Brooke D. Campbell
“Isn’t the paranoia that I might simply be a puppet of some demonic external force just the suspicion that I might be a vegetable?” In discussing his concepts of the arche-lithic, agrilogistics, weird loops, and appearing/being, Timothy Morton asks this question in his book, Dark Ecology: For A Logic of Future Coexistence (101). While Morton’s concepts aim to uncover the code for ecological coexistence, they often leave him with questions; at the same time, though, they also lead him to answers. Morton’s inquiries of reality, patterns, identity, and flowers guide him toward the manifestation of his own concepts, and they each require definitive explanation. The arche-lithic, for example, is a “primordial relatedness of humans and nonhumans” (63). Here, “primordial” involves a timeless, magical, and “shimmering” state of reality, wherein both humans and nonhumans coexist without the confines of settlements and/or social constructions and contracts (63). Agrilogistics, on the other hand, is the “specific logistics of agriculture that arose in the Fertile Crescent and that is still plowing ahead” (42). In other words, this concept is the antithesis of the arche-lithic, insofar as it chiefly involves settlements and/or social constructions and contracts. To fully absorb these concepts, though, Morton’s weird loops must act as their foundation. For Morton, “all things have a loop form,” meaning that all things are weirdly slippery, “twisted,” and reflective (5, 6). Unsurprisingly, this is the form in which both the arche-lithic and agrilogistics exist—but it is also the form in which appearing/being exist. Morton’s concept of appearing/being might be summarized as this: “appearing” is not strictly one’s external look, nor is “being” strictly one’s internal character—rather, appearing/being maintain an interrelated dialogue with one another, yet, at the same time, maintain a mysterious gap between one another. Although appearing/being are typically positioned as oppositional binaries in western culture, according to Morton, they are actually weird loops: they veer into each other, twist against each other, contain each other, and yet maintain a gap between each other. Despite such abstractness, Morton’s concepts can be traced in other ecocritical theory—and in many cases, they serve to bolster such theory.
Similar to Morton’s concepts above, numerous other ecocritics shape their field through enigmatic theories—and as such, their interconnected dialogue is invaluable. For instance, Timothy Clark’s book, Ecocriticism on Edge, discusses the pertinence of the concept of scale and how, when misused, it can create false boundaries; in Stacy Alaimo’s book, Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times, she devises the term trans-corporeality as a means by which to discuss the falsehood of categorizations, namely subjectivity and objectivity; moreover, in Rob Nixon’s famous work, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, he outlines the concept of slow violence as destruction which is invisible and gradual, rather than apparent and immediate. Such concepts—scale, trans-corporeality, and slow violence—all interact with Morton’s weird loops, the arche-lithic, agrilogistics, and appearing/being, as the very basis of ecocriticism is interconnectedness. In Clark’s concept of scale, he asserts that “‘by giving people a boundary you are installing a sense of agency or control’” (qtd. in Clark 74). This “‘sense of agency or control’” is a farce, as Clark argues, which also aligns with the false “‘sense of agency or control’” regarding the practice of agrilogistics. More importantly, though, the entire foundational make-up of the concept of scale structurally supports that of the arche-lithic, agrilogistics, and appearing/being, as these concepts require scale shifting to become fully realized. Furthermore, Alaimo’s term of trans-corporeality “denies the splitting of subject and object,” as “the subject, the knower, is never separate from the world that she seeks to know” (7). The denial of “splitting” here echoes that of the arche-lithic, as the arche-lithic rejects falsely constructed categories. Finally, Nixon’s concept of slow violence is defined as the gradual and “out of sight” destruction which is delayed and “dispersed across time and space” (2). In other words, this underscores the lasting effects of agrilogistics, given that agrilogistics, according to Morton, is the root of social constructions and/or contracts, and these things are the root of steady, transparent violence. Although these ecocritical concepts maintain a comparable level of abstraction to that of Morton, they can be traced in both scientific and literary texts—and especially in Transcendentalist poetry.
