Ecocriticism, global literature, and the postcolonial landscape.

Annotated Bibliography

• Bennett criticizes the two standard domains of ecocriticism – the pastoral and wilderness – using Frederick Douglass’ slave narrative. His argument is that Douglass embraces an urban landscape and rejects the pastoral or the wilderness. All his descriptions of wilderness spaces are tainted by violence, and his descriptions of slave owners draw on negative connotations of wild or pastoral spaces. He expands this into an explanation of a general anti-pastoral sentiment across African-American and Black literature.

• I could use this to set a basis for ecocriticism beyond wilderness or pastoral spaces, ecocriticism as a rejection. It explores how trauma shapes and influences our perceptions of the spaces around us. Brings the urban environment into the ecocritical stream by way of its patent rejection of pastoralism.

• “Geography of slavery” (70)

• “This grisly scene reminds us that even the most inviting physical environment cannot be considered separately from the sociopolitical structures that shape its uses and abuses.” (72)

Armbruster, Karla and Kathleen R Wallace. Beyond Nature Writing: expanding the boundaries of ecocriticism. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 2001.

• I initially pulled the Bennett article from Nineteenth Century Literature, but I was able to find it featured in this volume as well. Lamson has a copy of the collection, and I think it would be worth looking through for some additional info on ecocritical directions. “Performing the wild: rethinking wilderness and theatre spaces” (Ryden) might be interesting, particularly in the context of Figueiredo’s piece. I’m unsure if this will be a valuable resource, but it is worth including here at the early stage of my research.

Egya, Sule Emmanuel. “The pristine past, the plundered present: Nature as lost home in Tanure Ojaide’s poetry,” Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 56, no. 2, 2021, pp. 186-200. https://search‑ebscohost‑com.libproxy.plymouth.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=151062712&site=ehost-live&authtype=sso&custid=plymouth

• This paper deals with the Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide’s work. Egya reads Ojaide’s work as a discourse between two conflicting images of the Nigerian landscape. In the first, Ojaide uses the idea of nature to emphasize a communal home, a place of tradition, community, and sustainable economy. This precolonial construction of Nigerian nature is juxtaposed with the postcolonial landscape. Here, Ojaide emphasizes the abuse of the oil industry, which has rendered the once-pristine landscape a wasteland. The loss of a natural landscape coincides with the postcolonial fallout. Colonialism replaced traditional economic systems, unsustainable exploitation of the land, and destroyed this connection to home.

• Provides a basis for postcolonial constructions of landscape, of tradition (Soyinka), of colonial influences and the displacement of traditional modes of community

Figueiredo, Rosa. “Ritual Theatre: Bodies and Voices,” Bodies and Voices : The Force-Field of Representation and Discourse in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, edited by Merete Falck Borch, Eva Rask Knudsen, Martin Leer, and Bruce Clunies Ross, Amsterdam, Brill, 2008, pp. 81-92. https://search‑ebscohost‑com.libproxy.plymouth.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=219336&site=ehost-live&authtype=sso&custid=plymouth&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_83

• In this paper, Figueiredo argues that Yoruban society employs several different modes to “accrete and absorb new forms and ideas without being subverted by them.” It demonstrates a cultural capacity for change, that emphasizes an “eclectic concept of traditional culture.” Focusses particularly on bodies as a mode of communication used to extend the voice. Primarily centers on the drama of the piece,

Iheka, Cajetan Nwabueze, editor. Teaching postcolonial environmental literature and media. New York, Modern Language Association of America, 2022.

• This monograph is angled towards teaching strategies, but I hope to gain insight into the field of ecocriticism and postcolonial studies. There are several papers in the volume that interest me, including “Postcolonial cartographies, environmental humanities, and sea level rise,” “Ecocriticism and environmental justice in Anglophone Caribbean Literature,” “Teaching East Asian Ecocriticisms,” “Colonial relation between digitization and migration in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West,” “For a dEcolonization of the Caribbean: Edouard Duval Carrie’s imagined landscapes,” and “Ecocriticism in Nigeria: Toward a transformative pedagogy.”

• Although I will not use all these papers, combing through the book will hopefully help  identify trends and directions in the literature that I can build upon. I have requested one through an interlibrary loan.

