From a hamlet into a bustling metropolis - proposing a counter-narrative approach to ecocriticism

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University of Amsterdam

MA Literature & Culture: Specialization English

FROM A HAMLET INTO

A BUSTLING METROPOLIS

Proposing a counter-narrative

ecocritical approach

Luuk Schokker

10679006

Thesis supervisor: Dr. A.A.L. Bracke

30 June 2014

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INTRODUCTION

In ‘From Wide Open Spaces to Metropolitan Places: The Urban Challenge to Ecocriticism’, (2001), Michael Bennett states that “even as the community of ecocritics grows from a hamlet into a bustling metropolis, the movement itself has been slow to survey urban environments. Ecocriticism has instead developed in tandem with growing academic interest in nature writing, American pastoralism, and literary ecology” (296). My thesis derives its title from Bennett’s article, as it echoes the author’s concerns regarding the development of the ecocritical field. I believe that ecocriticism is limiting itself by remaining primarily focused on the disciplines that sparked its initial occurrence. Indeed, in a world that is increasingly urbanised, the urban should be considered a component of ecocriticism, rather than an opponent. Ecocriticism may alienate the audience it attempts to attract in its current approach(es). In the following chapters, I therefore propose a reading method that the field can adopt in order to broaden its scope. Focusing on different works’ narrative structure, predominantly by looking at how environmental concerns may surface by analysing the counter-narrative of the respective works vis-à-vis their master narrative, I demonstrate how this counter-narrative approach may aid ecocriticism in fulfilling its main objective – raising ecological awareness outside of the specialist field. My method of reading can be applied to a wide range of disciplines, including fields of study that are often disregarded by the ecocritical field. Providing an ecocritical reading of Mitch Epstein’s photography series American Power, Edward Glaeser’s urban studies book Triumph of the City and Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America, I show the interdisciplinary applicability of the counter-narrative approach. My thesis can be read as a response to Michael Bennett’s concerns, which, over a decade after he published ‘From Wide Open Spaces to Metropolitan Places’, are still topical. The emergence of a new methodology may contribute to ecocriticism’s growth, and make sure that the growth from a hamlet into a bustling metropolis is accompanied by an apt reading method to include the aspects that the field struggles to engage with.

Luuk Schokker June 2014

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CHAPTER 1 ‘HUMAN BEINGS ARE EACH OTHER’S ENVIRONMENT’

Ecocriticism and the fetishist split

In the call for papers for their 2014 conference, the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and the Environment (EASLCE) stated that “to interpret something as meaningful is to put it into a context, into a frame of reference within which it can begin to make sense”. This may seem a logical observation, which makes it all the more striking that its execution often seems to lack in ecocritical practice. Various critiques of ecocriticism have pointed out how the ecocritical field has yet to define a coherent approach to its objects of study. The current eclectic methodology, they warn, may harm the field’s objectives. Critics like David Mazel, for instance, claim that the current abundance of approaches appears to lack a common method. In A Century of Early Ecocriticism (2001), he states the following: “[E]cocriticism seems less a singular approach or method than a constellation of approaches having little more in common than a shared concern with the environment” (Mazel 2). In this chapter, I argue that this apparent lack of coherence can be addressed by a more direct employment of EASLCE’s idea that interpretation is highly dependent on its frame of reference. Focusing on ecocriticism’s aim to raise awareness for the ecological cause, and its ambition to re-evaluate the interaction between humans and non-humans, I will first point out the lacunae that occur in current ecocritical methods. I argue that the current paradigm appears to struggle with fulfilling the ecocritical field’s main objective, namely raising ecological awareness. The environmental activism that tends to occur in ecocritical works and analyses may alienate the intended audience, rather than raise this awareness. I then introduce the notion of counter-narrative, to show that ecocriticism would do well to include this concept in its approach. This, I believe, will contribute to a more coherent and more productive form of ecocriticism. Acknowledging the societal dominance of the systems that ecocritical narratives criticise, I claim, will contribute to raising more ecological awareness. Finally, this chapter will serve to indicate how the use of ecocriticism’s counter-narrative position can particularly help the field in its development towards productively engaging with urbanised environments.

In recent years, ecocriticism has outgrown its position as a newcomer in academic circles, which has fuelled a spur to critically examine the field. Various scholars have attempted to analyse the shortcomings of present-day ecocriticism, with most of them suggesting that the ecocritical field has yet to align its purposes with the research methods it employs. Serpil Oppermann, for instance, underlines the problems ecocriticism faces in her 2006 article

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‘Theorizing Ecocriticism: Toward a Postmodern Ecocritical Practice’. Oppermann states that ecocriticism “finds itself struggling with hermeneutical closure as well as facing an ambivalent openness in its interpretive approach” (103). Her concerns echo the analyses of several other critics, such as John Tallmadge and Henry Harrington, whose collection Reading Under the Sign of

Nature (2000) includes a critique of ecocritical practice in its introduction: “[E]cocriticism is really

less a method than an attitude, an angle of vision, and a mode of critique” (ix). Endorsing the notion that ecocriticism is still an emerging methodology, Tallmadge and Harrington do believe in the potential productiveness of the field’s loose methods, claiming that it “remains open, flexible capacious, and loosely constructed, capable of supporting the most diverse and sophisticated researches without spinning off into obscurantism or idiosyncrasy” (xv). Oppermann, on the other hand, criticises this analysis, stating that the observation hints at “a misfortune rather than a scored point for ecocritical enterprise today” (107). The eclectic approach that Tallmadge and Harrington seemingly applaud, is one of Oppermann’s main objections against the way ecocritical practice is shaped. She argues that employing multiple points of view “privileges pluralism and leads to hermeneutical confusion without affording a distinctive ecocritical method of reading” (107), and warns that avoiding the formation of a distinct systematic theory might cause the methods of ecocriticism to be fuzzy. Without solid systematic theoretical ground, Oppermann argues, ecocriticism cannot offer informed discussions. Since ecocriticism is a field that is particularly clear in its objective to create awareness, the development of such a theoretical ground seems as urgent as the awareness for the environment the field attempts to promote (107).

