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"What I would have said:" Making Post-structuralism & Deep Ecology more Porous

Lisa Marie's picture

When reading "The Land and Language of Desire" and thinking of how it would be possible to "collapse the distinction between nature and textuality", I kept reflecting back to my Eco-Artist Ian Hamilton Finlay and the ways in which he weaved language into his art, bringing together two very different disciplines into one object. The art and literature were seamlessly weaved together in such a way it was hard to find any distinction between art/landscape and the language and poetry he used in his work. I also thought about John Dixon Hunt's quote about Finlay's work, specifically that "the ideal gardner is the poet". How can we see post-structuralism and nature/the land as more porous to one another? As Campbell states " what makes one of us care about textuality, where another cares about the land?" (134). Both studies and writing about land and language have inherent value, but should there always be a distinction between them? When should we make them porous to one another? When should they be made to be separate units of study? And who should decide?