Reconnecting with John Muir : essays in post-pastoral practice / Terry Gifford.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gifford, Terry.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Nature in literature.

Environmentalism--United States--History--20th century.

Environmentalism.

Pastoral literature, American--History and criticism.

Pastoral literature, American.

Mountaineering in literature.

Ecocriticism.

Muir, John, 1838-1914--Appreciation--United States.

Muir, John.

Muir, John, 1838-1914--Influence.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (214 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ga. : University of Georgia Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Advancing for the first time the concept of "post-pastoral practice," Reconnecting with John Muir springs from Terry Gifford's understanding of the great naturalist as an exemplar of integrated, environmentally conscious knowing and writing. Just as the discourses of science and the arts were closer in Muir's day-in part, arguably, because of Muir-it is time we learned from ecology to recognize how integrated our own lives are as readers, students, scholars, teachers, and writers. When we defy the institutional separations, purposely straying from narrow career tracks, the activities of reading, scholarship, teaching, and writing can inform each other in a holistic "post-pastoral" professional practice. Healing the separations of culture and nature represents the next way forward from the current crossroads in the now established field of ecocriticism. The mountain environment provides a common ground for the diverse modes of engagement and mediation Gifford discusses. By attempting to understand the meaning of Muir's assertion that "going to the mountains is going home," Gifford points us toward a practice of integrated reading, scholarship, teaching, and writing that is adequate to our environmental crisis.

Contents:

Keeping faith with the source

Muir as practitioner of the post-pastoral

Muir's multiple discourses

Teaching environmentalism through writing

Muir's mode of reading John Ruskin

Rick Bass's fiber as a post-pastoral georgic

Walking into narrative scholarship

Teaching post-pastoral poetry of landscape

Tests of character in Cold Mountain

Muir's fourfold concept of the mountaineer

Toward a post-pastoral mountaineering literature

Post-pastoral practice at the crossroads of ecocriticism.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-194) and index.

ISBN:

9786612552984

9781282552982

1282552988

9780820336657

0820336653

OCLC:

593295509