Review of Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen\u27s edited collection Coming of Age at the End of Nature: A Generation Faces Living On a Changed Planet

Zantingh, Matthew

English

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 15 | No. 2 Article 15
2-19-2017
Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie
Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen
Matthew Zantingh
Briercrest College
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America
Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment Commons
Follow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose
This article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrante
de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez
scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Zantingh, Matthew. "Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 ,
article 15, 2017,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/15.
Finding Hope in Creative Non-Fiction 
 
Coming of Age at the End of Nature: A 
Generation Faces Living on a Changed 
Planet edited by JULIE DUNLAP AND 
SUSAN A. COHEN 
Trinity UP, 2016 $18.95 
 
Reviewed by MATTHEW ZANTINGH 
 
Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen open their 
collection Coming of Age at the End of 
Nature with the following questions: “How 
has growing up in a mutable physical, 
biological, and social world shaped the lives 
and thoughts of today’s young adults? What 
do members of this generation have to say 
about their challenges, hopes, fears, and 
sources of resilience for the unpredictable 
future?” (xi). The 22 short essays collected 
in the volume attempt to lay out cogent 
responses to these questions. As might be 
guessed from their title, Dunlap and 
Cohen’s philosophical framework draws 
heavily from Bill McKibben’s assertion of 
the death of nature in his 1989 book The 
End of Nature and his later work in his 2010 
book Eaarth. While I am not necessarily on 
board with adopting McKibben’s analysis 
whole-scale, I think the editors’ decision to 
collect essays from a new generation of 
writers for whom climate change is a reality 
they have always known is a provocative 
one. These are the people who will inherit 
the complex and shifting world that the 20th 
century’s thirst for fossil fuels and cheap 
goods has created. 
 Dunlap and Cohen should be praised 
for their desire to make space for new 
voices in environmental writing, and there 
are some excellent pieces in the collection, 
but I am not certain that their chosen 
format works to full effect.  Coming of Age 
at the End of Nature is a slight volume at 
just over 200 pages long with the average 
essay being only four to eight pages long. 
There are a few longer exceptions and it 
was not surprising that these tended to be 
stronger, but for the most part the pieces 
tend to be extremely brief. While I do not 
want to foreclose the possibility of a writer 
saying something meaningful in a few 
hundred words, many of the essays in this 
volume seem to find their feet just before 
they end. For instance, Elizabeth Cooke’s 
otherwise strong piece, “Why Haiti?” 
explores her complex reactions to doing 
disaster relief and environmental work in 
that impoverished Caribbean nation. She 
evokes Haiti’s complex mix of Roman 
Catholicism, colonial dependency, and the 
United States’ ambivalent relationship to 
Central America, but I finished with far 
more questions at the close than I started. 
Perhaps this is the intent of short 
environmental non-fiction, but I felt 
somewhat short-changed.  
 Part of my reaction stems from the 
question of audience for this collection. 
While Dunlap and Cohen want to give space 
to a new generation of writers, I kept asking 
myself who will read this volume. My guess 
is that readers of Orion and Sage will be the 
primary consumers as several of these 
pieces have appeared in those magazines 
while the short biographies of each reader 
also reveal a strong tendency towards such 
environmental non-fiction journals and 
magazines. At the same time, I cannot help 
but wonder whether the pieces in this 
collection are not just preaching to the 
choir. Will these short essays attract a new 
audience, one that might help generate 
productive action towards mitigating global 
climate change? It is on this question that I 
am left uncertain. Perhaps they will. But 
some of the more traditional nature writing 
pieces which tend to paint a wilderness-will-
1
