Overview

We exist at a moment during which the entangled challenges facing the human and natural worlds confront us at every turn, whether at the most basic level of survival-health, sustenance, shelter-or in relation to our comfort-driven desires. As demand for resources both necessary and unnecessary increases, understanding how nature and culture are interconnected matters more than ever. Bridging the fields of environmental history and American studies, Rendering Nature examines the surprising interconnections between nature and culture in distinct places, times, and contexts over the course of American history. Divided into four themes-animals, bodies, places, and politics-the essays span a diverse array of locations and periods: from antebellum slave society to atomic testing sites, from gorillas in Central Africa to river runners in the Grand Canyon, from white sun-tanning enthusiasts to Japanese American incarcerees, from taxidermists at the 1893 World's Fair to tents on Wall Street in 2011. Together they offer new perspectives and conceptual tools that can help us better understand the historical realities and current paradoxes of our environmental predicament. Contributors: Thomas G. Andrews, Connie Y. Chiang, Catherine Cocks, Annie Gilbert Coleman, Finis Dunaway, John Herron, Andrew Kirk, Frieda Knobloch, Susan A. Miller, Brett Mizelle, Marguerite S. Shaffer, Phoebe S. K. Young.

Full Product Details

Author:   Marguerite S. Shaffer ,  Phoebe S. K. Young
Publisher:   University of Pennsylvania Press
Imprint:   University of Pennsylvania Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.812kg
ISBN:  

9780812247251

ISBN 10:   0812247256
Pages:   416
Publication Date:   28 August 2015
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

"Chapter 1. The Nature-Culture Paradox —Marguerite S. Shaffer and Phoebe S. K. Young PART I. ANIMALS Chapter 2. Beasts of the Southern Wild: Slaveholders, Slaves, and Other Animals in Charles Ball's Slavery in the United States —Thomas G. Andrews Chapter 3. Stuffed: Nature and Science on Display John Herron Chapter 4. Digit's Legacy: Reconsidering the Human-Nature Encounter in a Global World —Marguerite S. Shaffer PART II. BODIES Chapter 5. The Gulick Family and the Nature of Adolescence —Susan A. Miller Chapter 6. Children of Light: The Nature and Culture of Suntanning —Catherine Cocks Chapter 7. Dr. Spock Is Worried: Visual Media and the Emotional History of American Environmentalism —Finis Dunaway PART III. PLACES Chapter 8. Prototyping Natures: Technology, Labor, and Art on Atomic Frontiers —Andrew Kirk Chapter 9. River Rats in the Archive: The Colorado River and the Nature of Texts —Annie Gilbert Coleman Chapter 10. Rocks of Ages: The Decadent Desert and Sepulchral Time —Frieda Knobloch PART IV. POLITICS Chapter 11. Winning the War at Manzanar: Environmental Patriotism and the Japanese American Incarceration —Connie Y. Chiang Chapter 12. Unthinkable Visibility: Pigs, Pork, and the Spectacle of Killing and Meat —Brett Mizelle Chapter 13. ""Bring Tent"": The Occupy Movement and the Politics of Public Nature —Phoebe S. K. Young Notes List of Contributors Index"

Reviews

Rendering Nature collects the work of exemplary scholars working at the nexus of the vibrant fields of American studies and environmental history: simultaneously collaborative and ambitious. -Andrew Isenberg, author of Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920

Author Information

Marguerite S. Shaffer is Professor of American Studies and History at Miami University, Ohio. Phoebe S. K. Young is Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions