![]() ![]() SM: Before we get into that I thought it might be useful to break down some environmental terminology. But in The New Wilderness both popular concepts of nature and the dichotomy between “nature” and “civilization” are broken down. “Escaping to nature” is seen as a way to escape the alienation of urbanized life. So often nature is presented as the site of a utopian escape from the horrors of urbanity and the human. Kristen Shaw: Yes, I really liked that the sense of “nature” here is deromanticized and she challenges the ways humans idealize nature and fetishize the nonhuman. At the same time though, the book isn’t entirely cynical about our place amongst non-human beings. ![]() ![]() From the beginning, she shows us how nature, or wilderness, is not an escape but a force that shapes us as we shape it - and not always in positive ways. Of course this dismantling has been going on for some time, but Cook’s Wilderness feels like a fatal blow. Selena Middleton: The thing that makes Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness compelling for me is how it’s dismantling any romanticization of nature that still exists in the West. ![]()
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