Uncommon Work: Utopia, Labor, and Environment in Late Twentieth- Century American Fiction

UNCOMMON WORK: UTOPIA, LABOR, AND ENVIRONMENT IN LATE TWENTIETH- CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION BY BRANDON JONES DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Melissa Littlefield, Chair Professor Stacy Alaimo Professor Stephanie Foote Professor Robert Markley ii ABSTRACT Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, critical theorists have lamented in elegiac fashion the disappearance of any political economic system, real or imaginary, that could feasibly offer an alternative to liberal capitalism. Utopia, understood as the aesthetic expression of the desire for alternative social realities, has been declared impossible for political imagining since the late twentieth century. This obsolescence of utopia has been felt particularly acutely among the environmental movement. After its optimistic emergence in the 1960s and 1970s as a corollary of the New Left, the environmental movement became increasingly characterized by a heightened sensibility of ecological precarity and everyday crisis, which emerged in response to the frequency of natural disasters and environmental injustices appearing both in headlines and citizens’ backyards. As a result, utopian narratives of sustainable and pastoral alternatives to capitalist growth registered as irresponsibly out of touch. Instead, apocalyptic stories of nature’s anthropogenic decline became the predominant form of environmental rhetoric circulating in fictional and political discourse. Unfortunately, apocalyptic environmental narratives largely registered as redundant among American publics, their mimetic approach to environmental crisis provoking nihilism and despair more than preventative action. A way out of this imaginative impasse lies, my project claims, in a select archive of late twentieth-century American fiction writers that sustained the relevance of utopia for environmental activism and political economy. Namely, I argue that Ursula K. Le Guin, Marge Piercy, Louise Erdrich, Alice Walker, Octavia E. Butler, and Amitav Ghosh, among others, revived an American tradition of georgic writings—that is, texts attending to issues of political economy through a focus on relations between human labor and the physical environment—and directed it toward global projects of economic and environmental justice. The iii political efficacy of such fictions for environmentalism, I contend, lies in the way their georgic utopias are subject to change rather than static, unlike the majority of utopian fictions prior to the 1970s. The conditional, unfinished status of these hopeful stories encourages the participation of characters and readers in the work of composing ecologically viable futures. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The journey of this project began during my undergraduate studies, when Professor Sharon Stockton at Dickinson College introduced me to the field of literature and science, and opened the horizon of possibilities available for continuing to explore the interdisciplinary questions that preoccupied me at the intersection of English and Physics. I am exceedingly grateful to her for pushing me to pursue graduate studies, and for introducing me to the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), which has continued to be a sustaining and inspiring community for me throughout my graduate career at the University of Illinois. It is through this community that I first encountered Robert Markley and Lucinda Cole, who have both been incredibly supportive of me and my work since 2009. The opportunity to pursue a doctorate degree would never have been available to me if it were not for, in addition to the aforementioned individuals, the support and encouragement of Professors Jean-Michel Rabaté, Michael Gamer, and Lorenzo Valterza at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as then- graduate student Jason Zuzga. Numerous campus events, collaborations, fellowships/assistantships, as well as external opportunities, have provided formative experiences and long-standing professional relationships that have guided my scholarship. To name a few, Melissa Littlefield’s and Robert Markley’s dogged pursuit of establishing truly interdisciplinary research networks both on and off campus contributed to such developments as the INTERSECT Network for Neuro-Cultures, the “Writing Another Future: Science Fiction, the Arts and Humanities” symposium, and the “Speculative Futures” IPRH series of events, in which my involvement offered inimitable experience in understanding strategies and avenues for cultivating interdisciplinary communities among the humanities, arts, and sciences. Participating in the 2013 Cornell School of Criticism and Theory, v funded by a fellowship from the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois, had a profound impact on my research trajectory, turning me in the direction of ecocriticism and new materialism, and introducing me to Angie Bennett and Ajitpaul Mangat, whose social and intellectual friendships have been indispensable to the development of this project and my studies as a whole. Other non-Illinois scholars and graduate colleagues who impacted my thought and writing in singular fashion include Eileen Joy, Clint Wilson, Alison Sperling, Shyama Rajendran, and Alan Montroso. I was also lucky enough to receive a Mullen Award Fellowship from the journal Science Fiction Studies to pursue archival research at the Octavia E. Butler Collection in Pasadena, California, without which the completion of chapter 4 would not have been possible. English and other Humanities faculty at the University of Illinois have been vital contributors to the direction of this project and my academic career. Andrew Gaedtke has been extremely generous with his time, and provocative in his feedback and conversation, ever since I first met him in Philadelphia. Lori Newcomb has been an optimistic and inspiring mentor in my capacity as graduate assistant to the Re:Search undergraduate editorial board. Jamie Jones is the environmental humanist I hope to be some day, lucid in her explanation of the import of environmental study for humanities at large, and the most generous and encouraging of faculty role models. Samantha Frost provided critical feedback in the formative stages of this project: utopia would not have been the central focus if not for her commentary on the role of human concerns in environmental research. And Antoinette Burton has been a late-stage inspiration, pushing me to the finish line with her incisive comments and discussion points in IPRH seminar meetings, leading by example with her uplifting commitment to envisioning the future of the vi humanities, and involving me in the inspirational experience that was the “Speculative Futures” event series. My committee members and writing group members have been in the trenches with me every step of the way. Melissa Littlefield has been an incredible mentor and role model of interdisciplinary scholarship; she offered patience, advice, and support with the knowledge of exactly what I needed in each moment, even if I didn’t know myself. Robert Markley has been in my corner since before I arrived in Illinois. His posthumanism course was a turning point in my graduate studies and his continued input on science fiction studies, especially, has helped me clarify my relationship to that field. Stephanie Foote is responsible for pushing me to develop a sound formal and archival methodology, helping me realize my strengths as a reader of fiction and how to employ them most strategically alongside a keen environmentalist eye. And Stacy Alaimo has shown me how to practice literary studies as environmental politics, how to weave new materialist and ecocritical theory into the practice of aesthetic interpretation, and how scholarship can serve as a force for environmental community building. In my writing group, Christine Hedlin and Benjamin O’Dell have been diligent readers and commenters, always keeping me on track, reminding me of audience considerations, and talking through critical decisions at the granular scale of written content and structure. And last but certainly not least, Rebecah Pulsifer has been invested in my project and research as if it were her own, seeing one step ahead in my process and pushing me to get there, interacting “in sympathy of thought” and wholehearted partnership. This project would not have been possible without the support of friends, academic or otherwise. Michael Uhall, Andrew Gentile, Lauren Deal, and Nicholas Flores, especially, have been the most intellectually stimulating of friends anyone could ask for. And my family has been vii the unwavering bedrock of this pursuit, as of all others, always believing in and thinking the world of me. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. COUNTERING APOCALYPSE.....................................................................1 CHAPTER 1. TOWARD A NEW AMERICAN GEORGIC........................................................19 CHAPTER 2. GREENPRINTS FOR SURVIVAL: THE CONDITIONAL PROMISE OF ECOTOPIA....................................................................................................................................44 CHAPTER 3. UTOPIAN TRANSMIGRATION: GLOBAL TOXICS AND US MAGICAL REALISM......................................................................................................................................93 CHAPTER 4. BETWEEN GROUND

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