ABSTRACT
In offering “some preliminary defi nitions” of ecocomposition, Sid Dobrin and Christian Weisser note that many scholars increasingly see identity as “shaped by more than social conventions and . . . infl uenced by our relationships with particular locations and environments” (“Breaking” 567). As a result, they see an opportunity for “how the two massive cultural projects of composition studies and ecology might inform each other” (567). Like one of their predecessors, Derek Owens, they talk about addressing “the current environmental crisis” (574) not only by promoting pedagogies that understand environment or “place” as a critical category, but also by “identifying the ecological relationships between humans and surrounding environments as dependent and symbiotic” (574). Seen this way, ecocomposition is decidedly a move to address issues of sustainability within English studies. Because of an assumed symbiosis between human activity and environment, both are necessary for the continuation of the other.
