"An Aligned, Transformed, Constructed World": Representing Material Environments in American Literature 1835-1945

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dc.contributor.advisorRossi, Williamen_US
dc.contributor.authorSexton, Melissaen_US
dc.creatorSexton, Melissaen_US
dc.date.accessioned2012-10-26T04:04:32Z
dc.date.available2013-06-04T17:45:42Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation seeks to avoid two extremes that have polarized literary debate: on the one hand, a strong constructivism that reduces environments to textual effects; and, on the other hand, a strong realism that elides language's constructive power, assuming texts' mimetic transparency. Positioning itself within the ecocritical attempt to reconnect text and environment, my project articulates a constructive vision of material representation that I call "constrained realism." Katherine L. Hayles's "constrained constructivism" emphasizes the constructed nature of scientific knowledge while asserting science's truth; conversely, "constrained realism" re-emphasizes the material real's influence on literature while acknowledging representation's limitations. My project adapts Bruno Latour's work in science studies to literary texts, reconceiving written representation as a dynamic process of human/material interaction. My reassessment of literary materiality extends to both canonical and neglected American texts that address representational anxieties about materiality. First, I examine how the work of Henry David Thoreau presents the relation between a material world and written text as actively constructed and mutually constituted, a relationship that necessitates Thoreau's self-reflexive engagement with language. A similar dynamic between material observation and skepticism about language informs Frank Norris'sen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/12431
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregonen_US
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.en_US
dc.subjectConstructivismen_US
dc.subjectEcocriticismen_US
dc.subjectEnvironmental literatureen_US
dc.subjectNature writingen_US
dc.subjectRealismen_US
dc.subjectScience studiesen_US
dc.title"An Aligned, Transformed, Constructed World": Representing Material Environments in American Literature 1835-1945en_US
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US

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