Simplegadi 15 17 2017 CONC
Carmen Concilio2017, " Living Together on this Earth: Eco-Sustainable Narratives and Environmental Concerns in English Literature/s"
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I: This essay on travelling gardens of (post)colonial time opens with two iconic-tom's bio-garbage rafter, which saves him in the midst of a cyclone in Car-pentaria-land-organism in Life of Pi (2001), which cannot save him from his shipwreck,-pocene precede the real travelling gardens of both Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table who both indirectly and directly tell the story of botanical gardens in Asia, hinting at their historical and economic colonial implications. For, after all, project (Brockway 2002; Johnson 2011). Abstract II:
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Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
Le Simplegadi, 2017
Questo saggio sui giardini galleggianti e viaggianti nella letteratura (post) coloniale contemporanea si apre con due immagini iconiche: l'isola-giardino di bio-plastica che salva Will Phantom nel mezzo di un ciclone in I cacciatori di stelle (Rizzoli 2008, ed. it.), della scrittrice aborigena Alexis Wright, e l'isola-giardino carnivora che non può salvare Pi dal naufragio, nel romanzo Vita di Pi (Piemme 2007, ed. it.), dello scrittore canadese Yann Martel. Questi giardini galleggianti e ibridi dell'Antropocene precedono i veri e propri giardini viaggianti di Michael Ondaatje e Amitav Ghosh. I quali, rispettivamente, nel romanzo L'ora prima dell'alba (Garzanti 2012, ed. it) e nella trilogia della Ibis (Neri Pozza 2008-2015) raccontano la storia di alcuni giardini botanici in Asia, e del trasferimento (displacement) di piante e semi, seguendo le implicazioni storiche ed economiche del colonialismo. Poiché, dopo tutto, i giardini botanici coinvolgono un senso molto particolare di "cura" (Robert Pogue Harrison 2009), e incarnano precisi disegni imperialisti di matrice scientifica ed economica (Brockway 2002; Johnson 2011). In this essay I would like to approach the topicality of gardens in the literature of the (post)colonial world, and in doing so, I would like to start with a couple of iconic images. The first image surfaces from one of those novels that Franco Moretti would define as opera-mondo: Carpentaria
“Plants have a will of their own”: the construction of botanical metaphors and symbols in the literary garden of (postcolonial) India
Kervan. International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies, 2016
This article offers a preliminary investigation of figurative, metaphorical and linguistic aspects of the garden in Indian English fiction. After providing a short introduction to the symbolism of gardens in the colonial and postcolonial periods, and to the image of the garden in Anglophone Indian literature, the focus will be on the novel The Solitude of Emperors by David Davidar (2007), in order to stress the relevance of both specific phytonyms and common names of plants as important linguistic, cultural and textual indicators employed to construct and convey meanings, often in the form of cognitive metaphors. In this light, the postcolonial garden emerges as a cultural site of hybridity and connection with the past. The examination is undertaken through an interdisciplinary approach that follows and adapts the theories and methods of postcolonial studies, stylistics and narratology (e.g. Kovecses 2002; Jeffries and McIntyre 2010; Sorlin 2014).
Routes Beyond Roots: Alternative Ecological Histories in Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies
Indialogs
This article will read Amitav Ghosh's novel Sea of Poppies as an account of "world histories from below" (Antoinette Burton, 2012) and position the writing of alternative histories of the colonial times within an ecocritical context. While such rewritings have always been a central preoccupation of postcolonial literature, the recent tendency has been to look at history from increasingly local, individualised perspectives. I will examine Ghosh's tracing of routes and connectivities across the Indian Ocean at the time immediately preceding the opium wars, focusing on his reconsideration of human relationships and hierarchies in an ecocritical perspective. This perspective cuts across boundaries established by caste, class, biology, geography and the colonial system, which Ghosh has long been interested in re-evaluating. While on board the Ibis identities become deterritorialised and fluid, they are disconnected from their roots and paths established by rigid culturally conditioned frameworks. Connections are established between the human and other forms of life, forming a continuum across the trade routes of the Indian Ocean, which becomes a fluid space of rebuilding identities. I will use a theoretical framework informed by Bruno Latour's concept of a politics of nature, Donna Haraway's nature-culture negotiations and Rosi Braidotti's eco-conscious ethics.
