nature in an attempt to achieve meaning through the landscape, as did Thoreau: “A few years after that, I wanted silence. My daydreams were full of places I longed to be, shelters and solitudes. I wanted a room apart from others, a hidden cabin to rest in” (Hogan, 810).

Momaday

N. Scott Momaday’s A First American Views His Land is a uniquely American perspective on interactions with nature. Momaday, a deep-ecologist thinker, recognizes man as an integral part of natural existence. He considers the tools and trades [abilities] of man to represent the separations between human and non-human. “These things in particular mark his human intelligence and distinguish him as the lord of the universe. And for him, the universe is especially this landscape” (Momaday, 571). Momaday also employs poetry and lyrical writing to do his descriptive bidding. He focuses the rest of the piece on where beauty lies: to Momaday, it lies in the physical world. Momaday’s philosophical pre-pre-pre-predecessor, Plato, also wrote in abundance on beauty residing in the physical world, only Plato asks us to grow beyond shallow appreciation of people, experiences, and in this case, nature. Momaday, however, relies on the presence of physical beauty to carry most of his text. Momaday’s A First American Views his Land is connected to Cronin’s writing by highlighting each piece’s tendency to condemn development of not only grandiose, awesome landscapes, but the humble residences of the past as well. A First American Views His Land also works with Thoreau’s writings, in the sense that both types of literature fall under the classical trope.

Provoking Discussion of Texts

• Through comparative analysis of two or more tropes within ecology (e.g. eco-feminism, Pastoral ecology, classical ecology, deep ecology, etc…) how can a harmonious merging of these classifications make us more highly realize the importance of more than just one aspect of ecology, and understand a reverence necessary for eco-appreciation the way that these authors had?

• What would Thoreau have to say about Cronin’s criticism of the modern idea of wilderness?

• Is moving towards a true deep-ecology frame of thought worth giving up the conveniences and luxuries of modern society and culture, or is there a way to have a deep-societal-ecology through a balance framed in responsibility and respectful actions we take that effect our earth? What would be lost with modern society and culture? What be gained through letting our earth heal?

• Which of these writers would be in most disagreement with another? Why, and over what aspects of importance? Which of these writers would be in the most amount of agreement with another? Why, and how?

• Do you feel that eco-feminism is alienating towards men? What effect would this ecological discourse? What would male writers have to say about eco-feminism? What would be the eco-feminist response to their opinions?

The Flow of Thoreau

Second Post

Silko's short story, Storyteller, has been, for me at least, the most interesting work we've read so far this quarter. I know we are supposed to write about all the works we've read; but, honestly, I feel I have the most to say about Silko, so I'm just going to focus on the one. Silko's experimentation with time and space makes the piece a difficult read at first but once you realize that the story actually ends where it begins, you see a theme start to emerge. Towards the beginning of the story, the young girl is concerned that the sky and earth are starting to merge. The narrator tells us the young girl, "told herself it wasn't a good sign for the sky to be indistinguishable from the river ice, frozen solid and white against the earth. The tundra rose up but all the boundaries between the river and hills and sky were lost in the density of the pale ice" (18). Shortly after this, the girl observes yellow "wadding" in the window and asks the jailer what it is. When the jailer replies that it is meant to keep out the cold, the girl only laughs. This emphasizes the tundra's infinite power (or at least the fact that it has a power that cannot be matched by man). The "Gussucks'" attempts to confine it are futile.
The theme of boundaries is recurrent throughout the piece. Later on, in the story within the story of the bear and hunter, the roles of predator and prey are reversed at times and eventually become "indistinguishable" from each other. The fact that the old man is continuously telling the story, with or without an audience, also stands out as it emphasizes that the hunt never ends and is in fact, life itself. This breakdown of clear cut roles again makes a comment on the Gussucks, who continually attempt to organize the wilderness and make it more manageable. It is clear, however, that this organization is impossible, as the narrator observes, "They were always confident. The first year they waited for the ice to break up on the river, and they brought their big yellow machines up on river barges. They planned to drill their test holes during the summer to avoid the freezing. But the imprints and graves of their machines were still there, [...] where the summer mud had swallowed them before they ever left sight of the river" (23). I guess what distinguishes this piece from the rest of the works we've read for this quarter is how nature is portrayed. To be honest, I get a little tired of people going on and on about how beautiful nature is and what a tragedy it is that this valley was flooded where some guy really liked fishing and hiking. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate nature and think it's definitely worth preserving but really all I wanted to say to that guy McKibben is get over it, you're going to have to deal with the boaters and skiers. With Silko, I find it interesting that she chooses to emphasize that nature cannot be conquered, that it is far more powerful than anything we ever could be and that demands respect. I think it's important that we are reminded of our own insignificance every once in a while; it keeps us in check, at least a little.