Although Oppermann may be right in her argument against an eclectic approach, it is useful to keep in mind that this does not mean that ecocriticism should limit itself in the heterogeneity of studied narratives. Rather, since representations of nature and the human/nature dichotomy the field so actively argues against are to be found far outside the scope of merely literary realism, any methodological approach that ecocritics can adopt should guarantee its applicability to a variety of narratives that exceed the origins of the field. This particularly has to do with ecocriticism’s main objectives (and, more importantly, the potential to fulfil these objectives), as listed by Oppermann: “Ecocriticism retains its openness and theoretical ambiguity to date except for its interest in environmental literature, its aim in promoting ecological awareness and bringing ecological consciousness to the practice of literary criticism” (105). The basic underlying premise lies in the ubiquitous connection between human and nature, as Cheryl Glotfelty points out: “[H]uman nature is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it. Ecocriticism takes as its subject the interconnections between nature and culture, specifically the cultural

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artifacts of language and literature” (xix). Considering the first two of these three aims, the field of ecocriticism would benefit from a general approach that would encompass a variety of narratives, rather than a specific focus on literature. If the promotion of ecological awareness is to be successfully achieved, ecocriticism’s scope should certainly not be limited to environmental literature. While ecocritical methods may be heterogeneous and may therefore lack productivity, the aims of the field are always clear and may well benefit from application to a wide variety of narratives. The aim of gaining ecological awareness, however, has proven to be problematic, due to its activist roots. The idea of ecocriticism as a “new democratic project”, as Serenella Iovino mentions in ‘Ecocriticism, Ecology of Mind, and Narrative Ethics’ (2010), echoes the activist roots and may help explain why ecocriticism is still more focused on its concerns than on its methodology. Her claim that “ecocriticism … can help people attain a sharper sight of social and natural reality, a sharper sight into themselves as active and creative players in political dynamics” (762) shows a clear strive towards ecocriticism’s objectives, without an elaborate idea of how to achieve these aims. The ISLE issue in which Iovino expresses her ideas, however, also shows how the absence of a shared methodology raises concerns in the field itself. Robert Wess, for instance, states that ecocriticism’s subject “may include constructs, but its distinctive subject is not limited to them … [E]cocriticism’s subject goes beyond culture and, therefore, beyond constructionism’s theoretical capabilities. Ecocriticism needs theory, but it needs to theorize its distinctive subject. To fulfill its promise, it must settle for nothing less” (764). Likewise, Astrid Bracke points out that “[a] mature ecocritical practice should not dismiss images or texts for not being environmentally sound. Instead, it needs to question what such problematic texts reveal about our experience and perceptions of the (natural) environment” (‘Redrawing the Boundaries’ 766). In the remainder of this chapter, I will analyse how the current lack of methodology may thwart the objectives of the ecocritical field, and suggest an alternative to the present constellation of approaches.

The absence of a method has indeed led ecocritical scholars to adopt any methodological approach they deemed suitable for their respective analyses, with said common environmental concern as their collective ground. The risk in practicing ecocriticism along those lines is the possible counterproductiveness it can cause. The traditional focus on subject matter rather than methodology may lead ecocritics to take on an environmentalist perspective, and therefore, as Bracke signals, dismiss narratives for not being ‘environmentally sound’. While an activist starting point may seem logical in ecocritical readings, given the urgency of the subject matter, it may in fact prove problematic for the field’s collective aims. In order to achieve its objective of raising awareness, I would argue that an ecocritical approach should incorporate the dominant narrative

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it intends to criticise. The current activist tone of many scholarly works, however, tends to dismiss the contemporary system – which arguably leads to the alienation of the audience it aims to attract. The root of this paradox is to be found in the ideological notion of the ‘fetishist split’. This idea presupposes that people may dismiss a concept that evidently exists, when said concept does not fit their collective experience. Slavoj Žižek connects the fetishist split to ecology in his essay ‘The Situation is Catastrophic’ (published online in 2012), pointing out how “[w]e all know about the impending catastrophy [sic] – ecological, social –, but we somehow cannot take it seriously. In psychoanalysis, this attitude is called a fetishist split: I know very well, but… (I don’t really believe it), and such a split is a clear indication of the material force of ideology which makes us refuse what we see and know” (par. 5). This attitude is not merely problematic for ecocriticism, it is reflected in the field’s works and as such hampers it. The environmental issues that ecocritics address appear to encounter a certain resistance: people acknowledge the existence of these issues, but do not experience the connection that is necessary for the sake of raising ecological awareness. Ed Ayres, editor of Running Times, recognises the problem this fetishist split causes, as Žižek also points out. In his 1999 essay ‘Why Are We Not Astonished?’, Ayres states that “[w]e are being confronted by something so completely outside our collective experience that we don’t really see it, even when the evidence is overwhelming. For us, that ‘something’ is a blitz of enormous biological and physical alterations in the world that has been sustaining us” (26).

As Žižek and Ayres suggest, even though an ecological catastrophe might be approaching rapidly, the concept of this catastrophe falls outside the scope of human collective experience and is therefore hard to grasp for a non-specialist audience. This observation, which touches on the core of ecocriticism’s struggle with reaching its objective of raising awareness, raises questions about the effectivity of the way ecocritical readings are currently shaped. Influential critics in the field, such as Timothy Morton, tend to indicate that “the breakdown of the relationship between man and nature” is the main malefactor in developing the human/nature dichotomy. Morton consequently, claims that the separation of humans from nature is perhaps “the most significant event to affect Western culture during recent centuries” (Ecology without Nature 35). These observations can be considered exemplary for the prevalent environmental stance in ecocriticism: the human retreat from nature – as Morton calls it – is believed to have prompted the current human/nature dichotomy, and therefore considered the most direct cause of ecological catastrophe. Nevertheless, when the notion of the fetishist split is taken into consideration, we see that it is not merely the altered relationship that causes the current reluctance to address ecological issues. Rather, the way this alteration has shaped the collective experience can be seen

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as a significant contributor to the fetishist split. The human separation from nature has arguably resulted in humans’ disconnection from nature, leaving us to acknowledge impending ecological catastrophe, but not acting upon it. While the anthropocentrism that has arisen definitely problematizes ecocritical practice, it is mostly a deceptive collective experience that thwarts widespread belief in a different approach to the relationship between human and nature. Although Žižek acknowledges Morton’s argument, he therefore simultaneously claims that “[t]he problem is much deeper; it lies in the unreliability of our common sense itself, which, habituated as it is to our ordinary life-world, finds it difficult really to accept that the flow of everyday reality can be perturbed. Our attitude here is that of the fetishist split” (58).

