I think you bring up a good point, but I don't know if the issue is
expanding post-modernism to include the environment. I think additionally,
though I know ecocrit is out there is some form, I get the sense that it
doesn't typically take the form that we would naturally run across as
English majors (this may or may not be what you're getting at). I could be
uninformed about a great deal of criticism that is going on, I don't know,
but it seems that ecocrit actually occurs in a variety of forms that are not
the "critical essay" or the "cultural critique." I think about poltical
groups particular, public interest groups, a friend of mine just recently
interviewed for a position as a public interest consultant out in Oregon,
where basically his job would be to provide, through this non-profit
organization, some sort of pressure upon elected officals about
environmental/ecological issues. This seems to me to be a form of criticism
(even in the sense that critical writing is involved), but it also takes
into a account a number of very practical issues that often seem to fall
outside the realm of "critique" as I've encountered it in English. I think a
lot of it is disciplinary as well, isn't there ecocrit to a certain degree
in say economics or government? I'm not sure whether you'd consider it as
such, and an interesting idea is that most of the talk about the environment
seems to fall under science or economics, but rarely under the heading
cultural or social. Just some thoughts.
James
>I was clicking through a few online journals from Johns Hopkins' muse
>project, and I became aware that, aside from book reviews, most of the
>essays on contemporary literature are about gender, race, and, less
>explicitly, class issues. I began to think about our modern issues and
>these subjects, and came to think that our culture was pretty much
>covered by them. But it's not. In my opinion the single most important
>issue of this, and future eras, is the environment, espescially the
>population problem. But it seems ignored by the journals. I was first
>introduced to Eco-criticism through a guest lecture in my American
>Studies seminar by Dan Phillipon, and I was mildly interested, but I did
>not come to any depth of understanding of the problem until recently. I
>spent a few hours following my mouse around cyberspace reading articles
>(for anyone interested, a good reference point is the links page at the
>Wallace Stegner Environmental Center at
>http://sfpl.lib.ca.us/stegner/ecolink.html, or check out the Association
>for the Study of Literature and the Environment, ASLE, at
>http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~djp2n/asle.html) and I found a new
>respect for the problems of our planet.
> My question is Why? Why do critics not have much to say on it? or, Do
>they and am I just unable to find where their papers are? Do we need to
>expand Postmodernism to include the environment, is it just fine without
>it, or does it already include it?
> Specifically for our class, **how much attention should we give the
>toxic cloud in White Noise?** **Do any of the other books approach this
>issue?**
> Thoughts...?
> Carter
>
>