My Dayton Creek

When I was a young lad growing up in the suburbs of Dayton Ohio, I directly lived next to a shallow creek and a dense forest that I once called “my piece of nature.” It was a place I would go to too get away from family issues, homework, and from society in general. Everyday after school was out, my friends and I would head to the creek to catch crawdads, toads and small fish, and to splash and play in the steams of the creek. I used to pretend that I was a Cherokee Indian living off the land and feeling one with nature. I would find feathers in the forest and place them in my hair, and use the stones in the creek to create tools for fire and weaponry. During autumn, when the leaves were darkening and the when the pumpkins were ripe, I would hide in bundles of leaves as if I was a pilgrim just out of Europe. My little piece of nature was my own area where I thought no mankind has touched, and no man has altered. But as I grew older into my early teens, I began to realize that the creek and forest that I thought was so pure and natural, has actually been tampered and altered by human beings for decades. In fact, I was never one with pure nature and wilderness, but rather just another component of man-made habitat.

This realization came to me one spring morning when I was traveling alone through the creek. I went further down the creek’s path than I have ever had. I was compelled to escape as far as possible from society and enter into a place where no man has gone. I traveled miles and miles down the old creek. I remember thinking that eventually I will come to an untouched lake in a dense forest where no man has seen. I was looking for my own Walden Pond. But when I finally made it to the end of the creek, my heart was shattered like dumped virgin, and my faith of ever finding true nature evaporated. At the end of the creek was a large tube that dispelled water and pink toxins into the creek. The tube was surrounded by water bottles, junk food wrappers and cigarette bugs. Pollution was pouring out of the tube mixed with water into what I thought was a natural creek. Over the horizon I saw a paper factory spilling white heavy gases into the blue clear sky. From then on out, I knew that true nature was virtually impossible to find.

I can fully relate to Bill McKibben’s critique in The End of Nature, on our lifestyles when he states “ The temperature and rainfall are no longer to be entirely the work of some separate , uncivilized force, but instead in part of a product of our habits, our economies, our ways of life. Even in the most remote wilderness, where the strictest laws forbid the felling of a single tree, the sound of that saw will be clear, and a walk in the woods will be changed-tainted-by its whine.” Due to mankind’s constant desire to create wealth by exploiting the Earth’s resources for centuries, the tundra’s, jungles, forest, oceans, lakes and even our national parks are haunted with the imprints, impressions and traces of mankind. You, me and everyone else cannot drive up the street to a local forest and expect to be truly in nature. The soil we walk across has chemicals in it from the rain. The lake has pollution all throughout it due to the local factory, and the trees are constantly being outnumbered by hungry humans who need their wood.

Humans and all animals need a dwelling to reside in, but animals don’t absorb unnecessary resources unlike humans to do this. Birds create small nest in trees out of small twigs and branches. Bears live in caves, and squirrels live inside the holes of ancient trees. But mankind demands for more than just the simple dwelling. Mankind has used every tool and resource to make life as comfortable and effortless as possible, regardless of what environmental and physical damage it has on the Earth and the Ozone layer. In Linda Hogan’s book called Dwellings, she gives an antidote that discusses how people cannot live among nature and other animals, but instead must live amongst themselves. She explains that a man wanted to live in nature alone in solitude, so he found a cave to live in. After some time, he became lonely, so he went to the city and find a wife. His wife didn’t like living amongst mice and bats, so they built a door in the cave to keep the animals out. The door changes the room temperature which then results to them purchasing a heater and so on. Just adding one luxury to their lives made them want to completely separate themselves from nature.

