Year of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Name

English (Literature)

Other Degree Name/Area of Focus

Ecocriticism

Department or School/College

Department of English

Committee Chair

Louise Economides

Commitee Members

Katie Kane, Marc Hendrix

Keywords

Eco-melancholia, Eco-horror, H.P. Lovecraft, Leslie Marmon Silko, Uncanny, Affect Theory

Subject Categories

American Literature | English Language and Literature | Environmental Studies | Literature in English, North America | Modern Literature

Abstract

This thesis draws from the work of geologist Marcia Bjornerud to bring a scientific (specifically geologic) understanding of humanity’s relationship to our home planet to bear in a literary context. I employ Bjornerud’s term “geomorphization” to expand from inter-species kinship to inter-substance kinship and to establish stone as an active, lively subject without relying on anthropomorphization. Geomorphization as I define it refers to recognizing similarity between ourselves and stone/Earth on the basis of our stoniness rather than stone’s human-ness. Geomorphizing ourselves entails what Bjornerud calls “timefulness,” a geologic perspective on temporality that sees the past as continually acting in the present and decenters the human without dismissing it. I treat stone and Earth as fellow lively subjects for affective relationships, active players in human emotional experiences rather than just static objects. Chapter One examines fear and the role of stone in Lovecraftian horror, particularly as a representation of geologic/deep time and a literary vehicle for the uncanny. Chapter Two turns to Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony to discuss how (ecological) grief and melancholia are articulated through stone, as well as human emotional relationships with geologic landscapes. In addition to Bjornerud’s work, I incorporate ecocritical, psychological, and queer theoretical perspectives from writers such as Timothy Morton, Donna Haraway, Sigmund Freud, Judith Butler, Catriona Sandilands, and José Muñoz. An underlying goal of the project is to blur and permeate the boundaries imagined between ourselves and others, following a dark ecological approach of identifying the strange and “other” within the familiar and as an innate part of earthly existence. Ultimately, geomorphizing is a matter of embracing literal and metaphorical stoniness in ourselves and with it the immutable fact that we belong to Earth.

Download

Share

COinS
 

© Copyright 2026 Grace F. Foster