writing in the field
My primary scholarly interests revolve around people who wandered out into the wilderness and took in all it had to offer—new plants, a new point of view, a new sense of self. But their place is not my place; my apartment in Pullman or my condo in San Jose is not the top of Mt. Kataadn or the Yosemite Valley. Although true that I could sit in my place and write an acceptable academic essay about Transcendental themes in Select-a-Thoreau-Essay or in Unpublished-Muir-Journal-Entry, I believe that to do so would be somewhat disingenuous. To fully comprehend the place from which and about which "my" authors wrote, I had to go into the field.
Frieda Knobloch writes in Botanical Companions that the field "is an exotic or removed scene"; for my work, not only did I have to go into the field but I had to gather my specimens for later study and inspiration—that's a lot of science for an English major. Of course, I wasn't chipping away rocks or pulling up plants; instead, I had to ensure that in that brief moment in the field I could sear into my brain the images that "my" authors saw, and somehow bottle the emotions for later recollection (in tranquility, of course).
To write successfully about Muir's preservationist rhetoric, I had to experience just what it that moved him to the fiery, reverent tone he used. I needed to go to his place and determine for myself why Muir wrote that "God's glory is over all His works, written upon every field and sky, but here it is in larger letters—magnificent capitals."
I had a hunch that I wouldn't truly understand Muir's statement about "magnificent capitals" until I stood in Yosemite Valley and looked up at El Capitan.
I was right.
Frieda Knobloch writes in Botanical Companions that the field "is an exotic or removed scene"; for my work, not only did I have to go into the field but I had to gather my specimens for later study and inspiration—that's a lot of science for an English major. Of course, I wasn't chipping away rocks or pulling up plants; instead, I had to ensure that in that brief moment in the field I could sear into my brain the images that "my" authors saw, and somehow bottle the emotions for later recollection (in tranquility, of course).
To write successfully about Muir's preservationist rhetoric, I had to experience just what it that moved him to the fiery, reverent tone he used. I needed to go to his place and determine for myself why Muir wrote that "God's glory is over all His works, written upon every field and sky, but here it is in larger letters—magnificent capitals."I had a hunch that I wouldn't truly understand Muir's statement about "magnificent capitals" until I stood in Yosemite Valley and looked up at El Capitan.
I was right.
2 Comments:
Maybe then seeing isn’t exactly believing, but understanding. I mean I think we believe lots and lots of things that we don’t actually see, but we understand very little that doesn’t manifest itself before us. I would think that the same idea would go for science as well. If someone says they have discovered something, we might take their word for it, but until we saw a picture of it or saw the actual thing could we really understand it? But then again, when we are talking theoretical in the humanities and our language is coded and highly hypothetical, we often, at least say, we understand. So the idea doesn’t entirely work there. Seeing and understanding in your case Julie, where you could actually stand relatively close to where your subject stood and you could view nearly the same thing your subject viewed worked, but what about other situations where that opportunity is not available. Will some of our understanding be lost, sacrificed in either our unwillingness or inability to see what our subjects see (saw)? I don’t know. It makes sense though to think that site leads to understanding, and believing is left to the hypothetical. Doesn’t it? Kind of?
Dear Tim:
Yes. :)
- Julie
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