Intro to Tori

Hey, my name is Tori. I'm a senior and a Video Production major with a minor in English and from the 614. I love filmmaking and screenwriting, which has been my passion since second grade. Illustration and animation are also passions of mine =). After I graduate I plan to attend grad school and move out to California. Um everything else about me is in my blog so um yeah check it out!

Let's face it. Cronon took Thoreau's ideas and laughed at it. He could not fathom that what the bible used to refer to nature, or anything that was not civilization, as barren or a wasteland, Thoreau could quickly call beautiful. The whole idea of making being within nature a religion just sounded silly to Cronon. I mean it is true that nature can be somewhat godly, but even in the bible, nature was not as beautifully described as Thoreau did it.

Also, this idea of "reclaiming the garden" that Cronon pointed out is just as futile as it sounds. I understand that it alludes to Adam and Eve's banishing from the Garden of Eden, but even so, it is useless to compare nature today to the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was a paradise, set into a boundary of God Himself. I feel that no amount of comparison of today's nature can truly equal that. Also, when it came to the "retreat" into nature, Thoreau saw it as a religious revival. Cronon disagrees, saying that it was merely for recreation, not for religious enlightenment.

In the end, Cronon's views were more down earth than Thoreau's, whom I believe comes off as really tree-hugger sounding (pardon the bluntness). Cronon recognizes the beauty of nature, but he does not take it as far as Thoreau does.

Reminder

Remember to post your reading blog posts to your own individual blog. 

First blog post

I feel upon relating Thoreau's ideas about nature to Cronon's, there seems to be both similarities and differences with both readings. In Thoreau's experience, despite the idea of isolation, there was still a connection with humanity present. For example, in Walden, we see that Thoreau wasn't entirely alone. Along with that, his view of nature seemed sublime enough in the sense where the connections and metaphors he created secured the positive outlook it held. Thoreau states that: "Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making room for another." I personally feel there's merit in what he says, however, Cronon questions Thoreau's thought process by asking if wilderness is this place to retreat to. I enjoy the fact that Cronon doesn't completely dismiss Thoreau, rather, he does agree with him to an extent by stating that: "I celebrate with others who love wilderness the beauty and power of the things it contains." Here, Cronon is a person who is shown connecting with nature. It shows that he is personable and that he can appreciate the idea of nostalgia, but at the same time he can set that aside and approach nature in a different way whereas Thoreau doesn’t necessarily do that.

I like Cronon’s way of thought because it appears more realistic. It's not romanticized to the extent where it becomes fabricated. Cronon seems to be very aware. He goes as far to offer William Wordsworth's poem, The Prelude, as an example in which: "...the poet felt himself literally to be in the presence of the divine-and experienced an emotion remarkably close to terror." Cronon states that Wordsworth's time in nature "was nothing less than a religious experience." Here, instead of nature being presented as this wonderful, flawless creation, Wordsworth basically describes the chaos it holds as well.

Another aspects of both outlooks lead me to believe how easy it was for Thoreau to create a home for himself. Cronon’s outlook doesn’t make that process appear as easy: “In its raw state, it had little or nothing to offer civilized men and women.” Cronon seems to have a consciousness about nature in whereas Thoreau’s mindset isn’t thought out completely in a realistic sense. I feel Cronon’s way of thought prepares an individual because although it’s not ideal, the reality of it all is most important to consider.

Lastly, although I feel I can connect more with Cronon’s way of thought, I appreciate Thoreau’s determination and his sincerity. I find that alone to be a wonderful quality that contributes to his character.

Upon reading the excerpts of Thoreau, it became clear to me how much influence he has had over environmentalism since his being published. He creates his own brand of mystique for the wilderness that seems to have become largely popularized, like his idea that the earth is, "not a dead inert mass. It is a body-has a spirit-is organic-and fluid to the influence of its spirit-and to whatever particle of that spirit is in me" (8). He ascribes almost divine characteristics to the earth, which (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this) seems to be a pretty novel idea for the time. It's almost like he's substituting nature for Catholicism, or whatever form of Christianity he followed previously in his life. In this way, his enthusiasm seems rather childish to me. This is not to say that his passion is necessarily a negative thing; it's actually somewhat refreshing. Nevertheless, as was mentioned in class, he seems to be overly and naively optimistic about nature and sometimes ignores the fact that he is able to live this lifestyle because of his money.
With Cronon we get a detailed picture of what shifts America was going through around the time that Thoreau came on the scene. He shows us that Thoreau was not the only one who was beginning to assign a religious reverence for the wilderness; specifically, people like John Muir were comparing Yosemite to Eden and Sierra Nevada to heaven. Cronon goes on to explain that the concepts of the sublime and the frontier were central forces driving this new perception of nature as sacred rather than wasteland. This explanation had kind of a disillusioning effect over Thoreau's romanticism for me. It was sort of like seeing how a trick is managed in a way. While I am fully aware that Thoreau exaggerates the mystique of the wilderness, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes childish enthusiasm (maybe a different wording, I can't think of one right now) is a nice change of pace. Ultimately, while Cronon's views are much more realistic, there is definitely something about Thoreau's passion that appeals to me. Plus, Cronon has a pretty big advantage when it comes to seeming more reasonable since he is writing in present times.

Intro to Kyle

Hello, my name's Kyle and I'm a senior English Major from the west side of Cincinnati. I've always been interested in history, the way people think and are, as well as writing and reading literature. Right before I graduated Oak Hills high school we read All the King's Men which was not the sort of book I would seek out for pleasure reading but I ended up getting really into it and the way the author described and dissected his characters. All the King's Men reaffirmed to me the value of literature and I was reading it while I was struggling to decide what to do for college. It ended up being an extra shove towards choosing English, so far I'm satisfied with my choice. I'm weighing my options about the future, this'll be the first time I have this many choices. I've been thinking about the Peace Corps lately for a few different reasons, besides the obvious ones, I'd like to hold onto the little Spanish I've learned and actually keep it, rather than forget it all in two years. Also it's a free way to get my foot in the traveling door. If that doesn't go through I've been looking at a few different cities in that America place you hear so much about that I'd like to check out, or maybe do the whole adventuring in the woods thing before the student loans start to staple me to the job market. Fascinating facts......uuh, I just got about a foot or so of hair cut off after about six years...and, uh, damn.. I like hiking.

Albert, the prof

Hey I have lived a long time so I won't go into all the details of my fascinating life.  Basically I have lived in Portland, OR., Austin, TX, and now here (since '96).  I like Athens but miss my cities too. I was born in New Orleans and grew up from age 4 on in Winston-Salem.  For a short time in the 1940s my mother was a member of the Communist Party.  I had dinner once with Maya Angelou.  She is kind of wacky. 

I took a long break from college and went back, first studying music and then English, when I was in my 30s.  I write songs and poems and some other stuff. 

I look forward to our explorations this term. 

-Albert

Introductions

I'm Randy Pasion. This is my 4th year at OU. I'm a Creative Writing major with a concentration in poetry and a Linguistics minor with TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification. I plan to apply to graduate school after undergrad, but am also considering waiting a few years for financial reasons. If that's the case, my TEFL certification allows me to teach english abroad, and hope to spend a few years in Germany. I have a passion for music of all kinds and play a bit of guitar and drums. I also love to cook and often host large dinner parties and cook for friends.

Intro

Hello all, my name is Scott McAllester and I am a fifth year senior. I will be finishing up at the end of winter quarter and have thoroughly enjoyed my time as an undergraduate student at Ohio University. I am an English major and have a passion for writing non-fiction ever since I took the creative writing workshop last year. I became interested in the major after both of my older brothers graduated with an English degree and became successful . I enjoy reading and writing as I mentioned before so it made sense to me to major in English. It is hard to think of a few interesting facts about myself, but I did visit Italy and Bulgaria over the summer with my oldest brother. It was an experience of a lifetime and it opened my eyes to a different lifestyle and culture that they embrace. I look forward to taking this class with everyone and hope we will have a good time.

Hello

Hey everybody,

My name is Toby Cromer, and this is my senior year as an English major at OU. I'm a member of our school's ultimate team (which I love playing but is slowly destroying my body), a former thespian, lover of music, and comic book nerd. I'm going to be graduating in the Spring, once I fulfill my second year of a foreign language requirement, and after that...I'm not so sure. I'm thinking about joining Americorp for a year, maybe going out west. Certainly a lot of cheap traveling on the agenda, hopefully to New Zealand, England, Germany, France, Japan, South America, all that jazz. Of course, none of that has much of anything to do with my English degree. As for that, I'd love to be a writer, editor, or pretty much any position in the publishing business. I love reading and writing and think it would be just plain keen to have a job in an industry close to books. Being the next Stephanie Meyers or J.K. Rowling and getting ridiculously rich off books would be cool too, I suppose. I'm looking forward to meeting you all in class!

