Gardening Forking Paths: the Figure of the Rambunctious Garden and Relational Ethics of Attentiveness and Care

Anton Belenetskyi

Jump to Content

Chapter 9 Gardening Forking Paths: the Figure of the Rambunctious Garden and Relational Ethics of Attentiveness and Care

In: Consolations of Nature

Author:

Anton Belenetskyi

Anton Belenetskyi
Search for other papers by Anton Belenetskyi in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 161–186

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004744110_011

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

€42.00€35.00 excl. VAT

Add to Cart

Redeem Access Token

Abstract

This chapter aims to study how and to what effect the ages-old notion of nature is being imaginatively redefined by selected works of the 21st-century U.S. literature in response to the complex uncertainty elicited by the advent of the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene, brought on by the rapidly unfolding anthropogenic ecological breakdown. In so doing, it regards such uncertainty as an opening of ethical possibility and examines what better ways of relating and relating to the world beyond the human may emerge out of the newly volatile idea of nature set into motion by the ongoing reckoning with what Lynn Keller defines as the “self-conscious Anthropocene,” at once a vertiginous realisation and a radical reorganisation of the planetary interrelations. Drawing on Emma Marris’s theorisation of the epoch’s uncertain natures as “rambunctious gardens,” the ongoing redefinition of the human–nature interrelatedness is situated in the inherently fluctuating figure of the garden, simultaneously natural and cultural, and the practices of attentiveness and care that are commonly associated both with the process of gardening and the more-than-human relational ethics. Weaving together four highly variegated texts centred around gardens and gardening (David Searcy’s 2001 novel Ordinary Horror, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s 2013 treatise Braiding Sweetgrass, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s 2013 poetry collection Hello, the Roses, and Camille T. Dungy’s 2023 memoir Soil), the chapter elaborates on how attending to the elusive reconfigurations of the concept of nature in the Anthropocene may help us become reconciled to the world’s irresolvable uncertainty and develop an ethic of tending its contingently forking paths towards a better future of coexistence and co-creation.

Citation Info

Save
Cite
Email this content

Share link with colleague or librarian

You can email a link to this page to a colleague or librarian:
Email this content
or copy the link directly:

https://brill.edhh.ma/abstract/book/9789004744110/BP000017.xml
The link was not copied. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Link copied successfully

Collapse
Expand

Consolations of Nature

Human-Nature Connections in Modern and Contemporary Anglophone Literature

Series: Nature, Culture and Literature, Volume: 20

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004744110

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Dec 2025

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies
- Social Sciences
  - Cultural Studies

Front Matter

Back Matter

ProCite

RefWorks

Reference Manager

BibTeX

Zotero

EndNote

Metrics

	All Time	Past 365 days	Past 30 Days
Abstract Views	126	126	21
Full Text Views	3	3	0
PDF Views & Downloads	5	5	0

African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

Subjects

Authors

Open Access

Product Information

Company

Contact

Chapter 9 Gardening Forking Paths: the Figure of the Rambunctious Garden and Relational Ethics of Attentiveness and Care

Abstract

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

Consolations of Nature

Human-Nature Connections in Modern and Contemporary Anglophone Literature

Table of Contents

References

Metrics

Metrics