In Henry David Thoreau’s poem, “I am a parcel of vain strivings tied,” the speaker is a flower: a flower who is ripped from its arche-lithic roots and transplanted into an agrilogistical vase, where it is doomed to gently fade into death. While this is a simple summary of a complex poem, it is nonetheless plain to see how the aforementioned ecocritical concepts might help to unpack it. The speaker of the poem is a flower—a nonhuman entity—meaning that its position as such predisposes its reality to the arche-lithic. Although the arche-lithic includes human access as well as nonhuman access, human access within the arche-lithic is almost nonexistent as humans have “cover[ed] it over with agrilogistic monotheism” (Morton 101). Therefore, the flower’s arche-lithic roots are closely tied with its nonhuman positionality—and by extension of this, the agrilogistical vase into which it is transplanted is closely tied with its human associations, as the flower must now face Nixon’s slow violence. Hence, in addition to Nixon’s concept, Clark’s scale is pertinent here because the flower is subject to the two scales of the nonhuman and the human. As mentioned above, moreover, the concepts of the arche-lithic and agrilogistics require the base concept of Morton’s weird loops, and this is especially apparent when applied to Thoreau’s poem. The flower, as a nonhuman entity who is accustomed to an arche-lithic scale, maintains its initial positionality despite its confrontation with a human, agrilogistic scale; and the combination of these renders an unexpected, weird loop, given that the flower threads nonhuman and the human scales together, suggesting Alaimo’s awareness of trans-corporeality. The development of this weird loop is found, according to Morton, in the appearing/being concept as well, considering that it also exists in a loop form. Despite the gap between appearing/being, though, there is a deeply unanticipated and intertwined relationship between them, and this is evident in the nonhuman/human qualities that the poem’s flower maintains. Thus, Thoreau’s poem, “I am a parcel of vain strivings tied,” enacts Morton’s weird loop: as a flower, the speaker exists on a nonhuman, arche-lithic scale—but as it encounters a human, agrilogistic scale, it begins to thread a loop between them, and this reveals the inevitability of Nixon’s slow violence. The flower additionally identifies the overlap between nonhuman and human phenomena, given that Morton’s gap between appearing/being and Alaimo’s trans-corporeality are concepts pertaining to both the nonhuman and the human—and this, in turn, further encloses the weird loop between the arche-lithic and agrilogistics.
In the first stanza, the flower establishes its position: it is a nonhuman entity existing within an arche-lithic space. The flower says, in the opening line of the poem, that “[it is] a parcel of vain strivings tied / By chance bond together, / Dangling this way and that” (662). While the flower goes on to say that its “links” were made “loose and wide” for “milder weather,” it is already evident that its positionality is one of a nonhuman—specifically speaking, a nonhuman flower who is “plucked" from the ground and tied up in rope or “links” (662, 663). Now that the poem’s speaker is clearly identified as a flower, Morton’s concepts again prove useful. As illustrated above, nonhuman entities align more closely with Morton’s concept of the arche-lithic because they exist within a reality of “shimmering” timelessness; and flowers, according to Morton, are nonhuman entities with the same alignment (63). He writes, “Flowers provide an excellent opportunity to study the arche-lithic thought” (99). This is due to numerous qualities, but there is one which remains distinct: a flower is “uncannily alive after millennia, evidence of an undead will” (Morton 99). If the arche-lithic is a “shimmering” reality which is simultaneously timeless, then the “uncannily alive” qualities of the flower render it perfectly arche-lithic, as it is both lucidly beautiful and endlessly existent (Morton 63, 99). Therefore, as a flower, the poem’s speaker occupies both an arche-lithic and nonhuman role.
To further underscore the flower’s position as a nonhuman entity, Clark’s definition of scale is necessary. Given the flower’s aforementioned status, it is, according to Morton, predisposed for an arche-lithic perspective. Thus, the flower’s position immediately places it on a scale outside of the human and agrilogistics: it instead places it on a scale of the nonhuman and the arche-lithic. This renders the flower’s perspective as one which exists outside the bounds of human constructions, social contracts, and so on. Rather, the flower’s perspective is “shimmering” and timeless, which, in some ways, grants it a more encompassing understanding of its situation (Morton 63). And if, according to Clark, scale is defined as when many things “come together to form a new, imponderable physical event, altering the basic ecological cycles of the planet,” then the flower’s position as a nonhuman, arche-lithic being is not singular (72). On the contrary, the flower’s position encompasses the multiplied positions of many nonhuman, arche-lithic entities, which aids its endeavor to enclose weird loops within the poem.