Considering what Oppermann has signified as the lack of direction in ecocritical practice, this is a particularly alarming observation. If one would take the notion of the fetishist split into account when discussing the current lack of coherent methodology in ecocriticism, it seems that the field is in need of a direction that addresses both issues. The answer, it seems, lies in permeating this collective experience. Whereas most people may be aware of imminent ecological catastrophes, the idea itself seemingly exists outside of their collective experience. Ecocritical scholars should therefore find a way to construct their readings in such a way that this collective experience is addressed, rather than avoided. It needs to be kept in mind here that while there does not seem to be one ecocritical approach, the activist stance that dismisses dominant social frameworks is pervasive in ecocritical narratives. This idea is also expressed by Erik Davis in his article ‘It Ain’t Easy Being Green’ (1995). In his critique of ecocritical practice, Davis seems to endorse to the idea of the fetishist split in ecocriticism avant la lettre. He links the ecocritical field’s tendency to dismiss works that are considered environmentally unsound to an apparent objective to criticise Western biases on the whole:

In the 1960s, historian Lynn White, Jr. pointed to the Christian ideology that lingered within secular materialism and socialism, an arrogant human narcissism that justified the subjugation of nature to humanity’s instrumental aims. This ideology still rules the day, and deep ecologists strive to reveal it wherever they see it[.] To counterbalance Western biases, many deep ecologists take a hard look at non-Western cultural paradigms, from Zen to Vedanta to the lore of primary peoples. (Davis 4)

Davis’ analysis endorses the observation that ecocritics, in their aim to expose the tension between current-day dominant culture and a different human engagement with nature, tend to

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take on a perspective that leads them to dismiss the criticised master narrative, and consequently alienate the intended audience.

Vandana Shiva’s essay ‘From Eco-Apartheid to Earth Democracy’, for instance, illustrates how this activist starting point may harm the ecocritical cause. In advocating for an interconnection between humans and nature, Shiva dismisses corporate business, arguing that corporate profits destroy biodiversity in a “massive, global resource grab” (95). In her attempt to create a more equal relationship between humans and nature, she therefore creates a dichotomy between economy and nature. “Those who have no illusions of growth and development,” Shiva states, “are the communities whose land and forests, water and biodiversity are grabbed for corporate profits, whose very sustenance is destroyed in a massive, global resource grab” (95). Claiming that human communities that do not engage in corporate business somehow interact ‘better’ with nature than those that do, she goes on to claim that “[i]t is in the context of this violence that the call for making peace with the Earth, through Earth democracy, becomes the most important ecological, social justice and human rights movement of our times” (Shiva 95). While the author’s aims seemingly legitimise this proposed separation, Shiva seems to radically exclude the human collective experience as it is, with the exception of examples from dominant culture she employs as part of her argument to install a so-called ‘green economy’. Her radical move away from the dominant Western societal system, however, leads to contradictory statements in her article. When discussing Bhutan’s implementation of the Gross National Happiness measurement, for instance, Shiva positions this development as a radical breakthrough from the worldwide focus on economic growth. However, she fails to mention that the Bhutan government explicitly decided only to implement the GNH system if it could be aligned with economic growth – the government needed to be “ensure[d] that economic development was in harmony with Bhutan’s culture, institutions and spiritual values” (Bates 1). In her zealous attempt to illustrate the proposed dichotomy between economy and nature, then, Shiva creates such a radical break that it harms the validity of her argument. In creating such an Earth democracy, humans cannot simply set aside the economy that is an essential component of everyday western civilisation. Indeed, I would argue that it is the lack of an ecocritical methodology which underlies Shiva’s rather unbalanced activism, and makes her essay fall right into the trap of the fetishist split.

One could argue that the activism that becomes apparent in Shiva’s essay is inextricably linked to the ecocritical cause. Yet, however much ecocritical thinking may express a desire to break free from current dominant frameworks, it has to engage with the status quo nonetheless. As Morton explains in his 2010 book The Ecological Thought: “Ecology includes all the ways we

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imagine how we live together. Ecology is profoundly about coexistence. Existence is always coexistence. No man is an island. Human beings need each other as much as they need an environment. Human beings are each others’ environment” (The Ecological Thought 4, emphasis in original). Morton’s definition of ecological thinking arguably implies that even the dominant concepts that harm – or even oppose – the proposed alterations in human engagement with nature are themselves elements of ecology. At this intersection of coexistence and criticism, ecocriticism could find its collective focus. The concept of the counter-narrative may contribute significantly to a stronger ecocritical narrative. As I will demonstrate in the following chapters, a counter-narrative reading, environmental concerns would potentially blend into a bigger narrative, rather than actively oppose a dominant paradigm. This consequently causes the juxtaposition between environmental concerns and the (often opposing) master narrative to fade away, thereby evoking the avoidance of the fetishist split. This would make ecocriticism more effective – when the master narrative one criticises is actively addressed, the environmental concerns of a work are more likely to appeal to the audience’s collective experience. Through this connection, then, ecocritics can connect their environmental concerns to this experience and as such contribute to raising environmental awareness. To put it differently, the juxtaposition would no longer exist in the contrast between critique and master narrative, but much rather in different sides of human collective experience. This, in turn, would lead the field to shape its readings in such a way that the fetishist split may well be avoided. Hence, ecocriticism could demonstrate its viability within the dominant framework, without giving in to the master narrative.

In Considering Counter-Narratives (2004), Michael Bamberg and Molly Andrews argue that a counter-narrative cannot oppose the framework it criticises if it does not engage with this framework. Rather, “certain aspects of dominant stories are left intact, while others are reshaped and configured” (Bamberg 363). This notion has two important consequences, which are particularly interesting for the ecocritical field. In a counter-narrative, “[s]peakers never totally step outside the dominating framework of the master narrative, but always remain somewhat complicit and work with components and parts of the existent frame ‘from within’”(Bamberg 363). This implies that a master narrative can never be refuted in its totality. Ecocritics must acknowledge the significance of the dominant framework in their readings, in order to engage with it and propose changes in the human/nature dichotomy accordingly. Engaging with the master narrative it intends to criticise also implies that ecocritical narratives work their way into the human collective experience, thereby allowing their argument to ‘dodge’ the fetishist split. Explicitly positioning ecocritical narratives as counter-narratives hence significantly contributes to solving the problems that currently surround the ecocritical practice. Additionally, a deliberate

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positioning as counter-narrative facilitates the inclusion of ecocritical thinking in works that are not merely focused on their ecocritical content, or may even lack such content at first glance.

A final advantage of adopting a counter-narrative approach is particularly interesting for the future development of the ecocritical field. Although a leading methodology may still have to be established, ecocriticism has “long broadened beyond its original concern with wilderness and non-fiction nature writing” (7), as Bracke states in her article ‘Wastelands, Shrubs and Parks: Ecocriticism and the Challenge of the Urban’ (2013). One major bridge, however, still has to be convincingly crossed: ecocriticism still lacks a productive engagement with urbanised environments (‘Wastelands, Shrubs and Parks’ 8). The fetishist split plays a key role in this lacuna – the tendency to dismiss human collective experience in advocating for a renewed human engagement with nature significantly impedes the inclusion of the urban in ecocritical narratives. Since an increasing number of humans live in urbanised environments, urban landscapes not only form a challenge for ecocriticism, but may also broaden and enrich the field. Apart from that, narratives that revolve around the urban may address issues that ‘mainstream’ ecocriticism cannot adequately cover, as Michael Bennett claims in ‘From Wide Open Spaces to Metropolitan Places: The Urban Challenge to Ecocriticism’ (2001). According to Bennett, the genres of nature writing and pastoral are incapable of “represent[ing] the complex interactions between political choices, socio-economic structures, and the densely-populated ecosystems that shape urban environments” (296). While Bracke points out that ecocriticism has broadened its scope since Bennett expressed his critique, she also signals that his call for a ‘social ecocriticism’ is “one of the most notable exceptions to ecocriticism’s general neglect of cities” and “has not received much following among ecocritics” (8). Whereas most ecocritics are presently still drawn to environmental justice issues, Bennett points out how a focus can be found elsewhere as well. He argues that the central beliefs of the deep ecology movement concern principles1_{that, although}

often claimed otherwise, can be found in urban environments as well as unspoiled nature (297). In its dismissal of urban environments, Bennett claims, “[t]he deep ecological perspective adopted by many ecocritics […] will always be incomplete; it will also be unpersuasive and unavailable for most city dwellers and ultimately inadequate for nonurbanites as well” (301). In this final claim, Bennett also hints at the occurrence of the fetishist split. The unpersuasiveness of many ecocritical narratives is rooted in the absence of addressing the human collective experience. Hence, adopting a counter-narrative approach may prove highly productive for the inclusion of the urban in ecocritical narratives. An ecocritical counter-narrative especially opens

1_{“1) developing a sense of place, 2) redefining the heroic person from conqueror of the land to the person fully experiencing the}

natural place, 3) cultivating the virtues of modesty and humility and 4) realizing how the mountains and rivers, fish and bears are continuing their own actualizing processes” (Devall and Sessions 110).

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up the potential to address environments that are not a part of what is considered ‘unspoiled nature’, since it requires the engagement of the critique with the master-narrative. Since these environments are usually the ones in which the intended audience of ecocritical readings live, this way of shaping a narrative will contribute to the avoidance of the fetishist split in ecocritical practice. In the following chapters, I will provide an interdisciplinary ecocritical reading, demonstrating how a counter-narrative approach can broaden the scope of ecocriticism even further, and include urban environments in its area of study. Analysing examples from the disciplines of photography (Mitch Epstein’s American Power), urban studies (Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser), and theatre (Tony Kushner’s Angels in America), I will show how a focus on narrative structures can reveal environmental awareness far outside the conventional scope of the ecocritical field. I believe that this approach may therefore aid the field in its aim to raise ecological awareness outside of the specialist field.

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CHAPTER 2 ‘THE REAL AND THE CONSTRUCTED’

Reading Mitch Epstein’s

American Power

through a counter-narrative ecocritical lens

Having constituted a conception of the counter-narrative through Bamberg and Andrews’ analysis of the concept, I now turn towards an analysis of works in various disciplines, which I believe may exemplify the potential benefits of employing a counter-narrative lens in ecocritical readings. As is demonstrated in this chapter, the use of the counter-narrative not only mitigates the threat of the fetishist split in ecocritical narratives, it also significantly contributes to the inclusion of disciplines outside the beaten tracks of the ecocritical field, such as photography. Including these disciplines, I would argue, contributes to decreasing the tension between urban nature and the field of ecocriticism. American photographer Mitch Epstein’s 2009 collection

American Power, for instance, shows the potential ecocritical value of a work that is not hesitant to

show the benefits of current human/nature interaction. Nevertheless, its portrayal of a combination of pros and cons ultimately contributes to an environmentalist concern. This concern and its effects on raising further awareness can be revealed through a counter-narrative ecocritical reading.

In this chapter, I focus on Epstein’s collection. Firstly, I analyse how American Power demonstrates the engagement of master narrative and counter-narrative. I then move on to illustrating how this contributes to the collection’s ecocritical potential, focusing on two works in the series, the photographs Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004 (fig. 1) and

Biloxi, Mississippi 2005 (fig. 2). These examples serve to demonstrate how Epstein uses

juxtaposition as a device to illustrate his concerns, and consequently, how this can aid the objectives of the ecocritical field.

American Power was first exhibited in 2009, and shows the results of a five-year project in

which the photographer traversed the United States in search of the influences of mass energy production and consumption. The collection, which has been exhibited worldwide, indeed reflects this influence of energy production on the landscape of the United States. The photographs depict a wide range of places throughout the country, which have unmistakably been affected by the process of mass energy production. A text on Epstein’s website, explaining the photographer’s intentions, claims that the pictures in the series question “the power of nature, government, corporations, and mass consumption in the United States” (par. 1).

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According to the photographer himself, American Power and the website that accompanies the series ask their audience to “look harder at their daily relationship to energy” (par. 1). Taking the photographer’s intentions into account, one could however ask to what extent Epstein’s widely acclaimed series actually functions as the powerful counter-narrative as which it is intended. Although Epstein himself may claim that American Power questions the dominant capitalist narrative and looks to question the relationship between humans and nature, several phenomena arguably problematise this aim.

The potentially most problematic aspect of a counter-narrative is to be found in the extent to which the master narrative is endorsed. Following Bamberg’s notion that certain aspects of the dominant narrative have to remain intact in order to reshape other elements and criticise the whole (363), as mentioned in the previous chapter, and the idea that an author (or, in this case, photographer) cannot wholly step out of the master narrative he/she intends to criticise, we can establish that a subject can only objectively be examined and criticised as a counter-narrative when the upsides of the discussed master narrative are also included in the work. Nevertheless, if the merits of the master narrative overshadow the critical potential of a work, the productivity of the intended criticism can be questioned. Operating in a field where the criticised discourse is undeniably dominant, like Epstein does in American Power, does not have to undermine its position as a narrative, as long as the relation between master narrative and counter-narrative is one of “interactional subtlety” (364), as Bamberg calls it. As I argued before, in order to create a productive counter-narrative ecocritical reading, the speaker in the analysed work even

has to engage with the dominant framework. This does not only result in a more complete and

balanced narrative, but also means that any environmentalist concern that echoes in the work is more likely to be placed in line with the collective experience of the intended audience. I would argue that Epstein’s photographs indeed show an adequate interactional subtlety, as they revolve around the daily lives and everyday consumption of a (non-specialist) audience that ecocritics often fail to reach. Placing these images alongside the audience’s known surroundings arguably allows the ecocritical argument to avoid falling into the fetishist split, thus having a twofold effect: American Power demonstrates the viability of an counter-narrative ecocritical approach by a) showing how the inclusion of the master narrative does not have to undermine concerns about the human/nature engagement and b) providing a clear example of how this approach invites genres and disciplines that are often left untouched by the ecocritical field.

