Oh Eight Oh Eight Oh Eight

In an effort to get even briefly back on track I went to the Valley Library (which incidentally has a webcam, something that I found totally amusing) today and spent some time, more than I had intended, in the archives and maps room. I was looking for historical geologic or hydrological maps of Pendleton, but found only a few State Water Resources maps from the 60's and 70's which depicted the Umatilla drainage basin. I had been hoping to find some maps that pre-dated the McKay Dam, but no success. I did however find some cool digital archive photos of the Pendleton Round-Up.  I also found a large number of news articles about the town dating back to 1878. I must admit that my microfilm skills were a bit rusty, but I figured it all out well enough. Despite all this research I feel that this paper is no closer to completion than it was when the day began. Hopefully after next week I'll be able to make quick work of it.

In the spirit of getting on track I could not ignore the thesis so I looked around the many delightful library databases and found an essay published in Philosophy and Literature which seems promising; Joseph Carroll's "The Ecology of Victorian Fiction". Although I most certainly don't conceive of Wharton as a Victorian writer I felt like this essay might bring up some interesting ideas which I could debate with in my paper.  The first 10-11 pages of this work are dedicated to establishing the author's position in relationship to what he sees as the dominant ecocritical mode. 

Although Carroll's writing seems intensely biased and polarized I think he does raise some interesting ideas. His primary argument is "that ecology cannot by itself generate a theory of literature or serve as the basis for a theory of literature, but...that responsiveness to the sense of place is an elemental component of the evolved human psyche and that it thus can and should be integrated into a Darwinian literary theory" (296).  While I am not overly enthusiastic about using Darwin as the basis of my literary inquiries I was very interested in his presentation of E. O. Wilson's concept of biophilia.  Regardless of whether or not this can be used in my thesis, the concept of affinity with nature as adaptive and evolutionary is thought provoking. I still have another 10 pages to go with this piece before I can make any real assessment. 

Current Leisure Reading: Galway Kinnell Imperfect Thirst