After the flower establishes its aforementioned position, it references the permeations of a human-driven, agrilogistical scale in the second stanza. Although the flower begins this stanza with a comparable tone of its predecessor, citing the “bunch of violets without their roots, / And sorrel intermixed, / Encircled by a wisp of straw,” there begins an underlying, encroaching tone of the human—of agrilogistics (662). Firstly, the flower is ripped from its roots for the sake of a presumed human’s pleasure—which effectively means that the flower is ripped from its arche-lithic reality for the sake of a presumed agrilogistic desire. Secondly, once this happens, the flower mentions human-constructed notions: in noting the “wisp of straw” which now “encircle[s]” it, the flower laments, “ The law / By which I’m fixed” (662). The notion of law is strictly human—strictly agrilogistic—as it pertains to social order within social settlements. With this in mind, there is no reason that a flower, as a nonhuman and arche-lithic entity, should be “fixed” to a “law” (662). However, because the flower is now “plucked” from its arche-lithic space, the qualities which accompany this begin to mesh with the incoming qualities of the space which infringes upon it—which is, namely, human-driven agrilogistics (Thoreau 663). As Morton points to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra “memorably proclaim[ing] that people are halfway between plants and ghosts,” so, too, is this poem’s flower halfway between people and ghosts (100-101). In other words, the boundaries between the nonhuman, arche-lithic scale and the human, agrilogistic scale are more slippery and twisted than absolute.
The convergence of the flower’s nonhuman, arche-lithic position within its new agrilogistical, human space suggests not only a shift of scales—as Clark would write—but it also suggests relevance of Alaimo’s trans-corporeality. As mentioned above, the flower exists on a nonhuman, arche-lithic scale because it is a nonhuman entity. However, as the poem progresses, the flower includes ponderings of human and/or agrilogistical concerns, such as its physical limitations and its newfound “law” (662). The flower’s ability to alternate between a predominantly nonhuman perspective to that of a human perspective suggests its capacity to maintain multiple presences on multiple scales—but it also suggests the powerful influence of its recent space. As Alaimo writes when discussing that of trans-corporeality, “bodies extend into places and places deeply affect bodies” (5). While the flower’s being may not be thought of as a human “body,” it is nonetheless a nonhuman body which maintains the capability for absorbance. In other words, the flower’s nonhuman position does not render it unable to ingest its surroundings; on the contrary, the flower’s nonhuman position renders it capable of ingesting its surroundings and, as a consequence, acting as a trans-corporeal figure. Therefore, the flower serves as a nonhuman, arche-lithic entity with the ability for human, agrilogistic notions, which weakens the belief in strict categorizations and strengthens the concept of trans-corporeality.
In the third stanza, the permeations of this human-driven, agrilogistical space become increasingly apparent as the flower discusses additional human-constructed concepts. While it is carried to its vase, the flower reflects on Time: “A nosegay which Time clutched from out / Those fair Elysian fields, / With weeds and broken stems, in haste, / Doth make the rabble rout, / That waste / The day he yields” (662). Like mentioned above, the concept of Time, the reference to Greek mythology, and the notion of waste are all inalienably human; they are all inextricably agrilogistical as well, given that temporality, narrative, and excess are consequences of social human settlement. As a flower with “excellent opportunity” for the study of the “arche-lithic thought”—which is, again, a timeless and “shimmering” reality—there is no reason it should bother with such arbitrary human constructions (Morton 63, 99). The flower exists outside of these confinements. However, as Morton writes, “All entities just are what they are, which means that they are never quite as they seem” (105). In addition to this, the flower has been removed from its arche-lithic space and is now enveloped in an agrilogistical one containing human settlement, ideas, constructions, and so on. Thus, the combination of the flower’s mysterious, shifting essence and its newfound involvement in literal agrilogistical surroundings renders its arche-lithic boundaries as penetrable.
As the flower now ruminates over its inescapable, agrilogistical reality, it inadvertently ruminates over Nixon’s slow violence, as well as Alaimo’s trans-corporeality and Clark’s scale. If the flower is a nonhuman, arche-lithic entity within a human, agrilogistical environment, as illustrated above, then it inevitably maintains the ability to scale shift thoughts, ideas, and theories—which inherently reinforces its boundaries as penetrable. And these penetrable boundaries, moreover, further underscore the fluidity of Alaimo’s trans-corporeality: she writes, for example, that “trans-corporeality … muddle[s] the categories of the ethical and the political” (10). While Alaimo specifically references contemporary issues within this excerpt, her sentiment remains pertinent, as trans-corporeality aims to blur the lines of categorizations—and the flower, given its ability to scale shift, blurs the lines of categorizations, too. However, in addition to Clark and Alaimo’s concepts, the poem’s flower also attends to Nixon’s concept of slow violence. Because the flower has been “plucked” from its arche-lithic roots—or, in other words, its life source—it is gradually dying as it speaks the poem (Thoreau 663). This slowness is entirely dictated by the inevitability of time, which is a vital component of Nixon’s concept; he writes that the most “insidious workings of slow violence derive largely from the unequal attention given to spectacular and unspectacular time” (6). While the flower understands that its initial injury was due to human and agrilogistical desires, it also understands that its subjugation to a slow and violent death is largely facilitated by time—just as Nixon writes. Hence, given the content above, the flower’s position here further illustrates the slippery boundaries of dichotomous relationships concerning scale, the arche-lithic, agrilogistics, and so on.