The significance of the latter and the need for a productive ecocritical counter-narrative, containing economics and technology rather than condemning them, are perhaps best explained

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in Alexander Wilson’s The Culture of Nature (1992), in which the author signals the problematic character of the current human approach to living environments:

Massive technological environments (and they are still being madly built) do something more than accelerate the destruction of the Earth or signal “the end of nature”. They also reduce economics to production, further mystifying the relationship between human livelihood and natural systems. It may well be that the productive economy is beginning to collapse under its own weight, opening up the possibility of creating alternatives in our regions and communities. Yet the terms of survival into the next century will not be found within the technological arena but from within the culture that surrounds and produces it. We urgently need to imagine environments that are not about domination and war. We need to tell new stories about settlement and work on this Earth. Perhaps this speculative task is best left to art, to gardens, to books and movies. (Wilson 290)

When looking at American Power, one could claim that Wilson’s call for new stories that focus on technology’s surrounding culture is clearly answered by Epstein. However, while including the dominant discourse in the photographs aimed at criticising them may be useful for Epstein to productively demonstrate the counter-narrative – and as such demonstrate his work’s viability for an ecocritical reading – I would claim that the actual success of that aim is dependent on Epstein’s manner of depicting precisely those elements he intends to question. Indeed, Epstein’s intentions aside, the counter-narrative value of American Power is arguably in part defined by the critical reception of the work. Taking into account the problematic relationship between ecocriticism’s aim to raise awareness and the regular occurrence of the fetishist split in ecocritical analysis, I would propose that counter-narrative potential is not a quality any author or maker can simply declare. Rather, the potential for any narrative to contain a productive counter-narrative is in the eye of the beholder: if Epstein’s series, for instance, were only to have been applauded for its aesthetic value, the mere claim that the photographs question the power of nature, government, corporations and mass consumption may not be enough for American Power to function as a productive counter-narrative. This, I believe, is key to its potential value for the ecocritical field. The environmental concern that is visible in the structure and the counter-narrative aspects of the work have to be noted in order to contribute to raising ecological awareness. My reading will show how American Power lives up to that potential.

The reception of Epstein’s work plays an important part in defining whether American Power has indeed managed to utter the “interactional subtlety” (Bamberg 364) that I consider vital to a

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successful counter-narrative ecocritical reading. While my analysis will contribute to the exposure of the work’s environmental awareness, I believe that the critical reception of the work can form a valuable contribution as well, as it shows to what extent this awareness has already caught on to a non-specialist audience, thus showing its position with regard to human collective experience. Michael Truscello’s 2012 article ‘The New Topographics, Dark Ecology, and the Energy Infrastructure of Nations: Considering Agency in the Photographs of Edward Burtynsky and Mitch Epstein from a Post-Anarchist Perspective’ offers valuable insights in the extent to which

American Power can be considered to have reached this manner of interaction. Truscello’s article

can be considered particularly useful as it focuses on the critical qualities of the work. Analysing

American Power alongside fellow photographer Edward Burtynsky’s series Oil, Truscello

approaches Epstein’s series by highlighting its comparison to the tradition of the New Topographics movement – a 1970s initiative that countered traditional landscape photography and demonstrated, as Truscello puts it, “an appreciation for the altered environments of daily life” (189). Truscello recognises a parallel between the New Topographics, who engaged American landscapes as “the scarred and decaying byproducts of capitalist exploration” (189), and Epstein’s American Power, which arguably has a similar intent. The parallel Truscello draws, however, also contains the same criticism that surrounded the New Topographics, namely that the style is often deceptive of scale, and in avoiding explicit commentary on the portrayed, the New Topographics, as well as Epstein, often seem to beautify the waste they depict (189). This notion obviously problematises the purpose of the series. If the beauty of what is portrayed in the photographs is what comes forward most dominantly, the message Epstein attempts to spread may not come across. Truscello is somewhat ambiguous in his analysis of American Power, particularly when it comes to the ecocritical message Epstein may or may not express convincingly. He claims that Epstein does not try to avoid what he defines as “the toxicity to come” (Truscello 199) in his images, yet points out that Epstein provides “an aesthetic experience of energy infrastructure that presents some of its associations with landscape but does not impose a solution to the problem of environmental degradation” (Truscello 199).

Here, Truscello addresses an issue that has been debated within counter-narrative discourse. Whether or not a counter-narrative should entail a solution for the problems it identifies is highly debatable. I would argue that it is not necessary for a counter-narrative to solve the issue(s) it addresses – especially following Bamberg’s claim that a counter-narrative, which in itself is open to debate and therefore arguably may eventually contribute to the formation of solutions, needs a certain degree of interactional subtlety to be successful. Considering the fetishist split in particular, one could well claim that a productive ecocritical counter-narrative should show, not

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tell. Epstein, never having claimed to offer solutions, arguably shapes a productive ecocritical

narrative in that respect. Rather than explicitly expressing a point of view, he has actually claimed that American Power asks its audience to re-examine their relationship to energy (in the text accompanying the series on his website), while it also examines the leading powers in mass consumption. One could say that Epstein therefore deliberately refrains from offering ready-made, clear-cut solutions. It is hence precisely the absence of an active environmentalism, I would argue, that paves the way for American Power’s potential for the ecocritical field. This observation echoes in Truscello’s article, in which he endorses the aim that Epstein expresses, by indicating that juxtaposing toxic energy production with everyday life creates a disrupting defamiliarisation of the everyday association of the everyday associations Americans have with petromodernity (199-200). Looking at the work through an ecocritical lens, the juxtaposition that is visible in the series highlights the photographer’s intentions and may as such well contribute to the ecocritical cause.

