English Language and Literature ETDs
Publication Date
Spring 4-6-2021
Abstract
This dissertation examines how key environmental texts from the late nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries portray animals and the changing conception of animal lives. Beginning with short stories by Sarah Orne Jewett and Jack London, the first chapter examines how early environmentally-minded writers developed animals' independent subjectivity. The second chapter analyzes how Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949) and Sarah Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) promote ecological awareness by paying attention to animal time. Chapter three argues that Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire (1968) develops a layered understanding of animal consciousness. Chapter four contends that Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge (1991) merges the genre of memoir with scientific writing to chronicle animal memories. Chapter five analyzes Dan Flores’ Coyote America (2016) and Nate Blakeslee’s American Wolf (2017) as examples of animal texts that utilize history, mythology, science, and decades of wildlife watching to create a new kind of literary animal presence that accurately conveys what animals have experienced and continue to experience alongside humans.
Degree Name
English
Level of Degree
Doctoral
Department Name
English
First Committee Member (Chair)
Jesse Alemán
Second Committee Member
Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán
Third Committee Member
Jesus Costantino
Fourth Committee Member
Dan Flores
Fifth Committee Member
Mario Ortiz-Robles
Language
English
Keywords
environmental, animal, animals, West, ecology, subjectivity
Document Type
Dissertation
Recommended Citation
Perry, Lauren. "Animal Texts: Critical Animal Concepts in Environmental Literature for the Anthropocene." (2021). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/302