Now that these permeations have been established, the fourth stanza begins Morton’s weird loop: as it absorbs its human, agrilogistical surroundings, the flower is simultaneously a nonhuman entity accustomed to an arche-lithic space—and these mingling forms of reality produce an unlikely loop. In this stanza, the flower stands in its vase for the first time and says, “And here I bloom for a short hour unseen, / Drinking my juices up, / With no root in the land / To keep my branches green, / But stand / In a bare cup” (662). Here, the imagery is, in itself, a weird loop: while the flower grapples with its physicality as a nonhuman, arche-lithic entity, it is concurrently enclosed by a human-made, agrilogistic object. It “bloom[s] for a short hour” and drinks its “juices up,” which, on the one hand, centers its physical being as a nonhuman; on the other hand, though, the flower has “no root in the land / To keep [its] branches green,” which decenters its being as a nonhuman entirely. Rather, the flower is no longer wholly arche-lithic, and nonhuman—it is instead a messy, twisted loop of its former self and its new agrilogistical human environment. In the beginning of the poem, the flower is “plucked” by a human who wants to observe its arche-lithic glory in his/her agrilogistical settlement, making the flower an intersectional emblem of both the arche-lithic and agrilogistics (Thoreau 663). Or, as Morton would say, the flower weirdly threads the loop of the arche-lithic and agrilogistics.
The weird loop that the flower begins to thread not only involves the arche-lithic and agrilogistics, though: it continues to involve Clark’s scale, Alaimo’s trans-corporeality, and Nixon’s slow violence. Firstly, the flower’s scale shifting endures as an underlying component of its ability to interconnect seemingly opposing notions—such as the arche-lithic and agrilogistics—into a weird loop. Secondly, and more importantly, Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeality poses another crucial interconnective quality which the flower emulates as it destabilizes seemingly absolute boundaries. As Alaimo argues, nonhuman animals which are “‘queer’ … elude modes of categorization, speaking an epistemological-ethical sense in which suddenly the world is not only more queer than one would have imagined, but also more surprisingly itself” (6). Here, Alaimo presents “‘queer’” nonhuman animals as an example of how all lifeforms can contribute to the discourse which aims to debunk the belief in rigid categorizations. While the flower within this poem is not forthrightly “‘queer,’” it does present itself as intersectional in the sense that it can, again, shift between scales; such intersectionality, moreover, only serves to reinforce the flower as a trans-corporeal being. Additionally, the flower furthers Nixon’s concept of slow violence as well, given that it continues to contemplate its fleeting existence—which inadvertently acknowledges that “the past of slow violence is never past, so too the post is never fully post” (Nixon 8). In other words, as the flower remains an interconnective, intersectional entity, it continues to thread Morton’s weird loop.
In the fifth stanza, the gap between appearing/being becomes evident, as the nonhuman flower contemplates its fleeting incompleteness against its human surroundings. After it stands in the “bare cup,” the flower laments that few “tender buds were left upon [its] stem / In mimicry of life” (662-663). Then the flower turns away from its own physical, nonhuman being and toward its human environment: “But ah! the children will not know, / Till time has withered them, / The woe / With which they’re rife” (663). As it continues to juggle its intrinsic nonhuman and arche-lithic being with its enveloping human and agrilogistical environment, the flower not only reinforces a weird loop between them, but it also suggests their comparable qualities. Throughout his book, Morton numerously discusses the gap between appearing/being as a thing which is not strictly human, nor is it strictly nonhuman. In fact, Morton writes that a flower is an especially good example of the arche-lithic thought because it illustrates “being [as] deeply intertwined with appearing” (99). Although the human often suppresses his/her arche-lithic thought, according to Morton, he/she is still has access to it—meaning that the human and nonhuman share access to not only the arche-lithic, but they also share the gap between appearing/being, considering that the arche-lithic thought underscores it. Moreover, within this stanza, the gap between appearing/being as it appears in the nonhuman flower and its human-driven discussions is specifically apparent: while the flower appears to be blooming in its agrilogistic settlement, its being is dying—and while the children appear to be young, their beings are on an inevitable path of death. Hence, appearing/being exists in the nonhuman and the human alike, which only bolsters the loop between their associated concepts of the arche-lithic and agrilogistics.