In his discussion of American Power, Truscello points out the relation between human and nature that Epstein arguably suggests in the work. He mentions the works of Yves Abrioux, who has written on the notion of ‘intensive landscaping’ – “landscaping as style, as the promise of a social spacing yet to come” (Abrioux 264). As Abrioux argues in his article ‘Intensive Landscaping’ (2009), depictions of these landscapes-to-come such as American Power “invent relations, rather than assert ideological or cultural control” (264). Although the term ‘inventing’ may be somewhat strong, Epstein indeed unmistakably portrays a relationship between nature and culture. He depicts the impact of energy production on everyday life in terms of nature as well as culture. Furthermore, in criticising the dominant capitalist discourse that embodies energy production and the effect it has on human life as well as nature, Epstein’s work can arguably be put in line with Nancy Tuana’s notion of interactionism, as brought forward in her essay ‘Viscous Porosity: Witnessing Katrina’ (2008). In this article, Tuana emphasises the need to develop an “interactionist ontology”, claiming that, too often, natural and social sciences are set apart in “a problematic nature/culture schism that does not do justice to the complexity of interactions of phenomena” (191). Tuana signals that a strict division between the natural and the social leaves an important gap in knowledge, which may lead to catastrophe (189). The porosity of this division must be attended, she claims, acknowledging the interplay between the biological and the cultural (ibid.). Interactionism, Tuana claims, “enables us to dissolve the divisions between these two poles and transform the terms of the debate” (191). The interaction between “the real and the constructed” (Tuana 209) is what makes the world. American Power, in aiming to re-examine the relationship between the American people and energy, seems to underline this interactionist

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notion. I would consequently argue that American Power can serve as an example to the ecocritical field in its interactionist setup. The structure that Epstein adopts in his work is one of juxtaposition through interaction: following the ideas of Abrioux, one could claim that he invents relationships by framing different aspects of natural and cultural life in one collection. Placing images of energy production and its results next to photographs that depict everyday (sub)urban American life, I would claim, suggests the relationship between these two phenomena and hints at the interconnectedness of the real and constructed, much like Tuana suggests.

Looking at two of Epstein’s photographs, I now turn to an analysis of the work itself and its narrative structure, in order to exemplify how a counter-narrative approach in fact brings out the environmental awareness of American Power, thus revealing its value to the ecocritical field.

Fig. 1. “Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004”; American Power; mitchepstein.net; Web; 10 Apr. 2014.

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Although the subjects of the photographs in American Power at times differ extensively, what they have in common is the depiction of how energy production affects the respective subjects. The two photographs Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004 (figure 1) and Biloxi,

Mississippi 2005 (figure 2), for instance, both show how energy production affects the

surroundings of the production site. These two photographs serve well as representative examples of Epstein’s collection, as each of them represents one side of mass energy production’s effects. In the former, a big production site can be seen in the background: the enormous Amos Coal power plant takes in a prominent position on the horizon. The ubiquity of the power plant, hovering over the portrayed village like an ever-present shadow, indicates its significance to the living conditions in the portrayed Richmond City. The production company supplies energy to the town, but the combination of (sub)urban housing and the factory in the picture suggests a correlation between the two pictured elements (as does the title of the photograph) – one could well claim that the photograph implies that the Amos Coal power plant provides employment to the inhabitants of Richmond City. I would argue that Epstein’s choice to construct the photograph as he did brings out the subtle presence of the Amos Coal power plant in everyday Raymond City life. Its blurry presence in the background suggests that the power plant indeed plays a role in the background of everyday life. In addition, the vastness of the power plant, towering high behind the peaceful residences, can also be considered as having a threatening quality. The contrast between the colourful Raymond City and the lifeless, grey Amos Coal power plant hence creates a defamiliarising effect – as if the image foreshadows a negative impact that the colourless background of everyday life may have in the future. Amos Coal Power

Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004 thereby portrays how large-scale energy production may

affect human life in various ways, although humans may not directly see the negative effects. As such, it is reminiscent of Wilson, who observed a mystification of the relationship between human livelihood and natural systems through the reduction of economics to production (290).

The ecocritical potential of Epstein’s narrative, however, is particularly strong when considering the different photographs of American Power in relation to each other. The Biloxi,

Mississippi 2005 photograph, for instance, shows a worn-out piece of land. In the image, Epstein

captures how remains of energy production may deteriorate the surrounding nature. While one may not directly associate an old mattress, some pieces of fabric and a car wreck with energy production or consumption, American Power indicates how their presence in the landscape is a part of the same process, by placing Biloxi, Mississippi 2005 in the same series – and thus the same framework – as Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004 and other photographs in the collection. I would argue that it is in fact this framework that foregrounds Epstein’s

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environmental concern. The narrative structure consequently brings out the downsides of large-scale energy production, because of their suggested relation to the portrayed merits. Epstein’s various depictions of energy production and consumption in the United States, combined to form one collection, can arguably be seen as a form of framed narrative: the audience must make a “shift from the space-time coordinates of the world in which the text is being read to the HERE

and NOW of [the story]” (Herman Story Logic 272). As David Herman explains in his 2002 work

Story Logic, this initial shift “can be interpreted only by reference to the where and when coordinates

defining the contexts in which the terms are uttered” (406, emphasis in original). While Herman’s analysis particularly focuses on written narratives, I would argue that Epstein creates a similar effect: in combining a wide range of photographs from different times and spaces and conjoining these images in one collection, he urges the audience to make an initial deictic shift towards the story world of the collection, and then consider the different images a part of one whole. In doing so, Epstein creates a disordering effect. Amos Coal Power Plant and Biloxi show two different sides of mass energy production. While the former clearly portrays the benefits of energy production, the possible negative effects are merely implied. Biloxi, on the other hand, shows a dry, barren land, in which human interference can only be seen as having a negative effect on nature.

Albeit set in an aesthetically laudable composition, juxtaposing Biloxi with the seemingly peaceful setting of Amos Coal Power Plant has two remarkable effects. By portraying the effects of energy production in different ways and joining them in one collection, or perhaps one storyworld,2_{Epstein arguably succeeds in making a connection between the positive and negative}

effects, thereby placing the effects of mass energy consumption on everyday human life on the same level as the effect on nature. The result this in turn has is twofold: on the one hand,

American Power shows that however positive the consequences of mass production may be in

economic and cultural terms, it undeniably has a disastrous effect on nature. On the other hand, the dystopian ambiance of Biloxi, Mississippi 2005 can be seen as foreshadowing the effects energy production in its current form ultimately may have on places that, in everyday human life, still seem to benefit from the capitalist practices that are responsible for production. Furthermore, the dates in the titles of the respective photographs contribute to raising awareness. Amos Coal Power

Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia 2004 is followed by Biloxi, Mississippi 2005, which could imply

that the latter portrays a possible result of the former. Although the photographs are shot in different locations, the explicit mentioning of the dates, combined with the conjoining of the

2_{The ‘storyworld’ concept is derived from David Herman’s Story Logic (2004): “I use storyworld to suggest something of the}

world-creating power of narrative, its ability to transport interpreters from the here and now of face-to-face interaction, or the space-time coordinates of an encounter with a printed text or a cinematic narrative, to the here and now that constitute the deictic center of the world being told about” (14).

