Rouzie on Garrard's Ecocriticism

Rouzie on Greg Garrard’s Ecocriticism

Garrard’s purpose is multiple: 1) to provide a critical guide/survey for ecocriticism; 2) to critically explore the major tropes of ecocrit; 3) to push ecocrit beyond what he considers parochial, politically retrograde positions that are grounded in religion, toward a practice that is based on “postmodern ecology,” a cultural studies approach that views science and criticism as inseparable from political and social issues, and a more global, leftist, though not strictly Marxist,  perspective.

His methods

Garrard

1)   Identifies major tropes that recur throughout ecocriticism, tracing their sources and how they get employed by ecocritics, how they change over time, and what their implications for EC are going forward.  He surveys the major positions, performing some critique as he goes (in chap. 1).

2)   Employs a dialectical approach to evaluate tropes.  He exposes and criticizes dualistic thinking (technology versus nature, human versus animal, rural versus urban, etc.) by considering the mystified or obscured other term.  Hence, he often asks what is being left out or obscured by a particular position, perspective, or use of trope and whose interests are being protected by it.  

See, e.g., his decon of the “ecocentric monism” of deep ecologists at the bottom of p. 28; also his statements about the Sierra Club on the bottom of p. 77.

See p. 86, e.g., where he states that “the dialectic in which apocalypticism both responds to and produces ‘crisis’ will be important in our evaluation of it as an ecocritical trope.”

Often deconstructs oppositions.  See, e.g.: “[T]he ideal wilderness space is wholly pure by virtue of its independence from humans, but the ideal wilderness narrative posits a human subject whose most authentic existence is located precisely there” (70-71). See also, his decon of the “ecocentric monism” of deep ecologists at the bottom of p. 28; also his statements about the Sierra Club on the bottom of p. 77.

3)   Garrard updates science-based ecological theory, for example, explaining how thinking about diversity, succession and “climax forests,” balance, and ecological homeostasis have changed in recent years, pointing out the ways that writers express and still maintain superannuated perspectives.

4)   Uses science and materialities to ground his analytical technique. See the first paragraph of p. 10 for his position on how to negotiate the tension between a constructionist perspective and “the privileged claims to literal truth made by ecology.”  So, for G, nature does exist, but is always mediated. Science has validity, but is not separable in the final analysis from political and social issues.  See last par. on p. 107. See his discussions of postmodernist approaches on p. 13-14 to Delillo’s novel White Noise, and later in the text, his discussion of Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations.  G breaks with extreme pomo but embraces what he calls postmodern ecology. See, e.g., p. 178-79.

5)   Reads culture as rhetoric (as advocated by Terry Eagleton in his conclusion to Literary Theory: An Introduction) and employs rhetorical analysis. In the intro chapter he lays out his rhetorical method. See p. 6-9. On. 99-100 G applies ethos, pathos, and logos to Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb.  He draws on literary and rhetorical works and on literary and rhetorical critics (e.g., Killingsworth and Palmer).  He defines ecocritism’s purpose as including the analysis of environmental debate, not simply ecological themes and questions as expressed in literary and cultural works. See p. 14, first full par.

6)   Approaches ecocrit as multi-disciplinary, contested, and closer to cultural studies than traditional literary studies.

7)   Takes  distinct stands and argues for them. See for example, his advocacy of “comic apocalyptic narratives” over “tragic” ones, his preference for social ecologists over deep ecologists, his problems with Heidegger being a Nazi,  etc.

Selection of Interesting, useful and provocative concepts etc. (aside from the above)

Passmore’s distinction between “problems in ecology” and “ecological problems” p. 5-6.

Buell’s four criteria of “toxic discourse” as a cultural genre, p. 12.

The two key contrasts of classical pastoral: 1) town/country and 2) past/present, p. 35.

Leo Marx’s concept of “middle landscape” as the ideal location of American pastoral.

The idea of an eco-canon that has been marginalized (Buell). See p. 53 for Buell’s criteria for inclusion.

Critique of “the metaphor of nature as a harmonious and stable machine” (56-57)

Ecocritical critique of reason and the scientific revolution as an ecological disaster and loss of authenticity (Heidegger). Nazi ecology!

“Poetics of authenticity versus the “poetics of responsibility”  p. 71-72.

Jeremiad and rhapsody (as genres)  p. 81

Tragic versus comic apocalypticism, p. 87-89; 107.

“[O]nly we construct apocalyptic narratives and therefore even a biocentric perspective must remain anthropogenic” (103). 

“The rhetoric of catastrophe tends to ‘produce’ the crisis it describes, as in the Malthusian description of extreme poverty as ‘famine’” (105).

The three attractive features of bioregionalism and some problems, p. 118-19.

Krech’s “ecological Indian”  critique

The cyborg as a key figure in the poetics of responsibility, p. 143-147.

Critiques of views of animals in nature documentaries.

Conservation and biopiracy in the context of global political and cultural conflicts, rich versus poor nations. 

The two challenges for the future and the role of postmodern ecology, p. 178-79.