Gilbert White’s eighteenth-century nature journals as ‘Everyday ecology'

Williams, R. (2017) Gilbert White’s eighteenth-century nature journals as ‘Everyday ecology'. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, 24(3), pp. 432-456. (doi: 10.1093/isle/isx035)

Abstract

Innovatively drawing on unpublished nature records by Gilbert White (1720-93), rather than his well-known publication, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), this article argues for the disruptive ecocritical potential of the ‘nature journal’ or ‘nature almanac’ genre. The inspiration, conceptual framework and terminology for this argument come from Henri Lefebvre’s (1901-91) account of ‘rhythmanalysis’, which proposes close attention to both the cyclical and the linear patterns of repetition that resonate through everyday experience – ‘everyday’ meaning commonplace and small-scale, and ‘everyday’ meaning recorded with unbroken regularity – as a disruptive alternative to the rhythms and time-scales of the capitalist economy. This article thus brings together archival research with contemporary cultural theory to propose new ways of 'thinking ecologically' and to contribute to a reconceptualisation of late eigtheenth-century natural history as materially 'ecological'.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Williams, Dr Rhian
• Authors: Williams, R.
• Subjects: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences; P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General); P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism; P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History; P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Journal Name: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment
• Journal Abbr.: ISLE
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• ISSN: 1076-0962
• ISSN (Online): 1759-1090
• Published Online: 25 July 2017
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment 24(3):432-456
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
65766	1	Parochial Histories - the poetics of ecological record-keeping and material change, c 1770-1830	Rhian Williams	Royal Society of Edinburgh (ROY_SOC_ED)	UNSPECIFIED	CRIT - ENGLISH LITERATURE