Synopses & Reviews
This thematically-arranged reader for first-year composition presents 56 provocative readings that encourage students to think about how they interact with the natural world and how the act of writing affects that interaction. The selections address not only traditional environmental concerns, but also issues related to recreation, survival, consumption, and other topics of interest to college students.
About the Author
Sidney I. Dobrin is Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Programs in English at the University of Florida where he teaches composition theory, technical and professional writing, ecocriticism, environmental rhetoric, and the literature of fishing. He also serves on the faculty for the College of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies at UF. He received his Ph.D in Rhetoric and Composition in 1995 from the University of South Florida. He is author of Saving Place: An Ecocomposition Reader; A Closer Look: The Writer's Reader; and Constructing Knowledges: The Politics of Theory-Building and Pedagogy in Composition, and he is co-editor of Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom (with Gary A. Olson), The Kinneavy Papers: Theory and the Study of Discourse (with Gary A. Olson and Lynn Worsham), Ecocomposition: Theoretical and Pedagogical Approaches (with Christian Weisser). He is also co-author of Natural Discourse: Composition Studies and Environmental Theory (with Christian Weisser). He has also written Distance Casting: Words and Ways of the Saltwater Fishing Life. His articles and essays cover a range of subjects about composition theory and writing and have appeared in a variety of journals and books. He is past co-editor of JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory. Dobrin is a former field editor with Floridas The Fisherman magazine and writes freelance articles for various fishing and outdoor magazines. When he is not teaching or writing, Dobrin spends his free time in, on, or under the water, and like Paul, in the movie version of A River Runs Through It, only needs another three years until he will be able to think like a fish.
Table of Contents
1 Reading, Writing, and Defining NatureRalph Waldo Emerson Nature and Language from NatureWilliam Cronon The Trouble with WildernessTed Kerasote What We Talk about when We Talk about WildernessBarry Lopez Landscape and NarrativeGary Snyder Cultured or CrabbedFilm: The Mosquito CoastLuther Standing Bear NatureJoyce Carol Oates Against NatureBill Watterson Calvin and HobbesLouis Owens The American Indian WildernessUrsula Le Guin Woman/Wilderness2 Thinking EcologicallyFritjof Capra Ecological Literacy from The Web of LifeAldo Leopold Thinking Like a Mountain from A Sand County AlmanacEdward Abbey Eco DefenseRobert F Kennedy, Jr The American Wilderness: Why it MattersFloyd Red Crow Westerman Chief Seattle Speaksbell hooks Touching the Earth3 Playing and Relaxing in Nature John Muir Features of the Proposed Yosemite National ParkTheodore Roosevelt Wilderness Reserves, Yellowstone ParkRick Bass Why I HuntJoe Balaz Anything You Kill, you Gada EatPam Houston The Company of MenLorian Hemingway The Young Woman and the SeaBill Watterson Calvin and HobbesJimmy Carter KilimanjaroMark Foo Occurrence at Waimea BayDaniel Duane from Caught InsideStephen Gorman Trekking Tropical TrailsJames Campbell Paddling a Watery WildernessDon Stap Gliding through The Glades4 Consuming NatureAlan Thein Durning The Conundrum of ConsumptionJoy Williams Save the Whales, Screw the ShrimpPaul R Ehrlich and Anne H Ehrlich Food: The Ultimate ResourceWendell Berry The Pleasures of EatingAlice Walker We AloneAnnie Dillard The Deer at Providencia from Teaching a Stone to TalkLame Deer Talking to the Owls and Butterflies5 Surviving NatureJon Krakauer The Devils ThumbArt Davidson from Minus 148: The Winter Ascent of Mt McKinleySteven Callahan To Weave a World from Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at SeaZora Neale Hurston from Their Eyes Were Watching GodJack London To Build a FireFilm: The EdgePier Porrino Killer Wave SurvivorsCynthia Dusel-Bacon Come Quick! Im Being Eaten by a Bear6 Living With/In NatureHenry David Thoreau Where I Lived and What I lived For from WaldenKurt Vonnegut To Hell with MarriageFilm: Jeremiah JohnsonEdward Abbey The First Morning from Desert SolitaireRick Bass from Winter: Notes from MontanaLangston Hughes The Negro Speaks of RiversSimon J Ortiz from From Sand Creek: Rising in This Heart Which Is Our AmericaWilliam Cronon This Land is Your Land: Turning to Nature in a Time of Crisis7 Our Future in/with/of NatureTerry Tempest Williams A Shark in the Mind of One Contemplating WildernessJanisse Ray Second Coming from Ecology of a Cracker ChildhoodGary Snyder Coming into the WatershedRachel Carson The Other RoadWendell Berry Nature as MeasureDouglas Adams Sifting Through The Embers from Last Chance to SeeArchie Carr Eden Changes from A Naturalist in Florida: A Celebration of Eden