Martinez Falquina, Silvia. “Postcolonial trauma theory and the short story cycle: Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker,” ES: Revista de Filologia Inglesa, vol. 35, pp 171-192, 2014. https://revistas.uva.es/index.php/esreview/article/view/731

• One of my concerns is that my project will imply that populations displaced or affected by colonialism have completely recovered, healed, or otherwise overcome their hardship. Likewise, I do not intend to exploit the suffering of these communities as a resource for climate justice. Rather, I intend to center them and their perseverance in my discussion, as climate change is intrinsically tied with colonial exploitation of land.

• This article provides a brief overview of trauma theory and contextualizes it in the postcolonial landscape of The Dew Breaker. It explores the relationship between trauma and healing in the book, ultimately concluding that the book does not result in healing, but instead illustrate the tension between grief and healing. I think this could be a valuable perspective in my discussion of postcolonial setting, healing, and dispossession.

Wright, Derek. Wole Soyinka Revisited. New York, Twayne Publishers, 1993

• Wright seems to be one of the most prolific scholars on the subject of Soyinka. This book addresses much of Soyinka’s work but also specifically speaks on Death and the King’s Horseman. I am particularly interested in the way Figueiredo reads Wright: “these are not inert bodies of value of retrievable cultural curiosities but dynamic, cumulative wisdom still in flux and invigorated by new ideas” (Figueiredo, 83).

• I am hoping to read this for information/support regarding how the landscape in Soyinka’s play reflects the changing or adapting of values in the face of a postcolonial pressures. I may be able to later connect this with transatlantic immigration, and the way that cultural diasporas recreate their culture in new locales.

• I have not read this yet, but I have requested an interlibrary loan.

Research Questions

What is the scope/intention of ecocriticism?

How can I situate my work at the intersection of climate justice and postcolonial justice?

How does global literature construct a postcolonial landscape?

            What does a postcolonial landscape look like?

What is the ecology of the transatlantic (global?) diaspora? In the wake of the “colonial incident,” as Soyinka puts it, how do different cultures adapt, create, and re-create a sense of place, of home, of location?

What can we learn from this to better shape our global response to climate change?

Reflection

My research for this project has covered a broad range of topics. I was initially drawn to ecocriticism, in part because I am mostly unfamiliar with the field. I appreciate the challenge inherent in this, and I value the potential implications of ecocritical work. Over the course of my initial research, I rapidly began to understand that ecological justice is closely tied with postcolonial issues. Sule Emmanuel Egya’s article highlights the colonial destruction of Nigerian landscapes, which in disrupts concepts of home, tradition, and community. In conversation with Derek Wright, Rosa Figueiredo explores how core values of Yoruban culture emphasize and encourage change, adaptation, and acceptance of new ideas. In the context of Soyinka, I am curious to explore how this adaptation evolves in a changing colonial landscape.

I think these research threads can be applied to The Dew Breaker, as an exploration of how location is depicted in the novel. Specifically, the differences between the various settings (present, past, Haiti, New York). I am interested to see the interplay between identity and these landscapes, how new identities are reflected in new landscapes. How is the apartment from “Seven” representative of Haiti, especially compared with ­­­­­the couple’s weekend excursion into the street, how does that interaction represent their movement from Haiti to New York? I am interested in understanding how The Dew Breaker constructs a postcolonial landscape and how the characters adapt, drawing parallels to the Yoruban modes of adaptation. Silvia Martinez Falquina’s “Postcolonial trauma theory and the short story cycle: Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker” will be useful here in studying what, if any, healing is evident in Dew Breaker. Once again, not directly related to my topic but it will inform the way I speak about colonial trauma and healing.

Broadly, I want to look at the idea of a transatlantic, global, or postcolonial diaspora. My intention with this is not to fuse distinct cultures into a monolith, but rather to present a sort of “distant reading” that seeks to identify common threads across the postcolonial diaspora. Through various understandings of connection with old, exploited, or new landscapes, I want to examine how various cultures maintained, changed, or lost their identities.

I plan to dig into more contemporary ecocriticism to address the idea that, due to the transnational nature of climate change and the far-reaching effects of colonial exploitation, the entire world is now, in a sense, a postcolonial landscape. As such, our response to climate change should be informed by the aforementioned multicultural system of adaptation, change, and the continual recreation of a new home.

The concept of a broad diaspora allows for the inclusion of works that we have not read yet. As we continue through the syllabus, I will focus my readings on constructions of place, identity, and the reverberations of colonialism. I will continue to edit my bibliography, adding or removing texts as I gain a better sense of the ultimate direction of my argument.