This ePortfolio, the culmination of my work as a master’s student in literature, demonstrates a diverse interest in ecocritical theory, which is evident throughout my pedagogy, scholarly writing, and poetry. Reading and writing is integral to the way I believe we relate to a place; it is what fosters sustainable communities and the organic exchange of information. The act of creating a digital location out of my work as a graduate student has helped me to understand the importance of “placing” myself within the context of the global ecological conversation. Looking back on my experiences at Auburn University, it is clear that, though not every class is represented here, each one shaped the way I understand research and creativity as essential parts of academic pursuits.

 

In my first semester at Auburn University, I explored the concept of ecocomposition in my Composition Issues and Approaches. I studied the work of Sidney Dobrin, Byron Hawk, Margaret Syverson, Christian Weisser, and Marilyn Cooper. Dobrin argues in Ecology, Writing Theory, and New Media: Writing Ecology that when a writing teacher talks “about continuity and coherence in a paragraph, [they are] talking about symbiotic relationships between inhabitants of a paragraph” (Dobrin 20). Hawk traces western ambivalence toward collaborative, dialogic, and holistic approaches to writing as symptoms of the influence of Vitalism, a Romantic scientific theory which divided living entities from non-living elements—interrogating the relationship between Authors and writers. His work subverts the archaic idea that writing somehow happens in a vacuum, divorced from both the elemental chemistry of writing and the philosophical understanding of the interactions between various systems of writing.

 

“Eco” comes from Greek: οἶκος, "house." It has become the idiom and spouse of the emblematic color green, which together represent attempts to re-establish a connection between humans and "nature," to understand our place in this "house." Contemporary ecocritics like William Cronon, Lawrence Buell, and Timothy Morton have long advocated the interconnectedness of disciplines, and movements like new historicism and ecocriticism are clearly products of interdisciplinary studies, but the act of compiling digital portfolio insisted on my abandoning an ad hoc approach to my academic interests. As Morton argues in The Ecological Thought:

 

“The ecological crisis we face is so obvious that it becomes easy… to join the dots and

see that everything is interconnected.  This is the ecological thought.  And the more we

consider it, the more our world opens up.”

 

Understanding and developing connections, what Morton rightly identifies as ecology, is probably the most important movement in contemporary ecocriticism. Writers like Lee Rozelle, Scott Slovic, and Ashton Nichols have also greatly influenced my understanding of how the concept of "nature" itself participates in the division of human and environment. Nichols echoes the call of writers like William Cronon, Don Scheese, and Dana Phillips, for a “rigorous critique of ‘nature’” (xiv). My brief writing project, a book review, looks at Nichols’ recent work, Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism: Toward Urbanatural Roosting. When I reviewed his work for Southern Humanities Review, I found his concept of “Urbanatural” particularly evocative. He seeks a combination of nature and culture in a unifying concept. However, I am also wary of concepts which simplify divisions between bioregions using by such a vast concept. The complexity of ecological thinking lies in the relationship between interconnectivity and diversity. It demands respect for local individualities and global realities...