The Toxic Sublime in US Literature: Self, Senses and Environment

In this paper, the “toxic sublime” (which Jennifer Peeples describes as “the tensions that arise from recognizing the toxicity of a place, object or situation, while simultaneously appreciating its mystery, magnificence and ability to inspire awe” [Peeples 2011]), will be used as the lens through which I will analyse the material manifestations of how technology operates as a reframing device in conceptualizations and representations of nature in works of US (non)fiction (Heise 2016). Special attention will be given to Henry Thoreau's literary and philosophical legacy: Walden (1854) will be considered as a foundational matrix for a tradition of nonfiction writing with an interest in reframing the relationship between humans and their techno-natural environment by means of sensorial perception, a project which has been prolonged and extended by countless (non-)fiction works over the last half century, from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) to Ken Ilgunas’s Walden on Wheels (2013). Essential to this approach will be (1) the redefinition of the self as related to the environment in the paradigms studied (industrial revolution, nuclear era, mass production, the Anthropocene), (2) the focus on the human sensorium as a vector of identity and meaning in the Anthropocene, (3) the global nature of the problematic relationships between self and environment examined in the context of specific ecological, cultural, socio-economic or political issues.