The Land Speaks

The Land Speaks explores the intersection of two vibrant fields, oral history and environmental studies. Ranging across farm and forest, city and wilderness, river and desert, this collection of fourteen oral histories gives voice to nature and the stories it has to tell. These essays consider topics as diverse as environmental activism, wilderness management, public health, urban exploring, and smoke jumping. They raise questions about the roles of water, neglected urban spaces, land ownership concepts, protectionist activism, and climate change. Covering almost every region of the United States and part of the Caribbean, Lee and Newfont and their diverse collection of contributors address the particular contributions oral history can make toward understanding issues of public land and the environment. In the face of global warming and events like the Flint water crisis, environmental challenges are undoubtedly among the most pressing issues of our time. These essays suggest that oral history can serve both documentary and problem-solving functions as we grapple with these challenges.

Auteur

Debbie Lee is a professor of English at Washington State University. She is author or editor of six books of literary history including Slavery and the Romantic Imagination and Literature Science and Exploration in the Romantic Era: Bodies of Knowledge (Cambridge), and her creative nonfiction has appeared in Narrative, Montreal Review, Terrain, Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. She co-directed, with Dennis Baird, the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which includes forty-four oral histories and a digital and analog archive. Kathryn Newfont is Associate Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. Her book, Blue Ridge Commons: Environmental Activism and Forest Politics in Western North Carolina (University of Georgia), won the 2012 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and the Appalachian Studies Association's 2012 Weatherford Award for Non-fiction. The book grew from oral history interviews conducted through UNC-Chapel Hill's Southern Oral History Program, and had fellowship support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Contenu

Contents Introduction Listening to the Land through Oral History Kathryn Newfont with Debbie Lee Part I: Building Fluency Chapter 1 Memories of Precipitation: Gathering and Assessing Ecological Oral Histories in an Era of Climate Change Peter Friederici Chapter 2 Fostering Relationships with the Wild: Oral History's Role in Recreation Management Alison Steiner and Daniel R. Williams Chapter 3 The Public Significance of the Private Farm Nathaniel Van Yperen Part II: Listening through Place Chapter 4 Documenting Tension on Idaho's Public Lands: A Case Study from the Idaho Oral History Center Collections Troy J Reeves and Linda Morton-Keithley Chapter 5 Territorial: A Collective Oral History of Land and Indigeneity in the Carib Territory of Dominica Emma Gaalaas Mullaney Part III: Fostering Community through Environment Chapter 6 Resurrecting Dead Lands: Two Oral Histories of Urban Explorers Ben S. Bunting Jr. Chapter 7 When the Flood Came for Good: Personal Stories and Impersonal Change in the Savannah River Valley Robert P. Shapard Chapter 8 (Re)Constructing Community Commons and Traditions: Urban Gardening and Community Spaces in the Haddington Neighborhood of West Philadelphia Patrick Hurley, Shakiya Canty, and Walter Greason Part IV: Attending to Public Land Chapter 9 "Sky-Fighters of the Forest": Conscientious Objectors, African American Paratroopers, and the U.S. Forest Service Smokejumping Program in World War II Annie Hanshew Chapter 10 Filling the Gaps with Silence: Women's Stories and the Movement to Save the Indiana Dunes Brittany Bayless Fremion Chapter 11 "A sense of comfort and belonging in the woods": The Narrative of Laurel Munson Boyers Brenna Lissoway and Lu Ann Jones Part V: Interviewing the Environment Chapter 12 Thinking Like a File Cabinet: Eco-Cruising in the Bitterroot James G. Lewis Chapter 13 Legend Days: Becoming Animal in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness Debbie Lee Chapter 14 The Many Lives of Newtown Creek: A New York Story Betsy McCully Further Reading Contributors Index