Class Input on Nature Writing

Here are some of the ideas we had in class today on nature writing and race:

"It's about trees and stuff...not just trees. Flowers and grass too...anything can be interpreted as interpreted as nature."

"Anything natural."

"Nature has to be defined for the purpose of having a book called Colors of Nature. As we distinguish it, nature has to be outside."

"Don't we all have encounters with nature? Should everyone be allowed to write about nature."

"It's useful as a genre."

"It's at the discretion of the editor of the book."

"It depends on the type of anthology you are creating."

"There was a gap in the genre of nature writing that was created because of political or other external reasons, so for whatever reason the editors found it large enough that an anthology should be published to fill in the hole."

"It makes me wonder about the definitions of nature writing and what that says about race in the US."

"There's something to be said about the title itself...nature writing isn't just a white topic. It's a topic that anyone can write about."

"I would ask for anonymous submissions and only know the writer's name after the fact so that it would be unbiased."

"I don't want to go as far to say that cookbooks should be written by people that aren't cooks."

"When you look at a particular part of our culture, the values of our culture at large are likely to be represented there."

"[Creating an anthology to create equality] is not a particularly producitve way to change race relations...it's something that will change over time."

"The civil rights movement was 50 years ago, and I think we've come a long way from there...I think our generation is the pivot generation."

"Before you know it, there is not as much distinction anymore. The more mixed couples there are, the more their children will be accepting."

"[After Birth Right] I've had a much deeper connection to the culture...when you're in Israel, you realize how connected everyone is and how important certain traditions are to people."

"3/4 of white Americans thought the aid was sufficent, but not black Americans...the response was racialized and the response was different based on race"

"I like how there's interest in naming the storms differently now. Hurricanes were all women."

"Do you think stating race makes the distinction and racial segregation stronger or does it make it less important?"

"On moving the books into the black section...more likely people are looking for a particular experience. In some ways it seems potentially annoying to go home and realize the book is not anything like what I thought it would be about. They'd probably think they got swindled."

"A lot of the reason genres exist is to help to find the things that I want."

"Black writers should be able to write on any subject without it becoming Black Literature."

"Couldn't a white writer write Black Literature?"