LTWR 346 – Paper #2: Environmental Borderlands
In both Power and Annihilation, the arbitrary Western distinction between ‘humanity’ and ‘nature’ is carefully critiqued. In this paper, I would like you to analyze the arguments being presented: what does it mean when these two categories blur and bleed into one another? In order to focus your paper on a particular aspect of this very large topic, I would like you to choose one of the following subtopics:
Personal Identity (Maybe the ‘individual’ is an idealistic concept…)
OR
Free Will (Maybe we don’t have complete control over our actions…)
For example, suppose I choose free will. In my paper, I might look at the ways in which free will is called into question in both novels. Does Ama have control of her actions? What about the Biologist? I will also think about how this critique of free will breaks down the barrier between our categories of human and nature. Why do we create this “human / nature” opposition in the first place? How do we define the two against one another? What problems arise from this distinction? How does the loss of free will deconstruct the binary? What changes when we can no longer make the distinction between human and nature? Is this a positive or negative change or something in-between? And other questions along these lines!
I have only a few parameters that I would like you to follow:
Engage in synthesis. In other words, produce a paper that reveals the overarching argument across Power and Annihilation, but also demonstrate the subtle differences and disagreements between the two authors.
Feel free to use and cite ideas from as many of our essayists as you would like (Emerson, Thoreau, Austin, Muir, Haraway, Tsing, Hogan, Kimmerer), but please make sure that the primary focus of the paper is a close analysis of the two novels.
This paper should be written in a 12-pt font, double-spaced, with 1” margins on all sides. It should be cited in MLA format. It should contain relevant quotations (and analysis of said quotations) from both novels. Your paper should have a unique title.
This paper should be at least 1500 words in length, but it can be longer.
