Graduate Handbook

Bibliographical Notes

Because reading is such an important part of graduate study in literature and environment, no guide to the field would be complete without a discussion of introductory works. Additional readings may be found in the bibliographies of many of these books. Dissertations, articles, and special issues of journals are not listed. Many additional bibliographical resources are available at the ASLE Online Bibliography page. What follows is an expanded and updated version of the Bibliographical Notes written for the first edition of the Handbook. For ease of reading, titles are rendered in bold.

Related Fields

The best book on the history of environmental science remains Donald Worster's Nature's Economy: A History of Environmental Ideas (1977; Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986), although Anna Bramwell, Ecology in the 20th Century: A History (New Haven: Yale UP, 1989) also deserves attention. A popular, clearly written guide to scientific ecology is Paul R. Ehrlich, The Machinery of Nature (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986). All of these should be updated by Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Oxford UP, 1990). Edward O. Wilson's The Diversity of Life (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992) offers a learned overview of the threats to ecosystem health. See also The Biophilia Hypothesis (Washington, DC: Island P, 1993), edited by Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson. Lester Brown and the Worldwatch Institute offer yearly updates in their State of the World reports, as does the World Resources Institute in its World Resources report.

Major surveys of the culture-nature relationship include: Hans Huth, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes (Berkeley: U of California P, 1957); Clarence Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: U of California P, 1967); Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980); Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd ed. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1982); Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility (New York: Pantheon, 1983); Max Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness: From Prehistory to the Age of Ecology (New Haven: Yale UP, 1991); and Neil Evernden, The Social Creation of Nature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1992). See also The Wilderness Condition: Essays on Environment and Civilization (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1992), edited by Max Oelschlaeger; Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: Norton, 1995), edited by William Cronon; and Reinventing Nature?: Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction (Washington, D.C.: Island P, 1995), edited by Michael Soulé and Gary Lease.

Two recent histories of the modern environmental movement are: Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), and Kirkpatrick Sale, The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962-1992 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993). For a documentary history, see American Environmentalism: Readings in Conservation History, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990), edited by Roderick Nash. Nash outlines the development of environmental ethics in The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1989), and Warwick Fox organizes the various ethical theories in Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism (Boston: Shambhala, 1990). For a collection of essays published in the journal Environmental Ethics, see Postmodern Environmental Ethics (Albany: SUNY P, 1995), edited by Max Oelschlaeger.

Carolyn Merchant provides an overview of radical environmentalism in Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World (New York: Routledge, 1992). A perceptive critique of radical environmentalism is Martin W. Lewis, Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1992).

Robert Paehlke, in Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics (New Haven: Yale UP, 1989), attempts to balance these two perspectives and also provide a good introduction to green political science. See also Robyn Eckersley, Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach (Albany: SUNY P, 1992).

Many texts examine the growing field of environmental history. Good points of entry are Joseph M. Petulla, American Environmental History: The Exploitation and Conservation of Natural Resources (San Francisco: Boyd and Fraser, 1977), and William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983). Supplement this with The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern Environmental History (New York: Cambridge UP, 1988); Donald Worster's The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination (New York: Oxford UP, 1993); and Major Problems in American Environmental History: Documents and Essays (New York: Heath, 1993), edited by Carolyn Merchant.

Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of Sustainability (New York: Columbia UP, 1991), edited by Robert Constanza, is a useful introduction to ecological economics, as is Ecology, Economics, Ethics: Essays Toward a Steady-State Economy (San Francisco: Freeman, 1980), edited by Herman Daly.

Studies of environmental theology abound. See Religion and Environmental Crisis (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1986), edited by Eugene Hargrove; Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990), by Catherine Albanese; Spirit and Nature: Why the Environmental Crises is a Religious Issue (Boston: Beacon, 1992), edited by Steven C. Rockefeller and John C. Elder; and This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment (New York: Routledge, 1996), edited by Roger S. Gottlieb. See also The Sacred Place: Witnessing the Holy in the Physical World (Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1996), edited by W. Scott Olsen and Scott Cairns.

Those interested in environmental psychology should examine Behavior and the Natural Environment, edited by Irwin Altman and Joachim F. Wohlwill (New York: Plenum Press, 1983); Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective (New York: Cambridge UP, 1989); and Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995), edited by Theodore Roszak, et al.

