Worldbuilding and (Re)Mapping: Repurposing Early American Fantasy Fiction as an Environmentally Pedagogical Tool
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Date
2020-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
George Sterling and Mary Austin, although they lived and wrote alongside the likes of such literary greats as Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Sinclair Lewis, have almost entirely fallen out of today’s recognized American literary canon. They are largely remembered now only for their participation in the establishment of a literary artists’ colony in Carmel, California, in the early years of the twentieth century. This colony was visited by such prominent guests as London, Sinclair, and Lewis, as well as Robinson Jeffers, who is also currently experiencing a revival in scholarly interest. Sterling and Austin not only curated a unique artistic experience for these burgeoning writers in the West but also wrote and published literary works of their own. One novel co-written by Sterling and Austin, titled Outland (1910), deserves the critical attention it never received given today’s academic emphases on the intersection of literature and ecology and the search for pedagogical solutions to modern environmental crises.
Outland, initially published under the pseudonym “Gordon Stairs” and again in 1919 as Mary Austin, contains a “Lost Race” tale about two human civilizations living in the mountainous region around Carmel who separate themselves from the growing population of Americans. Influenced by the works of William Morris, whose 1890 novel News from Nowhere is commonly credited as being among the first to blend the Utopian and Romance literary traditions to establish the Fantasy genre, Sterling and Austin’s utopian civilizations (Outlanders and Far-folk) critique American economic practices as well as environmental treatment/degradation. The re-mapping of the Carmel region described in the narrative exemplifies the process of examining unique cultural/geographic maps together to synthesize a broader understanding of an environment.
The project culminates with a replicable method for environmental map-making suitable for an ecology-focused literature course. The Fantasy genre-conventions of worldbuilding and map-making can be repurposed for the composition of up-to-date real-world maps that account for various environmental/climate changes. Also discussed in the project are questions surrounding the ethics of worldbuilding. While the map-making exercise is intended to initiate conversations among students about the many factors a society must consider when re-mapping a region for anticipated and acknowledged environmental changes, the activity must remain hypothetical to avoid the displacement of any one society or culture not represented in the classroom. The fantasy genre should be used in this project strictly as a vehicle for understanding the process of re-mapping and for pondering possible futures, not for enacting significant changes on behalf of other peoples.
The project asserts that George Sterling and Mary Austin, whose jointly-written novel Outland encapsulates both of their significant artistic focuses, should be included in the pages of American literary history alongside their contemporaries: Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Sinclair Lewis. The novel’s descriptions of alternative civilizations with different geographic frameworks of the Carmel region can be extrapolated as useful pedagogical tools for teaching the processes of worldbuilding and map-making. These critical skills can ultimately be used in eco-literature academic settings to imagine attainable and sustainable futures.