Urban Farming and Ecocriticism : Redefining Nature and the Urban Setting

Abstract

The author addresses the question: what is the human place in nature and is our current place sustainable? In the essay "What is Nature Anyways?" the author reflects on his experience growing up in Detroit and the Christian Humanism of St. Francis of Assisi. In "American Legacies: Aestheticizing Nature," the author reflects on the writing of Frederic Jackson Turner and the development of the national park system. In "Confronting the Human-Nature Relationship: Ecocriticism and Thoreau," the author discusses Thoreau's Walden and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Finally, in "Urban Farming: Re-defining the Human-Nature Relationship," the author describes his own experiences working for Greening of Detroit.