American Nature Writing

Anthologies of American nature writing are numerous. A collection featuring old and new nature writing is Thomas J. Lyon, This Incomperable Lande: A Book of American Nature Writing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989). Lyon includes a detailed historical introduction, a "taxonomy of nature writing," and two exhaustive bibliographies. See also The Norton Book of Nature Writing, edited by Robert Finch and John Elder (New York: Norton, 1990); The Literature of Nature: The British and American Traditions, edited by Robert Begiebing and Owen Grumbling (Medford, NJ: Plexus, 1990); Finding Home: Writing on Nature and Culture from "Orion" Magazine (Boston: Beacon P, 1992), edited by Peter Sauer; and The Oxford Book of Nature Writing (New York: Oxford UP, 1995), edited by Richard Mabey. Two fine older collections recently reissued by the University of Nevada Press are: The Wilderness Reader (1994), edited by Frank Bergon; and Words from the Land: Encounters with Natural History Writing (1995), edited by Stephen Trimble.

On Nature: Nature, Landscape, and Natural History (Berkeley: North Point, 1986), edited by Daniel Halpern; and On Nature's Terms: Contemporary Voices (College Station: Texas A&M UP, 1992), edited by Thomas J. Lyon and Peter Stine, are excellent surveys of recent nature writing, as are Heart of the Land: Essays on the Last Great Places (New York: Pantheon, 1994), edited by Joseph Barbato and Lisa Weinerman; Place of the Wild (Washington, D.C.: Island P, 1994), edited by David Clark Burks; and The World of Wilderness: Essays on the Power and Purpose of Wild Country (Nowit, CO: Roberts Rinehart, 1995), edited by T.H. Watkins and Patricia Byrnes. John A. Murray also edits an annual collection, American Nature Writing, published by Sierra Club Books.

For conversations with contemporary American nature writers, see Writing Natural History: Dialogues with Authors (Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1989), edited by Edward Lueders; and Listening to the Land: Conversations about Nature, Culture, and Eros (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books: 1995), edited by Derrick Jensen.

Numerous collections of regional and place-based American nature writing illustrate the various ways different writers represent the same region (the West, the Southeast, the Great Plains), state (Nevada, Oregon, Texas), or bioregion/natural feature (watersheds, rivers, deserts). A few recent examples of such texts include: The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology (Seattle: U of Washington P, 1988), edited by William Kittredge and Annick Smith; A Republic of Rivers: Three Centuries of Nature Writing from Alaska and the Yukon (New York: Oxford UP, 1990), edited by John Murray; The Desert Reader: Descriptions of America's Arid Regions (Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1991), edited by Peter Wild; and The Height of Our Mountains: Nature Writing from Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998) edited by Michael P. Branch and Daniel J. Philippon.

Two fine anthologies of nature poetry are: The Forgotten Language: Contemporary Poets and Nature (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, 1991), edited by Christopher Merrill, and Poems for a Small Planet: Contemporary American Nature Poetry (Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1993), edited by Robert Pack and Jay Parini. To these should be added a critical study by John Elder, Imagining the Earth: Poetry and the Vision of Nature (1985; Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996).

Criticism

Two classic studies of literature and environment in America are: Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1950), and Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York: Oxford UP, 1964). An important early attempt at ecocriticism is Joseph W. Meeker, The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology (1974; Tucson: UP of Arizona, 1997). See Peter A. Fritzell, Nature Writing and America: Essays Upon a Cultural Type (Ames: Iowa State UP, 1990); and American Nature Writers (New York: Scribner's, 1996), edited by John Elder, for collections of critical essays. For a historical-critical approach see Frank Stewart's A Natural History of Nature Writing (Washington D.C.: Island Press, 1995). For cultural criticism, see Lawrence Buell, The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995); and Green Culture: Environmental Rhetoric in Contemporary America (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1996), edited by Carl G. Herndl and Stuart C. Brown. A first for ecological criticism is The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996), edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. See also Jonathan Bate, Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition (New York: Routledge, 1991); and Karl Kroeber, Ecological Literary Criticism: Romantic Imagining and the Biology of Mind (New York: Columbia UP, 1994). More recent works of criticism include: Patrick D. Murphy, Farther Afield in the Study of Nature-Oriented Literature (Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2000) and Lawrence Buell, Writing for an Endangered World: Literature, Culture, and Environment in the U.S. and Beyond(Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2001).

Many fine studies of selected nature writers have recently been published. Of particular note are: Scott Slovic, Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez (Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1992); Sherman Paul, For Love of the World: Essays on Nature Writers (Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1992); John P. O'Grady, Pilgrims to the Wild: Everett Ruess, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Clarence King, Mary Austin (Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1993); Earthly Words: Essays on Contemporary American Nature and Environmental Writers (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1994), edited by John Cooley; and James I. McClintock; Nature's Kindred Spirits: Aldo Leopold, Joseph Wood Krutch, Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard, and Gary Snyder (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1994). See also Don Scheese, Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in America (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996); and Daniel G. Payne, Voices in the Wilderness: American Nature Writing and Environmental Politics (Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 1996).