Hey Everyone

Hi everyone,
My name is Colleen Boyle, I'm a Senior here with a major in English (if that wasn't obvious already). I chose an English major because I am an avid reader and I really enjoy expressing my opinions through writing. I am not always able to correctly get a point across when I'm speaking so I use writing as a means to speak for me. Strangely enough when I graduate this year, which I hope is at the end of winter quarter, I will not immediately be doing anything with my degree. My passion is absolutely everything to do with horses. I am currently on the equestrian team here and not only compete through the collegiate circuit but actually as an individual on the national level. When I graduate I plan on working as professional rider and trainer, travelling around the world as an understudy to someone more well known. While I am trying to make a lifestyle riding I also plan on doing some freelance for some equestrian oriented magazines as well as some possible creative writing that could maybe lead to writing books (or something). So yeah, that's me in a nutshell! I am looking forward to getting to know all of you in class!

My Intro To Let You Know

Hello all, my name is Adam Horst and I am a Public Relations and English major at Ohio University. I'm a fifth year senior and should be graduating at the end of winter quarter this year. Being at Ohio this long has definitely started to take a toll on me, as its hard to keep up the lifestyle we're accustomed to here. I'm 22 years old but being in classes with sophomores and juniors makes me feel a lot older at times. I'm from a city outside of Cleveland called Mentor where I have lived my entire life but hope that I wont have to return there. I have an insatiable craving for music, I enjoy recreational reading when I have the time and I find writing to be a very cathartic experience. I'm a curious person by nature and like to explore all the quirky things Athens has to offer and I like to take things apart and fix them myself. I didn't have the chance to do many entertaining things this summer because I was working in a factory 40+ hours a week to save up some money for this year. The factory work made me very glad that I am getting a degree and won't have to spend my days doing the same monotonous tasks every day.

Hello,
My name is Elizabeth Leugers and I am a senior this year with a major in both English and Spanish. I'm from Cincinnati and am actually going to Toledo this winter. If you first thought of the Toledo in northern Ohio, you probably thought, wow, this girl has some pretty big aspirations in life, if she has one to begin with. (I don't care, I'm using a preposition at the end of a sentence!) But, no, thankfully, I will be going to Toledo, Spain. Anyhow, I have always loved literature and seems to be one of the few things I am naturally good at; so I thought it might be wise to go with an English major, which I did. As for Spanish, I am not so naturally adept at foreign languages; nevertheless, I am banking on my trip to Spain to make my Spanish speaking abilities a little less embarrassing, we shall see. I really have no idea what I will be doing after graduation, though Chicago might be nice.

Hello All.

Hello, my name is David or DC Moore. I am a senior African American Studies major from Cleveland, OH by way of Sylacauga, AL. I am a writer as well as an emcee or rapper and I'm known for my storytelling ability in my songs [(if you're nice to me, I might just show you:)]. I listen to a lot of music athough I get in trouble because I always have my headphones on (out of class of course), music is my therapy. In fact, upon finishing this quarter I plan to get a masters in Creative Writing and hope to offer a class that looks into the lyrical content in songs.

What else can I tell? Um...I'm on facebook as DC Kingofhearts Moore, twitter @dckingofhearts, tumblr as dckingofhearts.tumblr.com, and my own website dckingofhearts.com

Pleasantries

Hello, my name is Zachary Webb. I usually go by Zac or Dr. Mustafo depending on what social circles I find myself in. I am a senior at OU; my major is English and I will hopefully be graduating at the end of this Fall quarter. I am originally from a small farming town on the Ohio River, but I live outside of Grove City when not in the calming hills of Athens. While I would never call myself a “writer”, I am one who writes a lot and gains a deep sense of pleasure from the craft. I’m particularly fond of non-fiction and poetry…My favorite color is blue, my favorite drink in Gin, and pretending to be a wizard is the only way I can stay sane. I’m trying to think of more info to post in this intro, but the truth is that if you would like to know anything about the entity I call self…just ask. I don’t bite nor can I abide rudeness so things should be pretty simple with me.
~Z
Interesting Fact: I have a handle-bar mustache that I have dubbed “The Dutchman”. I could never love a human child the way I love my mustache.

