Session Details

Saturday, 08 January

449. Where Are We Now? Ecocriticism and Narrative Scholarship

8:30–9:45 a.m., Platinum Salon B, J. W. Marriott

A special session

Presiding: William Conlogue, Marywood Univ.

Speakers: Laird Christensen, Green Mountain Coll.; Christine Cusick, Seton Hill Univ.; Diane P. Freedman, Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham; Laurie A. McMillan, Marywood Univ.; Kent Ryden, Univ. of Southern Maine, Portland

Respondent: Lawrence I. Buell, Harvard Univ.

Any scholar concerned with the relations among writer, text, and world must confront issues related to the use (or not) of the personal in scholarly work. Narrative scholarship, which weaves personal writing with traditional scholarship, is a major practice of ecocriticism, a growing subfield in the discipline. Participants examine narrative scholarship’s connections to pedagogical practice, place-based writing, and other autobiographical forms of literary scholarship. The roundtable investigates not only the promises but also the pitfalls of this approach to reading texts—and the world.

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