{"title":"\"A Little Happy Sound\": Collective Labor, Ecocide, and Soundscapes in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland","authors":"Eliza McCarthy","doi":"10.1353/sdn.2024.a928652","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Previous scholarship on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel <i>Herland</i> (1915) has compellingly argued that the ecological space in the novel reflects an extension of an idealized domestic sphere, as a site where Gilman’s problematic eugenic beliefs manifest through the careful conservation of a park-like space. This analysis tends, however, to be wholly ocularcentric, grounded in the aesthetics of the verdant environment that features in Gilman’s narrative. As a necessary sensory departure from a visually preoccupied body of scholarship, I examine the barren sonic portrait that Gilman creates through her essayistic prose, arguing that female autonomy, individual orality, and bio-diverse ecological space become problematically compromised. Drawing on the intersections between feminist scholarship on Gilman’s novel, soundscape studies, and ecocritical frameworks in the environmental humanities, this essay aims to sonically deconstruct the problematic eugenic discourse that underpins Gilman’s ultimate human fantasy.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":54138,"journal":{"name":"STUDIES IN THE NOVEL","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"STUDIES IN THE NOVEL","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.2024.a928652","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:
Previous scholarship on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s novel Herland (1915) has compellingly argued that the ecological space in the novel reflects an extension of an idealized domestic sphere, as a site where Gilman’s problematic eugenic beliefs manifest through the careful conservation of a park-like space. This analysis tends, however, to be wholly ocularcentric, grounded in the aesthetics of the verdant environment that features in Gilman’s narrative. As a necessary sensory departure from a visually preoccupied body of scholarship, I examine the barren sonic portrait that Gilman creates through her essayistic prose, arguing that female autonomy, individual orality, and bio-diverse ecological space become problematically compromised. Drawing on the intersections between feminist scholarship on Gilman’s novel, soundscape studies, and ecocritical frameworks in the environmental humanities, this essay aims to sonically deconstruct the problematic eugenic discourse that underpins Gilman’s ultimate human fantasy.
期刊介绍：
From its inception, Studies in the Novel has been dedicated to building a scholarly community around the world-making potentialities of the novel. Studies in the Novel started as an idea among several members of the English Department of the University of North Texas during the summer of 1965. They determined that there was a need for a journal “devoted to publishing critical and scholarly articles on the novel with no restrictions on either chronology or nationality of the novelists studied.” The founding editor, University of North Texas professor of contemporary literature James W. Lee, envisioned a journal of international scope and influence. Since then, Studies in the Novel has staked its reputation upon publishing incisive scholarship on the canon-forming and cutting-edge novelists that have shaped the genre’s rich history. The journal continues to break new ground by promoting new theoretical approaches, a broader international scope, and an engagement with the contemporary novel as a form of social critique.
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