A West Virginia University English professor explains that humans are not as separate from the environment and elements as they may think.
In his new book, “For All Waters: Finding Ourselves in Early Modern Wetscapes,” Lowell Duckert demonstrates that when playwrights, travel authors and other early modern writers visited bodies of water, they composed “hydrographies,” or narratives written with the elements they encountered.
Believing the lives of both humans and waterscapes can be improved simultaneousl y through direct engagement, Duckert strives to dissolve boundaries between humans and the environment to inform political activism, policymaking and environmental justice. A s a contemporary example, Duckert identified nonprofit organization WVFREE’s fall 2014 advertising campaign following the Elk River MCHM chemical spill, which featured the slogan, “We are bodies of water.”
"For All Waters" is available now.
