Re: the word "nature"

[chong sengtong <sengtongra@yahoo.co.uk>]

Hi Richard,

May I know what is the title of your new book? Thanks.

Regards,
Seng Tong

--- On Tue, 29/4/08, Richard Kerridge <r.kerridge@bathspa.ac.uk> wrote:

  From: Richard Kerridge <r.kerridge@bathspa.ac.uk>
  Subject: Re: [asle] the word "nature"
  To: asle@interversity.org
  Date: Tuesday, 29 April, 2008, 11:04 PM

  Karla,

  In my forthcoming book I summarise a number of different traditions of
  what the word means. Would you like me to send that material?

  Richard

  -----Original Message-----
  From: asle-owner@interversity.org [mailto:asle-owner@interversity.org]
  On Behalf Of Karla Armbruster
  Sent: 29 April 2008 16:03
  To: asle@interversity.org
  Subject: [asle] the word
   "nature"

  Dear ASLE Friends,

  I'm going to be on a panel titled "Keywords in the Study of  
  Environment and Culture" at the American Studies Association  
  Conference this fall.  My job is to "probe the range of interpretive  
  and analytical uses" of the word "nature." So - no small task!

  I'm planning to work on my presentation over the summer and would be  
  interested in any thoughts and/or references you might suggest.

  Here's the short description I submitted :

  > In the study of environmental and culture, the nature/culture  
  > distinction is foundational, cited as a primary source of our  
  > environmental problems in works ranging from Lynn White's 1967
  "The  
  > Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis"  to William Cronon's
  1995  
  > "The Trouble with Wilderness." However, "nature" is a
  slippery  
  > concept; as Kate Soper explains in _What Is Nature_, we regularly 
   
  > use it to mean both the strictly nonhuman and the greater whole  
  > that includes humanity.  In practice, we also often employ what she  
  > calls a lay concept of nature that exists somewhere between these  
  > two extremes: "the nature of immediate experience and aesthetic  
  > appreciation; the nature we have destroyed and polluted and are  
  > asked to conserve and preserve" (156).
  >
  > In part (perhaps) because the term nature can seem both  
  > overdetermined and almost hopelessly ambiguous, contemporary  
  > environmental thought seems to be moving away from dependence on  
  > it.  For example, in literary studies, an initial focus on nature  
  > writing has expanded to a broader interest in environmental writing  
  > and discourse.  While such expansions are timely and important, in  
  > this presentation I will revisit the term "nature" and ask what
  it  
  > has
   to offer the study of environment and culture today.

  Thanks!

  Karla

  -----------------------------------------------
  Karla Armbruster, Ph.D.
  Associate Professor, English
  Co-Chair, Environmental Studies
  Webster University
  470 E. Lockwood Ave.
  St. Louis, MO 63119
  314-246-7577
  FAX: 314-968-7173

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