INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been rquxxfaiced fixnn the ndcrofihn master. UMI fihns the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter 6ce, vriifle others may be from any type of conqjuter printer. The quality of this reproduction is dqiendent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bieedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversdy afreet rqiroduction. In the unhkdy event that the author (tid not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will inÆcate the deletion. Oversize materials (e g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, banning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to r i ^ in equal sections with small o v e rly . Each orignal is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the orignal manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photogr^hic prints are available for ary photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell InfonnationCompany 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 SPEAKING FOR NATURE: THE POLITICS AND PRACTICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Karla M. Armbruster, M.A. ***** The Ohio State Universit}' 1996 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor H. Lewis Ulman, Adviser Professor Marlene Longenecker ,a r r \ Adviser Professor Barbara Rigney Department of English UMI Number: 9639182 Copyright 1996 by Armbruster, Karla M. All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9639182 Copyright 1996, by UMI Cmnpany. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Karla Marie Armbruster 1996 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines contemporary American literary and cultural texts that share the stance of environmental advocacy, "speaking for" the rights or interests of nonhuman nature by challenging dominant Western ideologies which construct humanity as separate from and superior to nature. While such advocacy is essential in contemporary American culture, we cannot uncritically accept that texts which speak for nature are selflessly motivated or politically effective. Consequently, I adapt feminist theories about the problems of speaking for others to explore how texts of environmental advocacy are often undermined and infiltrated by traces of the ideologies they seek to transform. In this exploration, I focus on three issues: constructions of human subjectivity, conceptions of human relationships with nature and the role of language(s) in mediating those relationships, and representations of nature itself. I examine the construction of human subjectivity in texts that highlight the connections between nature and traditionally oppressed groups of people such as women and Native Americans; these texts include works by ecofeminists and non-native writers who hold out Native American cultures as models of ecological responsibility, autobiographical nonfiction by Dian Fossey, Alice Walker and Terry Tempest Williams, and fiction by Ursula Le Guin. To explore concepts of the relationship between humans and nature, I turn to the work of wilderness advocates Dave Foreman and Edward Abbey, the nonfiction of Gary Snyder, and the scientific theories of James Lovelock and Wes Jackson. To examine representations of the nonhuman, I discuss the visual texts of print advertisements and television documentaries. While some of these texts alienate humans from the natural world and each other by constructing falsely unified, static pictures that erase differences within the human subject, between humans and nature, and within the natural world, others resist such constructions. Instead, they work towards a view of the world as complex and shifting, in which humans and nature shape each other through innumerable relationships that produce differences as well as commonalities. Ultimately, I argue that critical reflection on the practice of environmental advocacy can positively transform the ways we represent and enact our relationships with the rest of nature. m To my parents, who taught me to respect and care for other living things. IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to Lewis Ulman, my dissertation adviser, for the extraordinary level of support and enthusiasm he provided for this project from beginning to end, no matter what the weight of his other responsibilities. His guidance made this process a truly enriching one for me, both intellectually and professionally. I am also indebted to the other members of my committee, Marlene Longenecker and Barbara Rigney, for their valuable advice and interest in this dissertation. In addition, a number of other colleagues and friends contributed to my work by reading either portions of the actual dissertation or drafts of articles taken from it; I would like to thank Ralph Bauer, Tom Bredehoft, Brenda Brueggemann, Pete Coogan, Kathy Davies, Greg Garvey, Nick Howe, Beth Ina, Rosemary Johnsen, Gretchen Legler, and Kathy Wallace for their helpful comments. Of course, I could never have completed this process without the encouragement and understanding of the many friends and family members who helped me in a multitude of ways. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the students with whom I have shared many of the texts discussed in this dissertation; the enthusiasm and intellectual engagement they showed in response to authors such as Alice Walker, Ursula Le Guin, Terry Tempest Williams, and Edward Abbey helped sustain my own interest in the topic of environmental advocacy and inspired me to think about it in new ways. VITA May 12,1963............................................ Bom - Cincinnati, Ohio 1985............................................................B.A. English, Miami University 1989............................................................M.A. English, The Ohio State University 1988 - 1989................................................ Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 198 9............................................................Graduate Teaching Assistant, Miami University 1990 - 1991................................................ Science Writer and Editor, Miami University 1991 - 1995................................................ Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University 1995 - 1996................................................Full-time Lecturer, Michigan State University PUBLICATIONS 1. "Josephine Johnson." American Environmentalists: A Selective Biographical Encyclopedia, 1850-1995. Ed. Richard Harmond and G.A. Cevasco. Forthcoming from Scarecrow Press. VI 2. "Creating the World We Must Save: The Paradox of Television Nature Programs." Solicited forWriting and the Environment. Ed. Richard Kerridge and Neil Sammels. Forthcoming from Zed Books. 3. "'Surely, God, These Are My Kin': The Dynamics of Identity and Advocacy in the Life and Works of Dian Fossey."Becoming Beast: Discourses of Animality from the Middle Ages to the Present. Ed. Jennifer Ham and Matthew Senior. Forthcoming from Routledge Press. 4. "Blurring the Boundaries in Ursula Le Guin's Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight': A Poststructuralist Approach to Ecofeminist Criticism." Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 3.1 (Fall 1996). 5. "Rewriting a Genealogy with the Earth: Women and Nature in the Works of Terry Tempest Williams. "Southwestern American Literature 21 (Fall 1995): 209-220. 6. Kaufman, Donald, and Karla Armbruster. Finding Our Niche: The Human Role in Healing the Earth. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 7. "Prairie Restoration at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory."Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment. By Donald G. Kaufman and Cecilia M. Franz. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 118-20. 8. Gates, Pam, and Karla Armbruster. "Hunger in the United States.”Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment. By Donald G. Kaufman and Cecilia M. Franz. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 186-89. 9. "The Statue of Liberty. " Biosphere 2000: Protecting Our Global Environment. By Donald G. Kaufman and Cecilia M. Franz. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 544-46. HELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English vu TABLE OF CONTENTS Eâg£ A bstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Dedication..................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................... iv V ita................................................................................................................................. V Introduction................................................................................................................... 1 Chapters: 1. The Cultural Tradition of Environmental Advocacy.....................................14