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Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South, and 20Th Century American Literature Justin Ford Tinsley University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

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Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South, and 20Th Century American Literature Justin Ford Tinsley University of Arkansas, Fayetteville University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 12-2016 Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South, and 20th Century American Literature Justin Ford Tinsley University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Tinsley, Justin Ford, "Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South, and 20th Century American Literature" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1834. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1834 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Ecological Approaches to Modernism, the U.S. South and 20th Century American Literature A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English by Justin Tinsley University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bachelor of Arts in Professional and Technical Writing, 2006 University of Central Arkansas Master of Arts in English, 2009 December 2016 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council _______________________________ Dr. Lisa Hinrichsen Dissertation Director ________________________________ ___________________________ Dr. M. Keith Booker Dr. Sean Dempsey Committee Member Committee Member Abstract This project seeks to draw from the insights of the emerging scholarly discipline known as ecocritism, study of the relationship between human and nonhuman in all arts and in all diverse forms, and apply them to the study of a specific regional art, that of the U.S. South. As an interrogation of the human / nonhuman binary, ecocriticism is intrinsically intertwined with the concept of place. Southern studies—having long explored the diversity (in terms of both human experience and geographical terrain) characterizing the region—offers ecocriticism a ripe testing ground for theoretical mergers and analytic applications. Both fields celebrate hybridity, multiplicity, and variegation. This project, in keeping with this argumentative mandate, analyzes a number of separate primary texts in a variety of formats. Each of these narratives features a palpable, vibrantly realized setting. In most cases, the text’s evocation of its integral setting becomes accessible to the reader or viewer primarily through the perceptions, words, and sentiments of a child protagonist. The characters in these texts and films operate outside of larger southern, national, and global societies, participating instead in insular communal or familial systems. Each relies upon an intimate connection to animal life for spiritual, personal, and or directly physical sustenance. Further, these texts, viewed and read as a collective, demonstrate a preoccupation with the nonhuman running through various genres, modes, and time periods of southern narrative. These preoccupations illustrate the potentials for literature and film to shed light upon the relevance of posthumanist outlooks towards biological systems and geographical methodologies and ecological paradigms of place and its nonhuman or more-than-human dimensions. Further, each of these young protagonists, as his or her respective narrative progresses, discover the previously enjoyed intimacy of their connection with the land to be endangered by modernity, capitalism, and similar threats to both natural landscapes and human lifestyles. The project of decentering the human underlying ecocriticism and ecocinema, in the context of southern studies, enters a pre-existing conversation uniquely suited to encompass challenges to age-old binaries and hegemonies. Table of Contents A. Introduction: Ecology and Representation of Place in the Modern and Postmodern South ................................................................................................................................. 1 1. Overview of Key Texts and Central Ideas .............................................. 2 2. Chapter by Chapter Discussion ............................................ 16 B. Chapter One: The Narrative Biosphere of Go Down, Moses: Interconnection in Faulknerian Ecology ....................................................................................................... 27 1. Introduction to the Text and Overview of Key Points .......................................... 28 2. Ecological Interconnection: A Theoretical Overview .......................................... 33 3. The Network Model: A Commentary on Existing Ecological Approaches to the Text ............................................ 37 4. “Was” ............................................ 44 5. “The Fire and the Hearth” ............................................ 47 6. “Pantaloon in Black” ............................................ 52 7. “The Old People” ............................................ 64 8. “The Bear” ............................................ 72 9. “Delta Autumn” ............................................ 87 10. “Go Down, Moses” ............................................ 90 11. Models of Assemblage and New Materialisms: Faulkner, Ecocriticism, and the Future ............................................ 92 C. Chapter Two: Power and Access: Animal Consciousness and Postcolonial Ecology in the Writing of Linda Hogan ......................................................................................... 102 1. Introduction: Native Identity, Nature Writing, and the Fiction and Nonfiction of Linda Hogan .......................................... 103 2. Dwellings: A Language of Nonhuman Value .......................................... 107 3. A Note on Existing Criticism of Linda Hogan and Power ................................. 112 4. Animal Subjectivity and the Postcolonial Condition: A Theoretical Overview .... .......................................... 120 5. Power: Animal Consciousness, Hogan’s Panther, and the Postcolonial Ecology of her Fictional Florida .......................................... 127 D. Chapter 3: The Filmic and Literary Bioregions of the U.S. South: An Examination of Works by Jeff Nichols and Janisse Ray .................................................................. 135 1. Bioregionalism, Critical Place, and Challenges to Traditional Borders ............. 136 2. Southern Studies and Contemporary Approaches to the Global / Local Dichotomy .......................................... 145 3. Review of Existing Criticism: Mud .......................................... 153 4. Critical Reading: Mud .......................................... 159 5. Critical Reading: Ecology of a Cracker Childhood .......................................... 166 E. Conclusion: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bioregionalism, Southern Hybridity, and the Future of Eco-Cinematic Regionalism .................................................................. 169 1. Introduction to the Film and Overview of Filmic Ecology................................. 170 2. Beasts of the Southern Wild: Review of Existing Criticism ............................... 187 3. Critical Reading: Beasts of the Southern Wild .......................................... 194 4. Global Regionalism, Planetary Localism, Fictive Demarcations, and Material Boundary Lines: The U.S. South, Ecological Art, and the Future of Borders .......... .......................................... 203 F. Works Cited / Consulted: Introduction ...................................................................... 202 1. Primary Texts .......................................... 203 2. Critical Place and Bioregionalism .......................................... 204 3. Southern Place .......................................... 205 4. Cinema and Ecology .......................................... 206 5. Posthumanism .......................................... 207 6. Queer, Marxist, and Postcolonial Ecologies .......................................... 208 7. General Ecocriticism .......................................... 209 G. Works Cited / Consulted: Chapter One...................................................................... 210 1. Primary Text .......................................... 211 2. Ecology in Go Down, Moses .......................................... 212 3. General Faulkner and Ecology .......................................... 213 4. Ecocriticism and Literary Place .......................................... 215 5. Animal Subjectivity .......................................... 216 6. Posthumanism .......................................... 217 H. Works Cited / Consulted: Chapter Two ..................................................................... 218 1. Primary Texts .......................................... 219 2. Criticism of Power .......................................... 220 3. General Linda Hogan Criticism .......................................... 221 4. Native American Place .......................................... 222 5. Postcolonial Ecology .......................................... 223 6. Animal Subjectivity .......................................... 224 7. Posthumanism .......................................... 225 I. Works Cited / Consulted: Chapter Three .................................................................. 226 1. Primary Texts .......................................... 227 2.
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