Textual terrain: Wilderness in American literature, law and culture

Ecocriticism, which Cheryll Glotfelty defines as "the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment" (xviii), has overlooked the mutually-influential relationship between literature and law. To remedy this omission, my dissertation focuses on the interrelationship between U.S. land-use law and twentieth-century American environmental nonfiction. Specifically, it argues that U.S. land-use laws and policies are shaped by representations of wilderness in American literature and popular culture.; Chapter One examines the role of wilderness in contemporary culture by tracing the representation of wilderness in American literary history, from eighteenth-century works by Crevecoeur and the writers of Indian captivity narratives, to contemporary suburban fiction by Raymond Carver. Chapter Two looks at nonfiction nature writing by Terry Tempest Williams, Margaret Murie, and Anne LaBastille, and posits that texts that celebrate nature without appearing to challenge patriarchy receive greater acclaim than those that couple environmentalism with overt feminism. The three texts overtly discuss land-use law, although the manner and extent of the discussion vary among the authors. This chapter considers the intersections of environmentalism, feminism, and land-use law, and the impact of each on the writers' acclaim. Chapter Three reads three twentieth-century adventure narratives---Into the Wild and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, and Joe McGinniss's Going to Extremes---for their portrayals of land, the legal and economic conditions responsible for the material condition of land, and the influence of literature on those material conditions. Chapter Four combines academic and legal discourse in its examination of the land-use legislation that creates and protects some American wilderness areas. The chapter uses Jean-Francois Lyotard's concept of the differend as well as deconstructive interrogations of wilderness by William Cronon and other scholars to read the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and the Valles Caldera Preservation Act.