Poststructuralist environmentalism and beyond: Ecoconsciousness in Snyder, Kingsolver, and Momaday

By problematizing the autonomy of language, knowledge, and human subjectivity, Jacque Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan allow a site for political as well as aesthetical resistance to universalism and rationalism, which have served the reinforcement of anthropocentrism, patriarchy, racism, and other kinds of discriminations. Accordingly, this theme of resistance not only questions the foundationalist view of nature but it also proposes the reinvigoration of marginalized voices in terms of gender, ethnicity, class, and human/nonhuman relation.;On the assumption that the anthropocentric mindset is intricately interlocked with mainstream logic--rationalism patronized by universalism, which tends to justify sexual, racial, and class discriminations, this study explores ecological consciousness manifested in the literary language of Gary Snyder, Barbara Kingsolver, and N. Scott Momaday.;Often having recourse to Buddhist teachings and Native American spirituality, Snyder's resistance language counterbalances the industrialist culture and exemplifies a nonanthropocentic and bioregionalist discourse. He does not fail to have self-effacing voices with the help of Buddhist/Taoist metaphysics so as to avoid a coercive view of nature. In Animal Dreams and other works, Kingsolver often associates the oppression of women with the exploitation of nonhuman nature. Challenging a jointed logic of universalism and rationalism which lurks behind Doc Homer's perfectionism and propriety, Codi's narrative aspires to retrieve "animal dreams." Momaday's awareness of ethnicity constitutes his literary motif in House Made of Dawn. The ethnographic reading of the text allows a ground for resistance against industrial expansionism that has been saliently rationalized since the Age of Enlightenment. Abel's restoration of "running" spirit is an emblem of this resistance.;Sharing the poststructuralist agenda of resistance, the three writers, in common, aspire to achieve a ground-oriented transformation of humanity as a prerequisite of an ecologically sustainable transformation of culture. While Snyder's narrative provides a comprehensive resistance to the eco-destructive mindset, the ecologically oriented languages of Kingsolver and Momaday are interconnected with a theme of resistance, respectively in light of gender and ethnicity.