'I Hoped for Healing': Exploring Heart-Centric Ecologies of Recuperation in the Eco-Memoirs of Linda Hogan and Leslie Marmon Silko.

Hope can be defined as an 'orientation of the heart' towards the acknowledgement of possibilities and alternate visions of the world. Linda Hogan's The Woman Who Watches Over the World (2001) and Leslie Marmon Silko's The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir (2010) present optimistic visions of human-nature re...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Comparative American Studies Vol. 22; no. 1/2; pp. 35 - 51
Autores principales: Swayamsidha, Sadhna, Rangarajan, Swarnalatha
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Mar-Jun2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Hope can be defined as an 'orientation of the heart' towards the acknowledgement of possibilities and alternate visions of the world. Linda Hogan's The Woman Who Watches Over the World (2001) and Leslie Marmon Silko's The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir (2010) present optimistic visions of human-nature reconciliation and re-establishment of the nature-culture continuum that has been ruptured by the anthropocentric ideas of segregation. Both Silko and Hogan portray hope as 'an act of [indigenous] defiance' against capitalist ideologies that are actively responsible for the generation of 'solastalgia' - psychoterratic distress caused as a consequence of landscape alteration. This paper situates Hogan and Silko's autobiographical works in the narrative tradition of eco-memoirs. It argues that the subjective experiences depicted in these eco-memoirs can be perceived as agentic forces that have the capacity to 'reenchant' the world and heal the collective trauma of the Anthropocene. This paper will explore the eco-affective relations, in these locally and culturally specific Native American memoirs, and argue how such trans-human connection can find 'wild possibilities' of erasing the spaces between entities. Finally, the paper will study these narratives through a heart-centric approach that underlines hope as a mode of transformative endeavour that requires compassion, inclusivity and conviction for a better tomorrow.