On the Nature of Botanical Gardens
On the Nature of Botanical Gardens Catalogue, 2020
'On the Nature of Botanical Gardens' at Framer Framed in Amsterdam features nine contemporary Indonesian artists who look critically at botanical gardens, colonial power, knowledge building and the economics of nature, its legacies and current consequences of approaching nature and plants. The exhibition seeks to decolonise the concept of botanical gardens and their role in building a Dutch colonial empire in Indonesia.
Essay review: Botanists Sow, Historians Reap
Journal of The History of Biology, 2001
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Garden History, 2018
Garden historians have traditionally focused upon the great landscaped gardens of the élite along with publicly run parks and botanic gardens. This has resulted in the neglect of the potentially rich field of popular gardening. While gardens created by ordinary citizens may be undeniably underwhelming in terms of both scale and grandeur, these spaces provide an invaluable lens through which to view the development of a nation's gardening culture and social history. This is especially so in the context of Singapore, where the existence of indigenous gardening traditions has been obscured by the traditional scholarly focus on public parks. This paper presents a brief genealogy of one such indigenous gardening tradition in Singapore: the kampong garden. Based upon the kitchen gardens cultivated by Malay villagers during the pre-colonial era as a supplementary food source, the kampong garden was first appropriated by Malay nationalists in early twentieth-century Singapore as a site of memory for that ethnic group's imagined rural past. With the large-scale resettlement of Singapore's kampong villages during the post-independence era, the kampong garden gradually became a much less ethically specific gardening tradition as former kampong dwellers of all races seek to relive their rural nostalgia by recreating this space. Notwithstanding, the kampong garden's popularity was not merely restricted to the elderly of Singapore. As recently as 2014, the garden was even appropriated by younger Singaporeans from the emerging grow-your-own-food movement as a metaphor for the edible garden. Citation: Goh, Ngee Chae Joshua. “The Invention of the ‘Kampong Garden’: Rural Nostalgia and Urban Gardening in Singapore”. Garden History 46:2 (2018): 154-169.
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Indian Historical Review, 2022
The sultans of Gujarat tried to transform the landscape by planting native and exotic trees and introducing gardens on the perceived Central-Asian Khorasan style to underpin their control over the acquired or conquered territory and its naturelandscape. After the founding of Ahmedabad, gardens within the religious and secular architecture came up all over the city. The foliage and gardens were hugely admired by the travellers passing by the city. Perusing their travelogues, we navigate the changing landscape and the green spaces of Ahmedabad over a period of time. While constructing the history of gardens in Ahmedabad, this article reflects on the future sustainability of the city if the culture of nature and environment-sensitive values are not inculcated and promoted.
The veridical travel of the truly imaginary plant: curatorial approach and underlying ideas
Contemporanea, 2021
The Traveling Plant project is a collaborative project that unfolds over a network globally to be shared locally. It is dealing with the duality of global and local actions and diversity of perspectives and ways of doing; it is dealing with the duality of sharing practices and exchange across a distributed network virtually and physically/non-virtually; it deals with approaches of going beyond purely human perspectives, including the non-human; it tries to avoid colonialist and anthropocentric strategies. This article presents the curatorial approach and challenging questions the team of curators is starting from, the organizational structure of the project in development, and gives insights in how the project is intended to unfold practically.