Zantingh: Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017
save-humanity picture seem unlikely to 
convince an apathetic or hostile public, and 
even less so in only a few pages. 
 At the same time, I found myself 
excited by some of the stronger pieces in 
the collection. Amaris Ketcham’s “Urban 
Foraging” explores a developing subculture, 
which uses the natural resources of cities so 
that fruit trees, “weeds,” and other urban 
greenery become not just aesthetic objects 
but sources of sustenance. Ben Goldfarb’s 
“Rebuild or Retreat” ruminates on whether 
it is wise to rebuild hurricane and storm 
devastated neighbourhoods that are likely 
to be struck again as storms increase in 
strength and frequency with warmer ocean 
temperatures. He wants to help the poor 
and devastated recover dignity and life, but 
he also wonders at what cost such 
restoration work happens. Two other essays 
explore the complicated postcolonial 
politics of environmental practice. Alycia 
Parnell’s “Sunset at Mile 16” illustrates the 
ambivalence of working in the Buenos Aires 
National Wildlife Refuge, identifying 
invasive species while growing 
uncomfortably aware of the presence of 
Mexicans travelling north in search of 
better lives. The tension between a desire 
to experience the beauty of the desert 
ecosystems and the crushing injustice of 
national borders is acute yet productive 
here. Finally, Ben Cromwell’s “Diseases of 
Affluence” describes his uneasy sense of 
being stuck in the excessively consumeristic 
trappings of having a newborn in the US 
while being aware of the poverty and lack 
he and his partner left behind after 
completing Peace Corps work in Kiribati. 
These essays all explore the complicated 
contexts that inform American 
environmentalism today. They are clear-
sighted about the contradictions inherent in 
many environmental politics, and do not 
offer easy solutions or miraculous cures. 
Instead, they collectively yearn for a place 
of justice even as it is unclear what that 
might look like or how to get there.  
 Two other essays also stood out, but 
for different reasons. Megan Kimble’s “The 
Wager for Rain” is a fascinating probe into 
the pseudo-science of cloud-seeding and 
the future prospects of water-starved states 
like Arizona and Nevada. Her essay refuses 
to prioritize natural or pristine water over 
“artificial” water and helped me think about 
water cycles in my own prairie location. She 
also makes an interesting turn at the end of 
her piece, connecting cloud-seeding to rain 
dances in an evocative gesture. In a similar 
way, Emily Schosid’s “Could Mopping Save 
the World?” details her stay at the Lama 
Foundation, a spiritual and sustainable 
community in northern New Mexico. 
Schosid was fresh out of Yale’s School of 
Forestry and Environmental Studies and her 
bafflement at the community’s approach to 
place and life is evident throughout. Yet by 
the end of her piece, she comes to 
appreciate the spiritual wisdom on offer 
there even if she sees a need to help them 
with green technology. Why I found these 
two essays intriguing is that both return 
spirituality to discussions of 
environmentalism and climate change. At 
times, religion and spirituality have been 
kept at bay by environmentalists, often with 
good reason, but both Kimble and Schosid 
explore it with a commendable level of 
humility and intrigue. If religion has been 
responsible for parts of the predicament, it 
may also play key roles in any solution.  
While I think the quality of the 
pieces was varied, there were a number of 
original and provocative essays that make 
this collection valuable in terms of thinking 
about the new generation of 
environmentalists and nature writers. The 
2
The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 15
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/15
collection falls into the creative nonfiction 
category and leans heavily towards 
autobiography. It may be light on nuance 
and complexity at times, but I believe this is 
a result of the length of essays the editors 
sought. Some of these pieces might be well 
suited for lower level environmental 
humanities classes which attract students 
from across the disciplines. I should note 
that, with the exception of two pieces, 
these essays are rooted in the United States, 
which may limit the appeal of the volume. 
And the collection itself is an interesting 
read that might reinvigorate those feeling 
jaded in the Trump era of American culture. 
 
