American Studies, Ecocriticism, and Citizenship: Thinking and Acting in the Local and Global Commons

291 Pages·2012·4.69 MB·English

by  Joni Adamson

ROUTLEDGE INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON
LITERATURE
American Studies, Ecocriticism,
and Citizenship
Thinking and Acting in the Local
and Global Commons
Edited by
Joni Adamson and Kimberly N. Ruffi n
With a Foreword by
Philip J. Deloria
American Studies, Ecocriticism,
and Citizenship
This collection reclaims public intellectuals and scholars important to the
foundational work in American Studies that contributed to emerging con-
ceptions of an “ecological citizenship” advocating something other than
nationalism or an “exclusionary ethics of place.” Co-editors Adamson and
Ruffi n recover underrecognized fi eld genealogies in American Studies (i.e.,
the work of early scholars whose scope was transnational and whose activ-
ism focused on race, class, and gender) and ecocriticism (i.e., the work of
movement leaders, activists, and scholars concerned with environmental
justice whose work predates the 1990s advent of the fi eld). They stress the
necessity of a confl uence of intellectual traditions, or “interdisciplinari-
ties,” in meeting the challenges presented by the “anthropocene,” a new
era in which human beings have the power to radically endanger the planet
or support new approaches to transnational, national, and ecological cit-
izenship. Contributors to the collection examine literary, historical, and
cultural examples from the nineteenth century to the twenty-fi rst. They
explore notions of the common—namely, common humanity, common
wealth, and common ground—and the relation of these notions to often
confl icting defi nitions of who (or what) can have access to “citizenship”
and “rights.” The book engages in scholarly ecological analysis via the lens
of various human groups—ethnic, racial, gendered, coalitional—that are
shaping twenty-fi rst century environmental experience and vision. Read
together, the essays included in American Studies, Ecocriticism, and Citi-
zenship create a “methodological commons” where environmental justice
case studies and interviews with activists and artists living in places as
diverse as the U.S., Canada, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Taiwan, and the Navajo
Nation can be considered alongside literary and social science analysis that
contributes signifi cantly to current debates catalyzed by nuclear meltdowns,
oil spills, hurricanes, and climate change, but also by hopes for a common
future that will ensure the rights of all beings—human and nonhuman—to
exist, maintain, and regenerate life cycles and evolutionary processes.
Joni Adamson is Associate Professor of English and Environmental Human-
ities at Arizona State University, U.S.
Kimberly N. Ruffi n is Associate Professor in the Department of Literature
and Languages at Roosevelt University, U.S.
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
1 Environmental Criticism for the 9 Wallace Stevens and
Twenty-First Century Pre-Socratic Philosophy
Edited by Stephanie LeMenager, Metaphysics and the Play
Teresa Shewry, and Ken Hiltner of Violence
Daniel Tompsett
2 Theoretical Perspectives on
Human Rights and Literature 10 Modern Orthodoxies
Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg and Judaic Imaginative Journeys
Alexandra Schultheis Moore of the Twentieth Century
Lisa Mulman
3 Resistance to Science in
Contemporary American Poetry 11 Eugenics, Literature, and
Bryan Walpert Culture in Post-war Britain
Clare Hanson
4 Magic, Science, and Empire in
Postcolonial Literature 12 Postcolonial Readings of Music
The Alchemical Literary in World Literature
Imagination Turning Empire on Its Ear
Kathleen J. Renk Cameron Fae Bushnell
5 The Black Female Body in 13 Stanley Cavell, Literature,
American Literature and Art and Film
Performing Identity The Idea of America
Caroline A. Brown Edited by Andrew Taylor and
Áine Kelly
6 Narratives of Migration and
Displacement in Dominican 14 William Blake and the
Literature Digital Humanities
Danny Méndez Collaboration, Participation,
and Social Media
7 The Cinema and the Origins of Roger Whitson and
Literary Modernism Jason Whittaker
Andrew Shail
15 American Studies, Ecocriticism,
8 The Gothic in Contemporary and Citizenship
Literature and Popular Culture Thinking and Acting in the
Pop Goth Local and Global Commons
Edited by Justin D. Edwards and Edited by Joni Adamson and
Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet Kimberly N. Ruff in
American Studies, Ecocriticism,
and Citizenship
Thinking and Acting in the
Local and Global Commons
Edited by Joni Adamson
and Kimberly N. Ruff in
With a Foreword by Philip J. Deloria
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2013
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Joni Adamson and Kimberly N. Ruffin to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
American studies, ecocriticism, and citizenship : thinking and acting in
the local and global commons / edited by Joni Adamson and Kimberly N.
Ruffin.
p. cm. — (Routledge interdisciplinary perspectives on literature ; 15)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Ecocriticism. 2. Citizenship—History. 3. Ecology in
literature. I. Adamson, Joni, 1958– II. Ruffin, Kimberly N., 1969–
PN98.E36A44 2012
809'.93355—dc23
2012032780
ISBN13: 978-0-415-62823-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-06735-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global
This book is dedicated to the activists, academics, public
intellectuals, and artists around the world who are shaping
the terms of diverse forms of ecological citizenship.

Contents
List of Figures xi
Foreword xiii
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
JONI ADAMSON AND KIMBERLY N. RUFFIN
PART I
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Citizenship and Belonging
1 Zora Neale Hurston and the Environmental Ethic of Risk 21
SUSAN SCOTT PARRISH
2 Haitian Soil for the Citizen’s Soul 37
KAREN SALT
3 Intimate Cartographies: Navajo Ecological Citizenship, Soil
Conservation, and Livestock Reduction 50
TRACI BRYNNE VOYLES
4 Getting Back to an Imagined Nature:
The Mannahatta Project and Environmental Justice 64
JEFFREY MYERS
5 The Oil Desert 76
MICHAEL ZISER
viii Contents
6 Japanese Roots in American Soil: National Belonging
in David Mas Masumoto’s Harvest Son and Jeanne
Wakatsuki Houston’s The Legend of Fire Horse Woman 87
SARAH D. WALD
PART II
Border Ecologies
7 Our Nations and All Our Relations: Environmental Ethics
in William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.’s The Council 103
JOHN GAMBER
8 Preserving the Great White North: Migratory Birds,
Italian Immigrants, and the Making of Ecological
Citizenship across the U.S.–Canada Border, 1900–1924 117
IVAN GRABOVAC
9 Boundaries of Violence: Water, Gender, and
Development in Context 131
JULIE SZE
10 U.S. Border Ecologies, Environmental Criticism, and
Transnational American Studies 144
CLAUDIA SADOWSKI-SMITH
11 Climate Justice and Trans-Pacifi c Indigenous Feminisms 158
HSINYA HUANG
PART III
Ecological Citizenship in Action
12 Roots of Nativist Environmentalism in America’s Eden 175
LISA SUN-HEE PARK AND DAVID NAGUIB PELLOW
13 Wielding Common Wealth in Washington, DC,
and Eastern Kentucky: Creative Social Practice
in Two Marginalized Communities 190
KIRSTEN CRASE
Contents ix
14 Climate Justice Now!
Imagining Grassroots Ecocosmopolitanism 204
GIOVANNA DI CHIRO
15 The Los Angeles Urban Rangers, Trailblazing the Commons 220
STEPHANIE LE MENAGER
References 237
Contributors 259
Index 263