Why I Designed a Writing Course around Nature
As a child, I would gaze out of my bedroom window at night, into the cornfield in my backyard that stretched for what seemed like miles. The field would meet the distant freeway on the horizon, and the dotted headlights of semi-trucks appeared as stars in the Midwestern night sky. I didn't see a distinction between the natural world of fields and forests and the human world of houses and automobiles. The whole world was before me, and I was as eager to lose myself in cornstalks that towered above my head as I was to venture to the Big City, wherever that might be.
In autumn, I would walk into the labyrinth of the cornfield and go so far that I thought I'd never find my way back. Perhaps I would spend the night in the field, experience a mystical union with nature. I was probably never more than a few hundred yards from my own backyard, but the momentary loss of self was exhilarating.
As I grew older, a division between country and city, nature and humanity, became evident in the world around me. Nature offered what the human world did not: serenity, tranquility, an escape from the din of towns and cities. Nature offered a world unscathed by human touch. I would spend hours wandering the woods in quiet contemplation. I would take day trips to Yellow Springs and weekend vacations to Hocking Hills. I sought out nature's hiding places, and, in doing so, seemingly "contaminated" the natural world with my human presence. I had elevated nature to an almost mystical status, but in doing so I seemed to be severing myself from the natural world. But I didn't feel like I was separate from the natural world. I felt intimately tied to the natural world despite the notion that I was escaping humanity by entering nature.
Were humans a part of nature? Was nature still nature once it became a park? A holiday destination? A source of human pleasure?
These questions floated through my mind and drove me to pursue ecocriticism as an English major at The Ohio State University. Ecocriticism is a subfield of literary studies that examines the various representations of "nature" in literature, theory, and culture. A central tenet of ecocriticism is that "nature" is indeed a representation--nature is not an objective, unchanging thing of the material world but rather a set of representations. Nature is an idea, and that idea changes over time, it changes from culture to culture, it changes its form in the material world. Furthermore--and this is important--humans are a part of the idea of nature. The division of humanity from nature is false. When we think of ourselves as separate from nature, we tend not to see the interconnectedness of the world, and thus, we tend not to see the relationships between natural phenomena and human behavior.
We all of us interact with the natural world on a daily basis, and we all collectively make up the highly complex and interrelated world in which we live. Writing about nature and the environment, then, is always also writing about identity, relationships, ideas, science, and human cognition. Nature writing has always been a major part of the American literary tradition, and in recent years environmental writing has become increasingly important in science, politics, and public discourse. How will we address the ecological crises we face? How will we feed the growing population of the world? How will we develop sustainable technology? These are all important questions we can address through writing about "nature" in its various manifestations.
To this day, I love wandering through the woods and losing my sense of individuality in the interconnected world around me. Although I now recognize that all things are intimately related, the natural world holds a special place in my mind and imagination. For this reason, I remain committed to the idea that studying "nature" is a vital part of a liberal arts education. Throughout the semester, I hope we can all better understand our own ideas about and approaches to nature, and, through writing, connect those ideas to the pressing issues of our time.
In autumn, I would walk into the labyrinth of the cornfield and go so far that I thought I'd never find my way back. Perhaps I would spend the night in the field, experience a mystical union with nature. I was probably never more than a few hundred yards from my own backyard, but the momentary loss of self was exhilarating.
As I grew older, a division between country and city, nature and humanity, became evident in the world around me. Nature offered what the human world did not: serenity, tranquility, an escape from the din of towns and cities. Nature offered a world unscathed by human touch. I would spend hours wandering the woods in quiet contemplation. I would take day trips to Yellow Springs and weekend vacations to Hocking Hills. I sought out nature's hiding places, and, in doing so, seemingly "contaminated" the natural world with my human presence. I had elevated nature to an almost mystical status, but in doing so I seemed to be severing myself from the natural world. But I didn't feel like I was separate from the natural world. I felt intimately tied to the natural world despite the notion that I was escaping humanity by entering nature.
Were humans a part of nature? Was nature still nature once it became a park? A holiday destination? A source of human pleasure?
These questions floated through my mind and drove me to pursue ecocriticism as an English major at The Ohio State University. Ecocriticism is a subfield of literary studies that examines the various representations of "nature" in literature, theory, and culture. A central tenet of ecocriticism is that "nature" is indeed a representation--nature is not an objective, unchanging thing of the material world but rather a set of representations. Nature is an idea, and that idea changes over time, it changes from culture to culture, it changes its form in the material world. Furthermore--and this is important--humans are a part of the idea of nature. The division of humanity from nature is false. When we think of ourselves as separate from nature, we tend not to see the interconnectedness of the world, and thus, we tend not to see the relationships between natural phenomena and human behavior.
We all of us interact with the natural world on a daily basis, and we all collectively make up the highly complex and interrelated world in which we live. Writing about nature and the environment, then, is always also writing about identity, relationships, ideas, science, and human cognition. Nature writing has always been a major part of the American literary tradition, and in recent years environmental writing has become increasingly important in science, politics, and public discourse. How will we address the ecological crises we face? How will we feed the growing population of the world? How will we develop sustainable technology? These are all important questions we can address through writing about "nature" in its various manifestations.
To this day, I love wandering through the woods and losing my sense of individuality in the interconnected world around me. Although I now recognize that all things are intimately related, the natural world holds a special place in my mind and imagination. For this reason, I remain committed to the idea that studying "nature" is a vital part of a liberal arts education. Throughout the semester, I hope we can all better understand our own ideas about and approaches to nature, and, through writing, connect those ideas to the pressing issues of our time.