Director, Environmental Studies
Professor of English

Study Questions

“Terry Tempest Williams and the Literature of Engagement”

David Landis Barnhill

1. What is the conceptions of nature writing that Roorda and Slovic propose? Given the authors you have read so far (Silko, Momaday, Bartram, Thoreau, Muir, Austin, Carson, Terry Tempest Williams), which ones seem to exhibit this concept of nature writing, and how much and in what way? Why does Barnhill reject their conceptions of nature writing?

2. Barnhill presents nature writing as a “literature of engagement.” What does he mean by this term? What are the three aspects of the “literature of engagement?” How is it different from the concepts of nature writing presented by Beston, Roorda, and Slovic?

3. What does Barnhill mean by the first type of engagement: interactive involvement with nature? What is excluded from this definition?

4. What is the second type of engagement: social interaction? What are the different types of social engagement? Nature and human society are often distinguished and treated as mutually exclusive spheres of reality. What assumptions and definitions of nature lie behind such a distinction? What assumptions and definitions of nature are involved in the notion of social engagement as part of nature writing?

5. What is the third type of engagement: political engagement? What are the different aspects? How can politics be part of “nature writing?”

6. Why did Robert Finch criticize Terry Tempest Williams’s love of finding peace in the wilderness? Do you agree with his criticism? Why or why not?

7. According to Barnhill, in what ways does Terry Tempest Williams display an engagement with nature? Review the essays by Williams you have read for this class. What examples of engagement with nature are found in “Lion Eyes,” Kokopelli’s Return,” “Perfect Kiva,” “Prologue,” “Pintails, Mallards, and Teals,” “The Clan of the One-Breasted Women,” River Music” and “The Erotic Landscape,” “Desert Quartet,” and “Changing Constellations?” Make a brief list and note page numbers.

8. In what way do Williams’s writings display social engagement? In what way can one say that when Williams is writing about her family or her community that she is a “nature writer?” Review the essays by Williams you have read for this class. What examples of social engagement do you find? Make a brief list and note page numbers .

9. What are Williams’s ecosocial criticisms? Which of these criticisms appear in her essays that you have read so far? What does Williams base her criticisms on: what values, assumptions, and facts? Do you agree with those criticisms? Why or why not?

10. What types of activism in response to ecosocial problems does Williams portray and praise? Why does she hold these views of activism? Which types of activism do you approve or disapprove? Why?

11. What are her ecosocial ideals? What values and beliefs are they based on? Do you agree with those ideals? Why or why not?

12. What types of activism does Williams discuss in relation to her ideals? Which types of activism do you approve or disapprove? Why?

13. What aspects (if any) of this article do you find particularly helpful or insightful? What problems and limitations do you see in the author’s notion of “literature of engagement?”

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