As the gap between appearing/being becomes evident within the poem, as mentioned above, so, too, does Clark, Alaimo, and Nixon’s concepts. Again, the flower furthers the notion of scale and trans-corporeality throughout the entirety of the poem, as it constantly fluctuates between nonhuman/human scales, arche-lithic/agrilogistic scales, and so on; furthermore, the flower consistently underscores Alaimo’s trans-corporeality via deconstructions of falsely assigned dichotomies. For instance, the flower’s comprehension of Morton’s appearing/being argument solidifies this, as the flower asserts the notable difference yet obvious similarity between both appearing and being—which, as a result, renders a certain gap between the two. This looseness, slipperiness, and openness of the flower’s ruminations aid in its ability to enfold the weird loop that the poem presents. The notion of slow violence remains in the forefront of the flower’s mind, too, as it laments the limited time both it and the surrounding children have. Such lamentation is, in a way, a confrontation of the issue of slow violence. As Nixon writes, “To confront slow violence … we [must] plot and give figurative shape to formless threats whose fatal repercussions are dispersed across space and time” (10). While the flower within this poem does not directly condemn an enemy which must be given “shape,” it does condemn the inevitability of constrained time, which, in turn, condemns the human and his/her agrilogistical pleasures as the culprit of slow violence (10). Thus, as the flower acknowledges the threat of slow violence, it simultaneously continues to find the end of the poem’s weird loop.
After the flower contemplates its fleeting existence, it finds a strange contentment: in the sixth stanza, the flower returns to its nonhuman, arche-lithic roots and finds magic in the unknown gap between appearing/being. Now, the flower realizes that it was “not plucked for naught, / And after in life’s vase / Of glass set while I might survive, / But by a kind hand brought” (663). Despite the flower’s awareness of its transient state of nonhuman being, it concurrently locates a certain fulfillment in its human-made “glass,” especially since it permits it to “might survive” (663). In other words, the flower—who is, again, a nonhuman from an arche-lithic scale—finds gratitude in its human, agrilogistical counterparts, noting that a “kind hand brought” it to a “strange,” unknown place (663). This intersectional point between the nonhuman and human marks a chasm in which the magic exists: the nonhuman and human share an overlapping gap between appearing/being, and this gap is the locus of the magic. As the flower contemplates its temporal positionality, so, too, does the human. As Morton writes, “one wonders what causes such things to exist in turn. Isn’t it because there is an appearance-thing gap at all as a condition of possibility for existing as such?” (103). Much like Morton in his human positionality, the flower also ruminates over why “things … exist in turn”—and such ruminations are the glue which bind their weird loop together.
The flower’s seemingly odd contentment regarding the gap between appearing/being only serves to reinforce both Clark and Nixon’s concepts—which, in turn, only serves to further thread Morton’s weird loop. As the flower locates the magical, intersectional gap between the nonhuman and the human, it concurrently locates a space in which both the nonhuman and the human may coexist. Because the flower finds a point of commonality when it realizes that it was “not plucked for naught,” it also finds a point of overlap, of interaction, and of understanding (Thoreau 663). This not only reasserts the flower’s ability for scale shifting between its own nonhuman scale and its plucker’s human scale, but it also reasserts its comfort with impending death. Despite its awareness of Nixon’s slow violence, the flower discovers purpose within its human surroundings—within its human, agrilogistical scale. While this “purpose” may not be one of a nonhuman, arche-lithic scale, it is still a purpose which means something to someone on some scale, and this is where the magical gap is. Because the flower identifies a meaning outside of its predisposed perspective, it simultaneously finds contentment—and such contentment is the thing which encloses Morton’s weird loop.
