Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Environmental Analysis

Second Department

Writing and Rhetoric

Reader 1

Marc Los Huertos

Reader 2

Kimberly Drake

Reader 3

Char Miller

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

2024 Annabella S Isaacson

Abstract

The following is an amalgamation of my experiences personally and vested interests academically, and is meant to be read as just that. As a thesis that combines Environmental Analysis and Writing & Rhetoric degrees, this project challenges traditional academic forms by integrating creative nonfiction and poetry with academic writing and analysis. This thesis attempts to fuse the academic and personal essay into one cohesive piece. The inconclusive nature of the narratives and explorations that follow are intended to represent my process in grappling with the histories and significance of American pastoral literature through the ways in which this genre has shown up in my life both rhetorically and physically. I examine pastoral nostalgia, acknowledging its significance and tight grip, while also attempting to push past it through my own writings. However, by way of its format as semi-fragmented narratives, I also hope to illuminate the impossibility inherent in presenting my work and my current, inconclusive thoughts as a neatly wrapped parcel. I intend for this work to be read as a creative exploration of farmland as a contested and crucial landscape, ultimately underscoring the act of writing as a way to renegotiate and steward these environments that, in one way or another, are tangled up in all of us.

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