Abstract

The dissertation attempts to inaugurate, by practice, the field of Nature Studies within Culture Studies. Just as other critical approaches centering on race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. have sought and often found a home in the analysis of representation, now "nature" also contends for a place, a political place. The novels, Women in Love and Beloved and the films, The Silence of the Lambs and Deliverance are discussed in terms of their potential impact on human perceptions standing as intimations of actions on nature-out-there, viz., plants and animals. In addition, an introduction, a theoretical chapter on the work of Baudrillard, Haraway, and Derrida, and a post-attempt: a letter from nature to culture, introduce animals and plants into the postmodern discourse on power