When read together, Karen Joy Fowler and Leslie Marmon Silko's texts can offer up solutions for present ecological attitudes that are rooted in colonialist perspectives which see human, nonhuman animal, and land as separate spheres. While Fowler's novel is told from a perspective that draws heavily on Western science, specifically psychology, Silko's text is undergirded by a commitment to indigenous science, specifically Laguna Pueblo traditions of healing. An evaluation of the framework each author employs then helps deepen a subsequent analysis of how the two texts move to critique specific practices prevalent in the way Western science views human-nonhuman relationships and then how both texts offer a path forward.

Links to Project Materials:

College of Arts & Sciences 2020, Humanities Projects 2020, School of Education 2020