Recent Critiques of Ecocriticism

Abstract

As a relatively new movement in cultural studies, ecocriticism has been remarkably free of theoretical infighting. There have been debates about emphasis and omission, but these have not directly challenged the positions of the originators of the movement. They have rather pointed to new directions for research into ecofeminism, toxic texts, urban nature, Darwinism, ethnic literatures, environmental justice and virtual environments, for example. Ecocriticism has not developed a methodology, although its emphasis on interdisciplinarity assumes that the humanities and science should be in dialogue and that its debates should be informed equally by critical and creative activity. These are radical enough practices for those located within the disciplinary and career demarcations of the academy. Perhaps the absence of a methodology provides the reason for a lack of radical internal debate in the decade since the first Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) conference at Fort Collins in 1995. There have been no fundamental theoretical tenets or essential ecocritical practice against which to rebel. Indeed, the very inclusiveness and civility of ecocriticism that has distinguished its conduct may have been its weakness and may account for a number of contributors to the debate, from Joseph Meeker (1) to Kate Soper, (2) who have offered single significant statements and retreated from the ecocritical scene. Then, within the last four years, ecocritics have been given two critiques and two major overviews of the movement. Dana Phillips, who had contributed to an earlier collection of ecocritical essays edited by the ecocritical establishment (Michael Branch, Rochelle Johnson, Daniel Patterson and Scott Slovic's Reading the Earth) (3) launched a savage attack on the movement in The Truth of Ecology in 2003. (4) The following year, partly in response, Michael P. Cohen, offered his own critique in his essay 'Blues in the Green: Ecocriticism Under Critique' in Environmental History. (5) Greg Garrard, currently Chair of ASLE UK, provided the first overview in Ecocriticism, (6) to be followed by Lawrence Buell's third book of ecocriticism, The Future of Environmental Criticism in 2005. (7) Both Cohen and Buell comment upon Phillips' book, but there is no other cross-referencing between these works. Whilst some of the arguments in Buell's book provide interesting frames through which to discuss some concerns raised by Phillips, Cohen and Garrard, this essay seeks to review Buell's major insights into the past and future strands of development within the ecocritical movement. When Buell suggests that we can now look back upon two waves of development in ecocriticism, it becomes clear that Phillips is largely attacking its first phase in which American nature writing, wilderness literature and experiences of individual epiphany were respectfully celebrated with assumptions of simple realism. Cohen calls this the 'praise-song school' of ecocritcism (BG, p22). This is an easy target, if a simplified one, and Phillips' dubious strategies, such as setting up Thoreau as straw man to knock down (TtoE p181), and arrogantly caustic tone (American nature writers are 'empty vessels of pure responsiveness' (TtoE p220)) undermine his argument and detract from his original insights, such as those into A.R. Ammons' poem Garbage (1993) with which he concludes. Whilst agreeing with Phillips that too much piety has been allowed to pervade ecocritical practice, Cohen suggests that this might be the very reason why ecocriticism has failed to generate a rigorous internal critique. Buell notes that it is British ecocriticism, taking its starting point from Raymond Williams in The Country and the City (1973), that has been able to exercise a healthy scepticism towards the pastoral practice of ecocriticism and has been able to deploy more critical rigour in seeking, for example, the 'complex pastoral' identified by his American counterpart Leo Marx in The Machine in the Garden (1964) as American ecocritics have been reluctant to do (TfofEC p16). …