In the seventh and final stanza, the flower fully encloses Morton’s weird loop between the nonhuman, arche-lithic scale and the human, agrilogistic scale; here, the flower wholly recognizes that the gap between appearing/being is not strictly nonhuman or human, but instead, this gap exists for all entities, no matter their occupied space, and now their weird, shared loop will go on indefinitely. The flower closely intertwines its nonhuman predisposition with its new human environment: “That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours, / And by another year, / Such as God knows, with freer air, / More fruits and fairer flowers / Will bear, / While I droop here” (663). Firstly, the flower references its former nonhuman companions, saying that they will “soon redeem … hours,” and that there will be “More fruits and fairer flowers” in “another year”; however, at the same time, these references are thickly laced with human-constructed ideas, such as the notion of time and a higher-power (663). This interconnected mode of understanding showcases, again, the flower as an emblem for an intersectional point—a weird loop—which arrives at the gap between appearing/being. As mentioned above, Morton writes that “All entities just are what they are, which means that they are never quite as they seem” (105). Given the evidence of the poem, the flower’s voice is beyond its simple beauty, and its human-driven agrilogistic environment, according to the flower, is also beyond its extractive actions. Instead, like Morton writes it, humans and "viruses and tropes and flowers might not only share some family resemblance. They might actually be part of the same physical family” (104). And if they are a part of the “same physical family,” then they are a part of the same weird loop (104).
While the flower finally enfolds Morton’s weird loop between the arche-lithic, agrilogistics, and appearing/being, it simultaneously enfolds Clark’s scale, Alaimo’s trans-corporeality, and Nixon’s slow violence. In its own poetic way, the flower echoes Morton when he writes, as mentioned above, that "All entities just are what they are, which means that they are never quite as they seem” (105). Here, Morton reinforces that there is a gap between appearing/being, as well as a gap between all existent things and/or lifeforms. This gap is, again, the locus of the magic, and it permits permeability, play, and pleasure. As the flower completely encloses the weird loop present within its poem, it also ensures that the gaps between Clark’s scales, the blurred lines between the categories which Alaimo’s trans-corporeality attempts to dissolve, and the varying forms of Nixon’s slow violence are all simultaneously enclosed, too. The flower asserts its own contentedness at the end of the poem as well, which, by extension, asserts a wholly formed, weird loop composed of the arche-lithic, agrilogistics, aspearing/being, scale, trans-corporeality, and slow violence.
Given the analysis above, it is clear that the concepts of Morton, Clark, Alaimo, and Nixon help to pursue the nonhuman and human loop within Thoreau’s poem, “I am a parcel of vain strivings tied”: once the flower identifies the gap between appearing/being within itself as a nonhuman on an arche-lithic scale, it is then able to identify the same gap within the human and agrilogistic scale—which enacts, again, Morton’s weird loop. Firstly, the flower clearly defines its position as a nonhuman entity within the poem, which, in turn, asserts its nonhuman scale. Secondly, it establishes its unfamiliar, human-driven, and agrilogistical surroundings—which begin to unfold the poem’s aforementioned loop. For example, the flower starts discussing human-constructed concepts, such as Time, and this begs the question of Nixon’s slow violence. Eventually, though, the human and agrilogistical surroundings of the flower permeate its nonhuman, arche-lithic boundaries, and Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeality aid in blurring these lines, while the loop between appearing/being slowly forms as well. The flower recognizes, for instance, that the gap between appearing/being is not strictly nonhuman, nor is it strictly human. It is simultaneously both. This renders a certain contentment within the flower, as it finally encloses this twisted, slippery, loop. While it ultimately ends, the poem’s sentiment does not: the weird loop which threads the “opposing” binary concepts of the arche-lithic, agrilogistics, appearing/being, and scale underscores the illusion of an absolute, definitive inside/outside dichotomy. It is true that there are numerous scales, spaces, and realities in which an entity might occupy, but it is also true that these inevitably interconnect with each other—meaning that there is no certain inside/outside dichotomy. Instead, there is Morton’s weird loop and Thoreau’s poetic flower.
Works Referenced
Alaimo, Stacy. “Dwelling in the Dissolve.” Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in
Posthuman Times, University of Minnesota Press, 2016, pp. 1-14.
Clark, Timothy. “Scale Framing.” Ecocriticism on the Edge, Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, pp. 71-96.
Morton, Timothy. Dark Ecology: For A Logic of Future Coexistence. Columbia UP, 2016.
Nixon, Rob. “Introduction.” Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, Harvard UP, 2011, pp. 1-44.
Thoreau, Henry David. “I am a parcel of vain strivings tied.” American Poetry: The Nineteenth
Century, edited by John Hollander, The Library of America, vol. 1, 1993, pp. 662-663.
Biography
Brooke D. Campbell recently obtained her MA from California State University, Long Beach. Her passions play in both academic and creative spaces, given her ranging interests from the FYC classroom to abstracted Transcendentalist poetry. Soon, she aims to enter into a Ph.D program, as well as continue to teach and grow her creative and academic publications.
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