Rebecca Oh

So, this is normally the kind of question I would ask on Twitter. Hoping it will work here too!

I'm changing my #Postcolonial Lit class to have an environmental focus this year. Recs for contained/short pieces on resource extraction or objectification of nature that we can discuss on the first day? I'm thinking maybe images would work well?

Nov 10, 2022 at 4:29pmWeb
Show threadRebecca OhNov 12, 2022
Thanks for all the responses!
Show threadKent LinthicumNov 10, 2022

@rebeccaoh I'm not sure this would fit, but I really have enjoyed teaching "If Oil Is Drilled in Bristol Bay" by dg nanouk okpik <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/147089/if-oil-is-drilled-in-bristol-bay>

"Kenya: Letter to My Nephew (For Ken Saro-Wiwa)" by Wa Ngugi might also work? <https://theafricanbookreview.com/2014/04/09/kenya-letter-to-my-nephew-for-ken-saro-wiwa-mukoma-wa-ngugi/>

If Oil Is Drilled in Bristol Bay by dg nanouk… | Poetry Foundation

Why is it, in Bristol Bay, a sea cormorant

Poetry Foundation
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@Kent_Linthicum Oh, thanks for these!
Show threadMcKenzie JohnsonNov 10, 2022
@rebeccaoh Bruce Braun’s (1997) Buried Epistemologies in Annals of the Association of American Geographers? May not be appropriate for an undergrad class, tho.
Show threadMcKenzie JohnsonNov 10, 2022
@rebeccaoh also a more journalistic piece in Foreign Policy. Very cool images. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/16/how-conservation-became-colonialism-environment-indigenous-people-ecuador-mining/
How Conservation Became Colonialism

Indigenous people, not environmentalists, are the key to protecting the world’s most precious ecosystems.

Foreign Policy
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@mckjohnson haven't read it, thanks for the rec
Show threadDeanna KreiselNov 10, 2022

@rebeccaoh If you're interested in going 19th century, I suggest Ruskin, the intro to The Crown of Wild Olive. Also something from Liz Miller's new book?

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691205533/extraction-ecologies-and-the-literature-of-the-long-exhaustion

Extraction Ecologies and the Literature of the Long Exhaustion

How literature of the British imperial world contended with the social and environmental consequences of industrial mining

Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@doctorwaffle thanks!
Show threadgrantimatterNov 10, 2022

@rebeccaoh Sort of left-field recommendation, but there's this colonialist strain in horror fiction about Antarctica.
Compare Poe's "Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" and Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness."

Slavery as cultural sin, the idea of "claiming" land that's already owned, the idea of not understanding what's unknown... all present in various ways, at various levels.

Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@grantimatter an interesting suggestion, thanks
Show threadCristyNov 10, 2022
@rebeccaoh For a reading, this chapter by Irene Watson is great - https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=KP4KffcAAAAJ&cstart=20&pagesize=80&citation_for_view=KP4KffcAAAAJ:8AbLer7MMksC
Aboriginal laws of the land: Surviving fracking, golf courses and drains among other extractive industries

I Watson, Law as if Earth Really Mattered, 2017 - Cited by 2

Show threadCristyNov 10, 2022
@rebeccaoh And there are some great videos here about the Martuwarra (which is under threat from mining) https://martuwarrafitzroyriver.org/stories
Stories — MARTUWARRA FITZROY RIVER

Stories from the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council (MFRC).

MARTUWARRA FITZROY RIVER
Show threadCristyNov 10, 2022
@rebeccaoh And longer ones here https://vimeo.com/387436447
Voices for the Martuwarra

Vimeo
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@cristyclark fantastic, thanks!
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@cristyclark thanks!
Show threadBrian HalpinNov 10, 2022
@rebeccaoh Make sure the background music for the class is John Prine's "Muhlenberg County". Should pretty much nail the subject matter.
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@beforewewerewhite I've never heard this, thanks for the rec
Show threadBrian LeechNov 13, 2022
@rebeccaoh @beforewewerewhite Doesn’t help anyone now, but I’m discussing that John Prine song right now in a book chapter I’m writing about mining songs. It’s indeed an excellent one.
Show threadBrian HalpinNov 13, 2022

@brianleechphd @rebeccaoh

This will look like shameless self-promotion, but it's not. This is an article I wrote a little while back dealing with this subject, and I think it might be of interest to both of you.

https://beforewewerewhite.com/2022/02/25/they-worked-the-mines/

Show threadBrian LeechNov 14, 2022
@beforewewerewhite @rebeccaoh Thanks for sharing! Yes, both that song and your article were indeed right up my alley. You won’t be surprised to hear that song—and the story if it’s composition—is also in my chapter.
Show threadBrian LeechNov 14, 2022
@beforewewerewhite Clearly I should just run this chapter by you when it’s done!
Show threadAriel KroonNov 10, 2022
@rebeccaoh I would highly recommend Rob Nixon's "Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor"; the introduction is classic and fairly accessible.
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@arielkroon yes, totally love his work
Show threadex0du5Nov 11, 2022
@rebeccaoh As an intro to the form, maybe Derek Walcott’s “Ruins of a Great House” would be appropriate? I think there is a lot in the poetic form that can capture the postcolonial residue, and this one is all about agricultural imperialism and it’s structures of oppression. The imagery of the rotting limes is a great place to pivot discussion around the lack of true connection with the trees and their fruit beyond the callous economics.
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@ex0du5 thanks!
Show threadBo JacobsNov 11, 2022

@rebeccaoh Humblebrag, a video I made for my recent book on nuclear colonialism(s)

https://vimeo.com/669675976

Nuclear Bodies: Colonialism(s)

Vimeo
Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@bojacobs Oh awesome, thanks
Show threadDavidNov 11, 2022

@rebeccaoh a colleague teaches a Black Environmentalism class that I took a lot of inspiration from, and I think he starts with Nalo Hopkinsons's short story "Money Tree."

Academically, the intros to Rifkin and DeLoughrey teach well too?

I've got a class on Solarpunk coming up, we'll see how that goes.

Show threadRebecca OhNov 11, 2022
@davidmdeleon thanks!
Show threadAnna OrridgeNov 13, 2022
@rebeccaoh @ReckoningMag might well have some good suggestions. There have also been some beautiful pieces in Grist's Imagine series.
Show threadAnna OrridgeNov 13, 2022

@rebeccaoh This one, from the POV of a Cherokee schoolgirl of the future, and a focus on coal extraction, is very moving.

https://grist.org/fix/arts-culture/imagine-2200-climate-fiction-seance-in-the-anthropocene/

A Séance in the Anthropocene

Long after the age of fossil fuels has drawn to a close, a Cherokee teenager attending an elite tribal school puts the last ghosts of coal and oil to rest.

Fix
Show threadRebecca OhNov 14, 2022
@GreyElm Thanks! The class will have a global South focus, but I'll flag this away for another time...
Show threadReckoningNov 14, 2022

@GreyElm @rebeccaoh postcolonial short writing on resource extraction? Yes I do! Pretty much all the prose we've published from Nigeria is about this:

"Rainbow Boy" by Amanda Ilozumba Otitochukwu https://reckoning.press/rainbow-boy/
"All We Have Left Is Ourselves" by Oyedotun Damilola Muees https://reckoning.press/all-we-have-left-is-ourselves/
"More Sea Than Tar" by Osahon Ize Iyamu https://reckoning.press/more-sea-than-tar/
"To the Place of Skulls" by Innocent Ilo: https://reckoning.press/to-the-place-of-skulls/

Rainbow Boy | Reckoning

This story does not begin with my birth; neither does it end with my death, but I will tell you of it regardless for I feel it is important you know of how I left this world in a baptism of blood and oil. Before then, I will tell you what happened in 1958 in

Reckoning | creative writing on environmental justice
Show threadRebecca OhNov 14, 2022
@ReckoningMag @GreyElm Thank you!
Show threadAnna OrridgeNov 14, 2022
@ReckoningMag @rebeccaoh "All We Have Left Is Ourselves" has really stuck in my mind. It won an award, didn't it?
Show threadReckoningNov 14, 2022
@GreyElm @rebeccaoh Yes as a matter of fact it won a PEN Dau Prize and a Utopia Award!
Show threadCade JohnsonNov 13, 2022
@rebeccaoh I have recently been reading "1491" and just think the story of the native american domestication of corn - which is embedded somewhere in the bowels of 1491 could be a good topic. How much we lost from the destruction of the indigenous cultures of the americas, and how much we gained from those people even as their cultures were decimated (just corn, potato and hot peppers alone would be huge).
Show threadRebecca OhNov 14, 2022
@CadeJohnson definitely!
Show threadChris H #ChoirsForClimateNov 13, 2022
@rebeccaoh this site is maybe a bit too obvious, but maybe it's underpublicised? https://www.extractionart.org/ I'd also recommend Mary Simmons' three upper voice choir pieces here: https://choirsforclimate.com/2021/05/26/they-cant-put-it-back/
Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss

Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss
Show threadRebecca OhNov 14, 2022
@hutchingsmusic thanks!