Test Friday Will cover Beats, Counter-Culture, Post Modernism Multiple choice, matching (of poetic terms), application of poetic terms, short answer

Postmodernism: Environmentalism

Postmodern Literature Opposed to use of sharp binary classifications (male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial) Belief that apparent realities are only social constructs and are therefore subject to change Diversity is central to themes and key ideas Describes certain characteristics of post–World War II literature Fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators Will not end with the neatly tied-up conclusion

Postmodernism Three branches Environmentalism Feminism Multiculturalism

Rise of Environmental Interest Think about the conditions of the 1960s… What do you think may have caused an increased interest in the environment? Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) Originally a piece for The New Yorker about the dangers of DDT Large scale insecticide, used to fight malaria Harmful effects of environment, human health

Obviously concern for the environment had existed before, just not on the same scale Thoreau & Emerson John Muir (founded the Sierra Club in 1892) New kind of activism called environmentalism emerged in the 1960s that combined the conservationist ideals of Thoreau and Muir with hard-hitting advertising, lobbying, book distribution, letter writing campaigns, and more… (basically making it political) 1970 President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act required government agencies to assess the environmental

Earth Day First Earth Day was observed on March 21, 1970 in San Francisco Now held internationally on April 22 By the mid-1970s, many felt that people were on the edge of environmental catastrophe Ideas of environmental-ethics began to join with anti-Vietnam War sentiment and other political issues

Space Race Technological battle between the Soviets and the US Ironically encouraged folks to look back home at “spaceship earth” and think about the damage that was being done to their own land

Spaceship Earth The Re-Vision of Planet Earth: Space Flight and Environmentalism in Postmodern America (William Bryant) Reading excerpt: Spaceship Earth Critically read Critically read, with notes on the paper

Questions (answer individually) 1.Explain the metaphor in the selection. 2.Explain the environmental movement. 3.Why did environmentalists think the environmental movement would be popular/successful? 4.What is a “cowboy economy” and a “spaceman economy”? Differences? Benefits? Reasoning/justification for each? 5.Why would the metaphor be “self-defeating”? 6.What metaphor would you use to describe environmentalism/environmentalists? 7.What makes this text postmodern?

Environmentalism & Lit Postmodern literature concerns itself with reader response (the idea that the reader constructs meaning from what they are reading) Many postmodern authors weave concepts of environmentalism into their works The purpose is to push this into the culture conscious of a population and make them think about the world around them Unresolved