Women and Nature

For nature writing by women, see the collections Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry about Nature (New York: Vintage, 1991), edited by Lorraine Anderson; and Celebrating the Land: Women's Nature Writing, 1850-1991 (Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Publishing, 1992), edited by Karen Knowles. Important studies of women and nature include: Annette Kolodny, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1975); Marcia Bonta, Women in the Field: America's Pioneering Naturalists (College Station: Texas A&M P, 1991); Vera Norwood, Made from this Earth: American Women and Nature (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1993); Louise Westling, The Green Breast of the New World: Landscape, Gender, and American Fiction (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996); and Krista Comer, Landscapes of the New West: Gender and Geography in Contemorary Women's Writing (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1999). Additional noteworthy scholarship on women and nature includes: Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature(New York: Routledge, 1991); Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1993); and Noël Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and the Political Action (New York: Routledge,1997).

Good surveys of ecofeminism include: Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991), edited by Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein; Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993), edited by Greta Gaard; Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism (Philadelphia: New Society, 1989), edited by Judith Plant; Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993), edited by Greta Gaard; and Ecological Feminist Philosophies (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996) edited by Karen J. Warren.

Other works on gender and nature include: Greta Gaard, Ecological Politics: Ecofeminists and the Greens (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1998) and Catriona Sandilands, The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1999).

Environmental Justice

Important works on the emerging field of envirnomental justice literature include: Robert D. Bullard, Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1994); Robert D. Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality (Boulder: Westview, 2000); Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots, edited by Robert D. Bullard (Boston: South End Press,1993); Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice, edited by Richard Hofrichter (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1993).

Pedagogy

One of the most important works in environmental education is David Orr, Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World (New York: SUNY P, 1992). Another major book by David Orr is Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect (Washington, DC: Island P, 1994). See also The Campus and Environmental Responsibility (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992), edited by David Orr and David Eagan; John Murray, The Sierra Club Nature Writing Handbook: A Creative Guide (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995); and Greening the College Curriculum: A Guide to Environmental Teaching in the Liberal Arts (Washington, D.C.: Island P, 1996), edited by Barbara Dean. Psychology and environmental education come together in Mitchell Thomashow, Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist (Cambridge: MIT, 1995). For practical tips and useful materials geared to teaching literature and environment, see Teaching Environmental Literature: Materials, Methods, Resources (New York: MLA, 1985), by Frederick Waage. See also ASLE's Syllabi Database.

Environment and the Composition Classroom

The growth of scholarly interest in literature and environment and place-based composition has led to a handful of readers specifically for the composition classroom. Rhetorics for use in writing classes include: The Endangered Earth: Readings for Writers (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1992), edited by Sarah Morgan and Dennis Okerstrom; Being in the World: An Environmental Reader for Writers (New York: MacMillan, 1994, now distributed by Allyn and Bacon), edited by Scott Slovic and Terrell Dixon; Reading the Environment (New York: Norton, 1994), edited by Melissa Walker; Green Perspectives: Thinking and Writing about Nature and the Environment (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), edited by Walter Levy and Christopher Hallowell; A Forest of Voices: Reading and Writing the Environment (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 1995), edited by Chris Anderson and Lex Runciman; Writing Nature: An Ecological Reader for Writers (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995); and Literature and the Environment (New York: Longman, 1998), edited by Lorraine Anderson, John P. O'Grady, and Scott Slovic.

Critical Theory

Books on critical theory abound. A wonderful introductory guide for the novice is Donald G. Marshall, Contemporary Critical Theory: A Selective Bibliography (New York: MLA, 1993). Two books that serve as primers in critical theory are Raman Selden, A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1989), and Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures (New York: MLA, 1992), edited by Joseph Gibaldi. Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983), by Terry Eagleton, provides a useful discussion about how English studies came to be a discipline. Andrew Milner takes up where Eagleton leaves off in Contemporary Cultural Theory (London: UCL Press Limited, 1994).

Cultural studies is a rich line of inquiry for literature and environment students. Two recent cultural studies readers are: Cultural Studies, edited by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula Treichler (New York: Routledge, 1992), and The Cultural Studies Reader, edited by Simon Durning (New York: Routledge, 1993). See also Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New York: Columbia UP, 1994).

Journals

A few scholarly journals also deserve mention: American Literary History, American Literature, American Studies, ASLE News, Environmental Ethics, Environmental History, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Orion: People and Nature, Terra Nova, and Western American Literature.

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