Intro

Hey,

My name is Mariessa Shein and this is my last quarter here at OU. I am graduating early so I can move to Israel in January (as long as I can get an internship or job). I have been an English major since my first quarter here at OU 3 years ago. As I was working my way through my general education classes I decided to add a Jewish studies certificate and an Italian studies certificate. I have been studying Italian since I was in high school although I have sadly not spoken any Italian in about a year.
This past summer I was an editorial intern at United Media in NY. I edited comics, all types of puzzles and a few columns. I absolutely loved my job and hope to find an editorial position in Israel. I have been writing poetry on and off for the past 8 years, but I have had writers block for the past 6 months so only having to edit others work still gave me a creative outlet while not having to actually be the writer. I am pretty shy about letting people see my poetry, but last year I was a peer mentor and my students convinced me to read my poetry on stage at open mic night at Donkey. I don't think I have ever been so nervous in my life, but I got through it and actually read at open mic night a few more times before my writers block happened.

About me

My name is Baron Laudermilk and I am a senior at Ohio University studying both Political Science and East Asian relations. I have a particular interest in Chinese culture, history, politics and language. I have been studying China for about three years now, and I think that after I graduate, I will study in China for a few years while writing and teaching English. After that, I will come back to the U.S and attempt to get my PhD so I am get involved in world politics and perhaps write and teach on the side. Besides studying China, I enjoy reading about Middle Eastern relations, domestic politics, and I love to watch sitcoms and action packed films. During my spare time, I work out, hang out with people who are much different than I am, and catch up on reading about the environment art, and new tech.

Introduction post

Hey everyone! My name is Evan Lilly and I live in Athens, OH. I feel the main reason I chose English as my major was to better grasp my essay writing. I feel it has grown dramatically in the past few years, and I want to keep improving on it. I work at Donkey Coffee & Espresso, and it's one of the best part time jobs I've ever had (the 24/7 free drink policy helps too!)

I really love Motown music (Martha Reeves, Kim Weston, The Ronettes). I'm also a big fan of more dream-pop bands/early 90's alternative shoegaze (My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Atlas Sound/Deerhunter). Others include: Acid House Kings, Belle & Sebastian, Drake, M83, Liars, No Age, The Tough Alliance, etc. You could say I love music!

I also really, really love cold weather! : )

Intro: Mary Cross

Hi!

My name is Mary and this is my very last quarter as an undergraduate here at OU. For the last 4.25 years, I've been a journalism and English major and can usually be found bouncing around in between Scripps, Ellis, and some place that sells coffee. I'm taking the GRE in October, trying to get into grad school here in Athens. Hopefully, I'll be going into the College Student Personnel master's program. From this, I hope to be an academic advisor at this or any other awesome university. I am emphatic about my love for Athens, and don't plan on leaving any time soon.

I have been working in flower shops since I was 16 and I'm also a Libra. I have another blog about flowers that I don't post much to anymore, but I still have some fun blurbs that you could nibble on if you're into that sort of thing. I live with my boyfriend and my googly kitten named Herman. This is him. Check out that eye ball.

I also love soda.

intro

Apparently this is where I'm supposed to introduce myself in the cold and uninviting realm of the internet. My name is Kevin. I prefer to be called Kevin. I will answer to other names as well, depending upon my mood at the time.
I am what they call a "non-traditional student" because I took several years off from my studies to go and play in the real world. Now that I find myself back in academia, I can only say that I have feelings of trepidation and reluctance that I hope will soon give way to feelings of enthusiasm and wonder, which I think are proper responses to a learning environment. I believe that I have reason to be optimistic in this endeavor, but then again, it's only day two...

Kevin F.

Welcome

This blog will be the place for your group reading guides, selected posts from your individual blogs, stuff from me, and any contributions you might wish to make. You are all 'authors' on this blog.  

The blog can accommodate images, text, and embedded videos and audio files.

Your reader response posts should be posted to your individual blog.  

Laissez les bontemps rouler!

Albert Rouzie