What is Ecocriticism?

by Harry Crockett

Ecocriticism elucidates relationships between human and non-human nature (cf Mike Branch!), privileging literary inscriptions of those relationships for all the usual reasons why we in this profession privilege literature.

Now for qualifications and caveats. This "definition" is partly true but it's too self-promoting and calculated. Smacks too much of upwardly-mobile straining for the rarified. And it doesn't sufficiently account for the personal connection and sense of responsibility that many who do this work feel towards their subject.

Also, of course, it says nothing about how we do our "elucidating." Have we developed a new, distinct set of critical practices? Or are we a special interest group, training familiar critical lenses upon aspects of texts that most other critics ignore? I've intentionally left this method/subject distinction blurred, because that's the way I see it in ecocriticism articles, conference presentations and course outlines. To some extent, we aspire to a method but really have a subject. In other ways, though, we do swim outside the mainstream (it's fun to feel subversive). Since these differences are also our saving graces, we should cherish and make the most of them:

1) We want to have an impact beyond the academy about those matters in the world most dear to us. Ultimately, we will be failures in our own eyes if our labors don't help green our society. Some other critical approaches share such a "bigger world" commitment (feminism); with others it's difficult to see how they could produce positive change (deconstruction? or do you see some promise I don't?). Our time is too precious for the latter.

2) We reject the prevailing critical assumption that reality is socially constructed.

3) We're informed by "hard" science. For critics of most stripes, the natural sciences are, at best, irrelevant. For us, they're vital. Too bad we can't say (yet) that the reverse is also true.

4) The aforementioned personal investment in our subject makes us more willing than critics of other stripes to honor our own experience and reactions. At its worst, this leads to solipsistic, self-indulgent, holier-than-thou posturing. It's not always that way though.

We in the U.S. have reached a recognition that major changes in the way we live are inevitable; we're a long way, though, from figuring out how to make them. Owing to the features I've been talking about pointing out, ecocriticism is unique among lit-crit approaches in its potential to contribute to that conversation. But how will we get those beyond our disciplinary boundaries to listen to us? As one presently employed outside of academics, I think about that essential question all the time. When I come up with some answers I'll let you know.

Harry Crockett, Loveland, Colorado