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images in one collection, implies how the two might be interrelated. This effect, I would argue, is heightened by the colours in the photographs. Amos Coal Power Plant shows a green soil, which implies fertility, whereas the Biloxi photograph mostly shows brownish colours, which I would suggest represent infertility. The suggested relation between the different photographs may well lead the audience to make connections between these signifiers of positive and negative effects on the fertility of the portrayed places. Considering the implied chronology, one might even argue that Epstein hints at the idea that a piece of land that seems perfectly healthy may well deteriorate within a year’s time. The way in which the individual photographs function as part of a larger narrative is vital here, particularly in understanding the images’ potential for the ecocritical field. Herman’s concept of the framed narrative, I would argue, is particularly valid in this case through its connection to Abrioux’s concept of intensive landscaping. It is exactly through the use of a narrative frame that Epstein can suggest the relations between the different photographs in his series, as the framing highly contributes to the accomplishment of Abrioux’s idea of inventing relations

In addition, I would suggest that the intrinsic narrative characteristics of photography contribute to the productivity of this setup. In ‘The Double Dynamics of Focalization in W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn’, Silke Horstkotte claims that “The distinction between focalizer and narrator is crucial in narrative. In visual art, however, it is not always possible to clearly discriminate between a narrative agent and the represented perspective … the photographer—the agent of the vision represented in the photo—cannot be represented within the photograph” (34). Epstein’s visions are represented in his photographs, yet he does not take part in them himself, which, I believe, makes a photo series like American Power particularly susceptible to an ecocritical reading. The absence of an individual perspective may suggest the uniformity of the portrayed experience. This uniformity can strengthen the raised ecological awareness, as the idea of collective experience will help diminish the fetishist split. The title of the series contributes to that idea. Especially to an American audience, the notion of ‘American power’ evokes a sense of patriotism and togetherness. This initial connection to the subject matter, however, also means an implied connection to the downsides that are represented in the series.

In conclusion, I would argue that Mitch Epstein’s American Power is in fact successful and productive as an ecocritical counter-narrative. Whereas one could claim that Epstein beautifies the waste he depicts, and does not provide answers for the problems he identifies, these arguable shortcomings do not have to undercut the productiveness of the counter-narrative that is visible in the series. Rather, I would suggest that the inclusion of the master narrative Epstein intends to questioneven makes the series as a whole stronger as a counter-narrative, as it facilitates a

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powerful juxtaposition between the positive and negative effects of mass energy production. Moreover, the combination of pros and cons eases the inclusion of human collective experience, thus steering the narrative away from the fetishist split. Because Epstein highlights both the benefits and the disadvantages of mass energy production in the same series, his work functions as a framed narrative, in which relations between the different photographs are already suggested through their positioning in the same narrative frame. Juxtaposing the effects of energy production on cultural life with the effects on nature, Epstein endorses Tuana’s notion of interactionismby putting these effects on the same level, thereby defamiliarising his audience’s everyday attitude to energy production and consumption. He thus makes the audience aware of the connection between culture and nature, as well as the connection between positive and negative effects. In The Culture of Nature, Wilson states that most (pre-)twentieth-century narratives “are no longer adequate to the task of imagining a future in which technology, culture, and nature are fully integrated. We now need a larger perspective. We need to gain a sense of how our constructed environment connects to the natural one surrounding it, and to its history. Only then can we be mobilized to restore nature and to assure it, and ourselves, a future” (291). Epstein’s American Power can well be considered a valid response that offers the larger perspective Wilson calls for.

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CHAPTER 3 BROADENING THE SCOPE

Exploring the ecocritical potential of

Edward Glaeser’s

Triumph of the City

As early as 1955, French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss noted that urbanisation does not necessarily have to have a bad effect on the relationship between humans and nature. In his memoir Tristes Tropiques, Lévi-Strauss stated that the city “may even be rated higher [than ‘unspoiled’ nature] since it stands at the point where nature and artifice meet. A city is a congestion of animals whose biological history is enclosed within its boundaries, and yet every conscious and rational act on the part of these creates helps to shape the city’s eventual character” (17). Although Lévi-Strauss expressed these observations well before the emergence of the ecocritical field, and even before influential reports such as the Club of Rome’s Limits to

Growth (1972),3_{it is striking that his ideas rarely echo in ecocritical analyses. I would argue that}

valuing urbanisation in relation to the non-human may prove useful to ecocritical objectives, following Nancy Easterlin’s claim that “the inclusion of human life and thought within natural processes cancels the nature-culture dichotomy” (263). Turning away from the possible merits of urbanisation, as the ecocritical field tends to do, in that respect not only has problematic effects on the manifestation of the fetishist split – it also means turning a blind eye to the positive effects urbanisation may have on the nature-culture dichotomy, or the relationship between humans and nature on the whole. In this chapter, I therefore examine to what extent a counter-narrative lens can aid the ecocritical field in studying narratives that applaud the urban, rather than merely signal the urban as a phenomenon that opposes nature. I demonstrate how urban development and narratives that revolve around this development may actually support the ecocritical cause. In my analysis, I will focus on Edward Glaeser’s 2011 book Triumph of the City, a work that would usually fall outside the scope of ecocritical analysis, but shows significant ecocritical potential when the notion of the counter-narrative comes into play.

In what I would like to call ‘conventional ecocriticism’, for lack of a better term, critics tend to avoid analyses of urban space. The urban is often believed to highly contribute to the conservation of the human/nature dichotomy. Narratives that mainly focus on the urban therefore tend to fall outside the scope of ecocritical analysis. As William Cronon points out in his 1995 essay ‘The Trouble with Wilderness’, the urban is frequently considered the counterpart

3_{In Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome concluded that a continuation of the progress in population and urbanisation (among}

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of (unspoiled) nature, an idea that echoes in the Deep Ecology movement. Cronon states the following:

For many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth. It is an island in the polluted sea of urban-industrial modernity, the one place we can turn for escape from our own too-muchness. Seen in this way, wilderness presents itself as the best antidote to our human selves, a refuge we must somehow recover if we hope to save the planet. (Cronon 69)

