For All Waters

Finding Ourselves in Early Modern Wetscapes

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book For All Waters by Lowell Duckert, University of Minnesota Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Lowell Duckert ISBN: 9781452953731
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Publication: March 31, 2017
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press Language: English
Author: Lowell Duckert
ISBN: 9781452953731
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication: March 31, 2017
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Language: English

Recent years have witnessed a surge in early modern ecostudies, many devoted to Shakespearean drama. Yet in this burgeoning discipline, travel writing appears moored in historicization, inorganic subjects are far less prevalent than organic ones, and freshwater sites are hardly visited. For All Waters explores these uncharted wetscapes. 

Lowell Duckert shows that when playwrights and travel writers such as Sir Walter Raleigh physically interacted with rivers, glaciers, monsoons, and swamps, they composed “hydrographies,” or bodily and textual assemblages of human and nonhuman things that dissolved notions of human autonomy and its singular narrativity. With a playful, punning touch woven deftly into its theoretical rigor, For All Waters disputes fantasies of ecological solitude that would keep our selves high and dry and that would try to sustain a political ecology excluding water and the poor. The lives of both humans and waterscapes can be improved simultaneously through direct engagement with wetness. 

For All Waters concludes by investigating waterscapes in peril today—West Virginia’s chemical rivers and Iceland’s vanishing glaciers—and outlining what we can learn from early moderns’ eco-ontological lessons. By taking their soggy and storied matters to heart, and arriving at a greater realization of our shared wetness, we can conceive new directions to take within the hydropolitical crises afflicting us today.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Recent years have witnessed a surge in early modern ecostudies, many devoted to Shakespearean drama. Yet in this burgeoning discipline, travel writing appears moored in historicization, inorganic subjects are far less prevalent than organic ones, and freshwater sites are hardly visited. For All Waters explores these uncharted wetscapes. 

Lowell Duckert shows that when playwrights and travel writers such as Sir Walter Raleigh physically interacted with rivers, glaciers, monsoons, and swamps, they composed “hydrographies,” or bodily and textual assemblages of human and nonhuman things that dissolved notions of human autonomy and its singular narrativity. With a playful, punning touch woven deftly into its theoretical rigor, For All Waters disputes fantasies of ecological solitude that would keep our selves high and dry and that would try to sustain a political ecology excluding water and the poor. The lives of both humans and waterscapes can be improved simultaneously through direct engagement with wetness. 

For All Waters concludes by investigating waterscapes in peril today—West Virginia’s chemical rivers and Iceland’s vanishing glaciers—and outlining what we can learn from early moderns’ eco-ontological lessons. By taking their soggy and storied matters to heart, and arriving at a greater realization of our shared wetness, we can conceive new directions to take within the hydropolitical crises afflicting us today.

More books from University of Minnesota Press

Cover of the book The Contest by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Impossible Heights by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book The Durable Slum by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Prismatic Ecology by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Fiery Cinema by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Early Blues by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Making Things International 2 by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Monster Theory by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Between Feminism and Islam by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Rifftide by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Scandinavian Feasts by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book The Children of Lincoln by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book By the Waters of Minnetonka by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Terror and Territory by Lowell Duckert
Cover of the book Chicago Hustle and Flow by Lowell Duckert
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy