Deconstructing Digital and Living Landscapes through an Ecocritical Lens

Abstract

As a transdisciplinary way of exploring the connections between literature and the environment, ecocriticism provides a platform from which we can involve students in the critical deconstruction of embedded notions, and multiple ways of seeing and knowing the landscapes we visit. Like many geographers, we expand the notion of ‘literature’ to include digital cartographic representations. Arming students with digitally accessible maps and instructors from multiple disciplines, we engage our students in an examination of the landscapes and of the ancient past, its constructions and representations by ancient and modern authors, descendants of its antiquity, and multiple scholarly perspectives.

Our students are encouraged to move from instructor presentation of multiple perspectives (pedagogy) to critical, autonomous, and self-directed (andragogy) explorations through their field practices. Self-directed (heutagogical) techniques are used for advanced students in our field program. The culmination of these explorations involve group sharing of observation, interpretation, and critical examination through an ecocritical lens.