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Alternative Wildernesses Finding Wildness in 21St ALTERNATIVE WILDERNESSES FINDING WILDNESS IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA By BEN S. BUNTING, JR. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of English MAY 2012 © Copyright by BEN S. BUNTING, JR., 2012 All Rights Reserved © Copyright by BEN S. BUNTING, JR., 2012 All Rights Reserved To the Faculty of Washington State University: The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of BEN S. BUNTING, JR. find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted. __________________________________ Jon Hegglund, Ph.D., Chair __________________________________ Debbie Lee, Ph.D. __________________________________ Jason Farman, Ph.D. __________________________________ Peter Chilson, MFA iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could not have been written without the support of a great many people. I've done my best to include as many of you as possible here, whether you're mentioned directly or indirectly, but if you've been left out, know that it's the result of a lack of space and not a lack of appreciation... From the day that I changed my college major to English Literature from the rather more lucrative Computer Science, to my decision to move two thousand miles from home to pursue a Master's degree at Washington State University, to my subsequent choice to stay at WSU for my Ph.D., my parents and brother have always been amazingly supportive, even during the times when they might very well have suspected that I'd just gone crazy. To mom, dad, and Justin: I still miss being home, but your understanding has made my time away much easier than it might have been, and that's made a huge difference. And yes, if you were still wondering, I actually have gone a little crazy... To Lindsey, who made the dual mistakes of specializing in 20th century literary theory during her Master's and having ears – mistakes which resulted in her having to read almost as many early drafts of this thing as I did and having to listen to me brainstorm out loud every few days for three years, respectively. I'm glad to know that you never felt like a dissertation widow. iv To friends both old and new, who kept me grounded and made sure that I never forgot that good scholarship comes from a life well lived and not the other way around. This dissertation would not exist in its current form were it not for all of those days I spent not working on it, and for those days I thank you. To John Barber, for convincing me to climb the fire tower on top of Mount Sterling, which in a way was what started this whole thing. And for following me up that last eight hundred feet of Mount Adams ten years later, which in a way was what made me able to finish it. To my committee, of course. Without Debbie and Peter's excellent travel writing seminar and their subsequent encouragement of my project even in its most ephemeral state way back in 2007, I would have been much too intimidated by the idea of getting a Ph.D. to try in the first place. Jason's fascinating seminar on mobile technology got me to start thinking about the possibility of substantive connections between the wilderness and technology as well as inspiring me to try making a location-based mobile game of my own, which was easily the most fun I've ever had doing homework since the days of safety scissors and eating glue. Finally, thanks to Jon for calmly answering nearly countless panic-stricken emails, and for not balking when I came into his office five months before my defense and told him that I wanted to include a chapter on video games. To the English department's faculty more generally: it's been great fun and an honor to work in a department that is so supportive and forward-thinking. Before I finished my exams, I'd never imagined that I would be sad to realize I wasn't going to be taking any more seminars... v To the English department's staff: it's not an exaggeration in the least to say that Avery Hall would fall apart without your work, figuratively and maybe even literally. Special thanks to Jerri Smith, Sarah White, and Annette Bednar, without whose help I would never have figured out how to complete the paperwork necessary to graduate the first time, let alone the second time. And last, to my grandparents, Daniel and Janice Leone, who have read everything I've written that was worth reading (and some things that weren't) since I was in the first grade. vi ALTERNATIVE WILDERNESSES FINDING WILDNESS IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA Abstract by Ben S. Bunting, Jr., Ph.D. Washington State University May 2012 Chair: Jon Hegglund This dissertation is a critique of the American concept of wilderness. Traditionally, this concept has assumed the necessity of a geographic locus that embodies the qualities of “the natural,” but I challenge this assumption, positing that what we value most in our interactions with wilderness places is not the physical location, but instead a quality of experience that we find at that location. By theorizing how this quality can be transplanted to contexts beyond the wilderness place in the first two chapters, I argue for a new concept of wilderness that is not constrained by geography, that allows us access to experiential wildness nearly anytime and anywhere. The remaining three chapters provide practical examples of how this wildness can be deterritorialized. First, I examine literature dealing with the practice of urban exploration – including L.B. Deyo and David Leibowitz's Invisible Frontier: Exploring the Tunnels, Ruins, and Rooftops of New York and Julia Solis' New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City – to show how it functions as a method for bringing wildness to city space. Second, I discuss the recent video game Minecraft, arguing that it intentionally presents a gameworld to the player that encourages meaningful experiences of wildness not unlike those afforded to the urban explorer. Third and last, I investigate the possibilities for wildness represented by mobile gaming and the integration vii of the location-aware interface with “real life”. Here I draw on the examples of Foursquare and geocaching to illustrate how these games can encourage a reinscribing of walked space by the player through the mobile interface's superimposition of a virtual layer of place-information onto the physical world. Ultimately, in addition to constructing a new theory of “wilding” space from a synthesis of previous space/place theorists' works, my dissertation argues for the relevance of three different-but-related spatial practices that I believe are all deserving of more serious critical attention. Weaving these practices together theoretically, I make a case for a more inclusive “wilderness,” one that could productively alter what it means to read literature, video games, and the very spaces that we inhabit ecocritically. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................iv ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................vii AN INTRODUCTION TO WILDNESS.........................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1. WILD(ER)NESS: PLACE AND PRACTICE...............................................................15 The Trouble With Wilderness (Places)...................................................................18 On the Origin of “Nature”......................................................................................25 Transcending Transcendence and the Commodification of the Natural................28 Wilderness..............................................................................................................34 Wildness.................................................................................................................38 INTERLUDE ONE............................................................................................................43 2. DETERRITORIALIZING WILDNESS AND A GENEALOGY OF URBAN SPATIAL PRACTICES......................................................................................................................50 Spatial Practice and Escaping the Modern City.....................................................56 Unmapping and Cartophilia...................................................................................62 A Genealogy of Spatial Practices: Flanerie...........................................................69 A Genealogy of Spatial Practices: The Situationists..............................................73 INTERLUDE TWO...........................................................................................................80 3. URBAN EXPLORATION AND THE HIDDEN CITY.................................................87 An Introduction to Urban Exploration...................................................................90 The Universality of Wildness: Alan S. North's The Urban Adventure ix Handbook...............................................................................................................98 This Way to Wildness: Ninjalicious' Access All Areas.........................................103 The Urban Trail Report: Jinx and Invisible Frontier............................................108 Exhuming History: Julia Solis' New York Underground......................................120 INTERLUDE THREE.....................................................................................................130
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