MATTHEW ZANTINGH is an Assistant 
Professor of English at Briercrest College 
and Seminary in Caronport, Saskatchewan. 
His research focuses on the imprint and 
impact of nature on culture in Canadian 
literature. He is particularly interested in 
the ways it manifests itself in urban nature, 
imagined environmental futures, and 
wilderness narratives. 
 
 
3
Zantingh: Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017


Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 15 | No. 2 Article 152-19-2017Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by JulieDunlap and Susan A. CohenMatthew ZantinghBriercrest CollegePart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North AmericaCommons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeZantingh, Matthew. "Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen." The Goose, vol. 15 , no. 2 ,article 15, 2017,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/15.Finding Hope in Creative Non-Fiction  Coming of Age at the End of Nature: A Generation Faces Living on a Changed Planet edited by JULIE DUNLAP AND SUSAN A. COHEN Trinity UP, 2016 $18.95  Reviewed by MATTHEW ZANTINGH  Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen open their collection Coming of Age at the End of Nature with the following questions: “How has growing up in a mutable physical, biological, and social world shaped the lives and thoughts of today’s young adults? What do members of this generation have to say about their challenges, hopes, fears, and sources of resilience for the unpredictable future?” (xi). The 22 short essays collected in the volume attempt to lay out cogent responses to these questions. As might be guessed from their title, Dunlap and Cohen’s philosophical framework draws heavily from Bill McKibben’s assertion of the death of nature in his 1989 book The End of Nature and his later work in his 2010 book Eaarth. While I am not necessarily on board with adopting McKibben’s analysis whole-scale, I think the editors’ decision to collect essays from a new generation of writers for whom climate change is a reality they have always known is a provocative one. These are the people who will inherit the complex and shifting world that the 20th century’s thirst for fossil fuels and cheap goods has created.  Dunlap and Cohen should be praised for their desire to make space for new voices in environmental writing, and there are some excellent pieces in the collection, but I am not certain that their chosen format works to full effect.  Coming of Age at the End of Nature is a slight volume at just over 200 pages long with the average essay being only four to eight pages long. There are a few longer exceptions and it was not surprising that these tended to be stronger, but for the most part the pieces tend to be extremely brief. While I do not want to foreclose the possibility of a writer saying something meaningful in a few hundred words, many of the essays in this volume seem to find their feet just before they end. For instance, Elizabeth Cooke’s otherwise strong piece, “Why Haiti?” explores her complex reactions to doing disaster relief and environmental work in that impoverished Caribbean nation. She evokes Haiti’s complex mix of Roman Catholicism, colonial dependency, and the United States’ ambivalent relationship to Central America, but I finished with far more questions at the close than I started. Perhaps this is the intent of short environmental non-fiction, but I felt somewhat short-changed.   Part of my reaction stems from the question of audience for this collection. While Dunlap and Cohen want to give space to a new generation of writers, I kept asking myself who will read this volume. My guess is that readers of Orion and Sage will be the primary consumers as several of these pieces have appeared in those magazines while the short biographies of each reader also reveal a strong tendency towards such environmental non-fiction journals and magazines. At the same time, I cannot help but wonder whether the pieces in this collection are not just preaching to the choir. Will these short essays attract a new audience, one that might help generate productive action towards mitigating global climate change? It is on this question that I am left uncertain. Perhaps they will. But some of the more traditional nature writing pieces which tend to paint a wilderness-will-1Zantingh: Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. CohenPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017save-humanity picture seem unlikely to convince an apathetic or hostile public, and even less so in only a few pages.  At the same time, I found myself excited by some of the stronger pieces in the collection. Amaris Ketcham’s “Urban Foraging” explores a developing subculture, which uses the natural resources of cities so that fruit trees, “weeds,” and other urban greenery become not just aesthetic objects but sources of sustenance. Ben Goldfarb’s “Rebuild or Retreat” ruminates on whether it is wise to rebuild hurricane and storm devastated neighbourhoods that are likely to be struck again as storms increase in strength and frequency with warmer ocean temperatures. He wants to help the poor and devastated recover dignity and life, but he also wonders at what cost such restoration work happens. Two other essays explore the complicated postcolonial politics of environmental practice. Alycia Parnell’s “Sunset at Mile 16” illustrates the ambivalence of working in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, identifying invasive species while growing uncomfortably aware of the presence of Mexicans travelling north in search of better lives. The tension between a desire to experience the beauty of the desert ecosystems and the crushing injustice of national borders is acute yet productive here. Finally, Ben Cromwell’s “Diseases of Affluence” describes his uneasy sense of being stuck in the excessively consumeristic trappings of having a newborn in the US while being aware of the poverty and lack he and his partner left behind after completing Peace Corps work in Kiribati. These essays all explore the complicated contexts that inform American environmentalism today. They are clear-sighted about the contradictions inherent in many environmental politics, and do not offer easy solutions or miraculous cures. Instead, they collectively yearn for a place of justice even as it is unclear what that might look like or how to get there.   Two other essays also stood out, but for different reasons. Megan Kimble’s “The Wager for Rain” is a fascinating probe into the pseudo-science of cloud-seeding and the future prospects of water-starved states like Arizona and Nevada. Her essay refuses to prioritize natural or pristine water over “artificial” water and helped me think about water cycles in my own prairie location. She also makes an interesting turn at the end of her piece, connecting cloud-seeding to rain dances in an evocative gesture. In a similar way, Emily Schosid’s “Could Mopping Save the World?” details her stay at the Lama Foundation, a spiritual and sustainable community in northern New Mexico. Schosid was fresh out of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and her bafflement at the community’s approach to place and life is evident throughout. Yet by the end of her piece, she comes to appreciate the spiritual wisdom on offer there even if she sees a need to help them with green technology. Why I found these two essays intriguing is that both return spirituality to discussions of environmentalism and climate change. At times, religion and spirituality have been kept at bay by environmentalists, often with good reason, but both Kimble and Schosid explore it with a commendable level of humility and intrigue. If religion has been responsible for parts of the predicament, it may also play key roles in any solution.  While I think the quality of the pieces was varied, there were a number of original and provocative essays that make this collection valuable in terms of thinking about the new generation of environmentalists and nature writers. The 2The Goose, Vol. 15, No. 2 [2017], Art. 15https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol15/iss2/15collection falls into the creative nonfiction category and leans heavily towards autobiography. It may be light on nuance and complexity at times, but I believe this is a result of the length of essays the editors sought. Some of these pieces might be well suited for lower level environmental humanities classes which attract students from across the disciplines. I should note that, with the exception of two pieces, these essays are rooted in the United States, which may limit the appeal of the volume. And the collection itself is an interesting read that might reinvigorate those feeling jaded in the Trump era of American culture.  MATTHEW ZANTINGH is an Assistant Professor of English at Briercrest College and Seminary in Caronport, Saskatchewan. His research focuses on the imprint and impact of nature on culture in Canadian literature. He is particularly interested in the ways it manifests itself in urban nature, imagined environmental futures, and wilderness narratives.   3Zantingh: Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. CohenPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2017

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Coming of Age at the End of Nature edited by Julie Dunlap and Susan A. Cohen

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