Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation

Auteur(s) : Harding, Wendy  Voir les notices liées en tant qu'auteur

Titre(s) : The myth of emptiness and the new American literature of place [Texte imprimé] / Wendy Harding

Publication : Iowa City : University Of Iowa Press, 2014

Description matérielle : xxi-243 pages ; 23 cm

Comprend : Introduction ; From empty spaces to storied places --Part I ; The idea of empty. ; Placing the land under the sign of empty -- ; Creating the American nation from a vast and empty chaos --Part II ; Seeking new connections. ; Becoming committed to place in Rich Bass's Winter -- ; The storied mountains of Charles Bowden's Frog Mountain blues -- ; Suturing the map of the known universe in Ellen Meloy's The last cheater's waltz --Part III ; Retracing paths and reassessing emplacement. ; The peopled shape of the land in Jonathan Raban's Bad land -- ; Unsettling oppositions in Rebecca Solnit's Savage dreams -- ; Robert Sullivan's reverse commute in The meadowlands --Conclusion ; The void calls ; earth calls back.

Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-237) and index
"In Under the Sign of Empty, Wendy Harding adopts a transdisciplinary perspective that draws on the theories of geographers, historians, sociologists, and philosophers to understand the reasons for the enduring perception of emptiness in the American landscape. In doing so, she identifies a recent trend in the literature of place that corrects the misperceptions resulting from this trope" ; "From the moment the first English-speaking explorers and settlers arrived on the North American continent, many have described its various locations and environments as empty. Indeed, much of American national history and culture is bound up with the idea that parts of the landscape are empty and thus open for colonization, settlement, economic improvement, claim staking, taming, civilizing, cultivating, and the exploitation of resources. In turn, most Euro-American nonfiction written about the landscape has treated it either as an object to be acted upon by the author or an empty space, unspoiled by human contamination, to which the solitary individual goes to be refreshed and rejuvenated. In The Myth of Emptiness and the New American Literature of Place, Wendy Harding identifies an important recent development in the literature of place that corrects the misperceptions resulting from these tropes. Works by Rick Bass, Charles Bowden, Ellen Meloy, Jonathan Raban, Rebecca Solnit, and Robert Sullivan move away from the tradition of nature writing, with its emphasis on the solitary individual communing with nature in uninhabited places, to recognize the interactions of human and other-than-human presences in the land. In different ways, all six writers reveal a more historically complex relationship between Americans and their environments. In this new literature of place, writers revisit abandoned, threatened, or damaged sites that were once represented as devoid of human presence and dig deeper to reveal that they are in fact full of the signs of human activity. These writers are interested in the role of social, political, and cultural relationships and the traces they leave on the landscape. Throughout her exploration, Harding adopts a transdisciplinary perspective that draws on the theories of geographers, historians, sociologists, and philosophers to understand the reasons for the enduring perception of emptiness in the American landscape and how this new literature of place works with and against these ideas. She reminds us that by understanding and integrating human impacts into accounts of the landscape, we are better equipped to fully reckon with the natural and cultural crisis that engulfs all landscapes today." -- Publisher's description

Sujet(s) : Littérature américaine -- 21e siècle  Voir les notices liées en tant que sujet
Vide (philosophie) -- Dans la littérature  Voir les notices liées en tant que sujet
Espace (philosophie) -- Dans la littérature  Voir les notices liées en tant que sujet
Nature -- Dans la littérature  Voir les notices liées en tant que sujet
Analyse du discours littéraire  Voir les notices liées en tant que sujet

Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9781609382797 (paperback) (acid free paper). - ISBN 160938279X (paperback) (acid free paper). - ISBN 9781609382926 (erroné) (ebk)

Identifiant de la notice  : ark:/12148/cb44209739h

Notice n° :  FRBNF44209739 (notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)