Exploring the ongoing histories of human-centered ecosystem management in the lands and waters that comprise what is now known as North America, this book tracks the diverse ways in which human-environmental relations have been presented across different forms of media.
Including literature, film, visual arts, performing arts, park interpretive materials, and more, the book analyzes the many ways in which human-environmental relations have been articulated, experienced, understood, represented, and regulated. The collection encourages a reimagining of what it means to manage environmental elements beyond the limits of utility, commodification, and control. To that end, the contributions interrogate the concept of "management" itself, arguing instead for a more expansive conception of reciprocal relations among humans and the more-than-human world. These relations encompass many kinds of human-environmental engagements, ranging from constructing dams and using prairie soils for paint pigments, to gathering pollen and cultivating grass for memorial sites. In particular, the book highlights the potential in Indigenous ecological approaches to living with lands and waters, underscoring the need to lovingly engage with the world that sustains us. In the spirit of inquiry and reorientation, this interdisciplinary book begins with a "Keywords" section. Entries for key terms, such as wilderness, allotment, reclamation, fugitive sand, and reciprocity, detail the word's history, outline its role in various discourses, and/or suggest possibilities for future research.
This book will be of value to a wide range of readers, including researchers and students in environmental humanities, literature, ecocritical theory, history, Indigenous studies, legal studies, natural resources, sociology, environmental studies, and anthropology.
Jada Ach is Associate Teaching Professor of Applied Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies at Arizona State University where she teaches courses in literature, film, and environmental humanities. Her research combines insights from literary studies, the desert humanities, and land management history. She is the author of Sand, Water, Salt: Managing the Elements in Literature of the American West, 1880-1925 (Texas Tech University Press, 2021) and co-editor of Reading Aridity in Western American Literature (Lexington Books, 2020).
Kristen Brown is Assistant Professor of English at Northern State University in South Dakota, where she teaches environmentally themed composition and literature courses. Her teaching and research center Indigenous authors and perspectives with attention to the sensory-especially sonic-contours of being and belonging. In addition to her chapter on pedagogical approaches to the works of Charles Eastman/Ohiyesa (Santee Dakota) in the award-winning collection Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom (University of Illinois, 2024), her articles appear in Western American Literature and Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture.