Since ‘saving the planet’ (phrased rather bluntly) can be considered the ultimate objective of the ecocritical field, it is hardly surprising that Cronon’s thoughts are reflected in the roots of ecocritical practice. Neil Evernden, for instance, in an early attempt to construct an ecocritical framework, endorses the idea that urban areas are bound to bring about an imbalance in the relationship between human and nature. In ‘Beyond Ecology: Self, Place and the Pathetic Fallacy’, an essay written in 1978 and selected for the 1996 landmark work The Ecocriticism Reader, Evernden states that “[t]he environmental repertoire is vastly diminished in urban life, perhaps to the point of making genuine attachment to place very difficult - even assuming a person were to stay in one place long enough to make the attempt at all” (100-101). This observation still echoes in conventional ecocriticism. In the same volume, writer and essayist Scott Russell Sanders states that “[t]he gospel of ecology has become an intellectual commonplace. But it is not yet an emotional one. For most of us, most of the time, nature appears framed in a window or a video screen or inside the borders of a photograph. We do not feel the organic web passing through our guts, as it truly does” (194, emphasis in original). Strikingly, Sanders’ observation hints at the notion of the fetishist split – the absence of nature in the collective experience, he claims, causes a lack of emotional attachment to nature. However, whereas I would suggest that the solution to this lack of emotional attachment is to be found in establishing a connection between ecocriticism and what is in fact collective experience, Sanders considers urban life a vital element of the prevailing human/nature dichotomy. He argues that “[h]ow we inhabit the planet is intimately connected to how we imagine the land and its creatures … [if] a revolution in vision is to occur in our time, writers will have to free themselves from human enclosures, and go study outside to study the green world” (Sanders 194-195). Sanders goes on to claim that “[i]t may seem quaint, in the age of megalopolis, to write about wilderness or about life on farms and in small towns … but such writing seems to me the most engaged and forward-looking we have” (195). His analysis falls in line with prevalent ideas in ecocriticism that may limit the field in its development and in fulfilling

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its objective of raising awareness, predominantly the idea that urban environments unceasingly disrupt nature and negatively influence human engagement with the non-human. This, I would argue, can well be seen as the foremost reason why the ecocritical field finds the inclusion of urban nature in its research so problematic.

In recent years, however, alternatives to this theory have been published in various disciplines. In the development of urban studies, an ecocritical urban thought appears more frequently. Using a counter-narrative approach highlights the applicability of these alternatives for ecocritical study, which I would argue is a vital step for the development of ecocriticism. After all, the urban has become an inescapable aspect of human life and cannot simply be taken out of the equation when studying the human-nature dichotomy or its possible alternatives – especially when considering the consequences of disregarding collective experience, i.e. the fetishist split. Edward Glaeser’s 2011 book Triumph of the City is one of those works that may prove valuable to ecocritical objectives when approached from a counter-narrative angle. In this exploration of urban life, Glaeser focuses on the merits of living in cities. He examines urban life and explores his initial statement that “[c]ities enable the collaboration that makes humanity shine most brightly” (6). At first glance, Glaeser’s idea seems to contradict the ecocritical cause: his claim that the future of humankind lies in the city does not appear to follow the ecocritical field’s idea that life in cities highly contributes to the persistence of the human/nature dichotomy. Focusing on ‘the city’, in that respect, appears to contradict attempts to create ecological awareness. Indeed, Glaeser takes on an anthropocentric view that, at first glance, seems to endorse the existing dichotomy. His exploration of (human) life in urban areas proceeds from the notion that “[t]he strength that comes from human collaboration is the central truth behind civilization’s success and the primary reason why cities exist” (15). Triumph of the City thus proclaims civilisation to be successful, rather than a concept in need of re-evaluation, as many environmentalists and ecocritics suggest. Apart from that, since his main angle is an economic one, ecocritics are most likely to deem Glaeser’s work unfit for ecocritical research. By focusing on the economic advantages of living in the city, after all, the author highlights the positive sides of a capitalist system that opposes the ecocritical cause in many ways. The dominance of capitalism is often heavily criticised in ecocritical analyses, such as in ‘The Mad Max Phase of Globalization’ by Lieven de Cauter (2008). In this essay, De Cauter argues that even natural disasters are now employed for economic gain. He states that “[t]he rise of this new form of capitalism is … of course extremely bad news in the light of climate change and the permanent catastrophe it will entail” (De Cauter 63-64). If capitalist practices are indeed to be considered a driving factor behind the conservation of the current way of human engagement with nature, it seems

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understandable that ecocritics would disregard Triumph of the City because of its dominant underlying ideology. However, a counter-narrative approach can reveal the ecocritical potential that the work has, despite its roots in a capitalism-induced ideology. Placing Glaeser’s study in a frame that encompasses both the dominant narrative and its counterparts contextualises the author’s environmental concerns. Usually, these a) may not be noticed by the ecocritical field in its usual approach and b) may not receive full attention in readings not devoted to the ecocritical cause. In a counter-narrative ecocritical reading of Triumph of the City, then, we accept the status quo (i.e. an economics-centered Western society) as the master narrative, yet understand that a work that mostly endorses this master narrative can also express environmental concerns in the same narrative frame. In my analysis of Triumph of the City, I will focus specifically on how the narrative structure of Glaeser’s work aids the articulation of his environmental concerns. This will demonstrate how such a reading can bring out the ecocritical potential Triumph of the City arguably entails, which I will emphasise through a number of examples from the book. As such, my analysis will serve to illustrate my argument that a counter-narrative reading can contribute to the broadening of ecocriticism’s scope, particularly when concerning the urban.

In the introduction of Triumph of the City, multiple narrative levels are created through a form of narrative embedding, i.e. the occurrence of different narrative levels within the same narrative. Although Gérard Genette has suggested that “the presence of narrative embedding may be one of the very few formal criteria for differentiating fictional from factual narratives” (Nelles 339), I would argue that narrative embedding can occur in non-fiction as well. In the case of Triumph of

the City, this particularly comes forward when looking at the introductory chapter. Entitled ‘Our

Urban Species’, Glaeser instantly connects the audience to the subject matter. Connecting his personal experience to his study of the urban, he creates a division between ‘Glaeser, the urban resident’ and ‘Glaeser, the economist’:

The city has triumphed. But as many of us know from personal experience, sometimes city roads are paved to hell. The city may win, but often its citizens seem to lose. Every urban childhood is shaped by an onrush of extraordinary people and experiences – some delicious, like the sense of power that comes from a preteen’s first subway trip alone; some less so, like a first exposure to gunfire (an unforgettable part of my childhood education in New York City thirty-five years ago). (Glaeser 2)

Claiming that his experience of the urban is similar to the reader’s experience (“as many of us know from personal experience”), Glaeser implies that the narrative that will follow concerns the

From a hamlet into a bustling metropolis - proposing a counter-narrative approach to ecocriticism

University of Amsterdam

MA Literature & Culture: Specialization English