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Carmen Concilio
Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
Abstract I:
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di Pi 3LHPPHHGLW GHOORVFULWWRUHFDQDGHVH<DQQ0DUWHO4XHVWLJLDUdini galleggianti e ibridi dell’Antropocene precedono i veri e propri giardini
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e del trasferimento (displacement GLSLDQWHHVHPLVHJXHQGROHLPSOLFD]LRQL
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HLQFDUQDQRSUHFLVLGLVHJQLLPSHULDOLVWLGLPDWULFHVFLHQWLÀFDHGHFRQRmica (Brockway 2002; Johnson 2011).
Abstract II: This essay on travelling gardens of (post)colonial time opens with two iconic
LPDJHVRIÁRDWLQJJDUGHQVLQFRQWHPSRUDU\SRVWFRORQLDOOLWHUDWXUH :LOO3KDQtom’s bio-garbage rafter, which saves him in the midst of a cyclone in Carpentaria E\WKH$ERULJLQDODXWKRU$OH[LV:ULJKWDQG3L·VFDUQLYRUHLVland-organism in Life of Pi (2001), which cannot save him from his shipwreck,
E\&DQDGLDQZULWHU<DQ0DUWHO7KHVHÁRDWLQJK\EULGJDUGHQVRIWKH$QWKURpocene precede the real travelling gardens of both Michael Ondaatje’s The
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who both indirectly and directly tell the story of botanical gardens in Asia,
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hinting at their historical and economic colonial implications. For, after all,
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project (Brockway 2002; Johnson 2011).
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Concilio. Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
162
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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who is constantly boycotting the Mine with acts of arson, saves his life from the corporation’s
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A single rotting tomato containing an earthworm settled in the newspaper-lined base
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practical man in a practical man’s paradise. He had food, shelter, and his catchments
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his brother and the animals of their private Zoo1. The liner becomes a modern mock-Noah’s
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The novel starts with this act of violence against animals, as they are transported on board a ship, for too long
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Concilio. Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
163
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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The trees remained. In fact, they grew to be a forest. They were part of a low-lying
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be a dense mass of vegetation, as sparkling green as the leaves. […] this island was a
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preferring the company of a carnivore tiger to the permanence in a whole vegetal carnivore
island-organism.
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It was a shock of this kind, I imagine, that the makers of The Empire Strikes Back had
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specifically devoted to vegetal life.
Concilio. Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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166
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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The Cat’s Table (2011).
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they are led by Mr Daniels, one of the passengers and a botanist (with whom they share the
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168
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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moves this way.’ Then he imitated a royal palm from the Cameroons, which grew in
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169
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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pots and cases. To provide additional protection for the plants, Fitcher had designed
Concilio. Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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Gardens on Ceylon, which sent twenty-two specimens on to Singapore (Brockway
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Concilio. Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
Le Simplegadi
Vol. XV-No. 17 November 2017
ISSN 1824-5226
DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-64
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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%URFNZD\/XFLOH+ 6FLHQFHDQG&RORQLDO([SDQVLRQ 7KH5ROHRIWKH%ULWLVK5R\DO
Botanic Gardens. American Ethnologist $XJXVW
Ghosh, Amitav. 2011. River of Smoke/RQGRQ -RKQ0XUUD\
Ghosh, Amitav. 2015. Flood of Fire/RQGRQ -RKQ0XUUD\
Ghosh, Amitav. 2016. The Great Derangement. Climate Change and the Unthinkable&KLFDJR
&KLFDJR8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV
+DUULVRQ5REHUW3RJXH Gardens. An Essay o the Human Condition&KLFDJR 7KH8QLYHUVLW\RI&KLFDJR3UHVV
-RKQVRQ1XDOD&Nature Displaced, Nature Displayed. Order and Beauty in Botanical
Gardens/RQGRQ ,%7DXULV
Martel, Yann. 2001. Life of Pi7RURQWR 5DQGRP+RXVH
0RUHWWL)UDQFR Opere Mondo7RULQR (LQDXGL
Ondaatje, Michael. 2011. The Cat’s Table/RQGRQ -RQDWKDQ&DSH
:RROI9LUJLQLD > @Kew Gardens. In The Complete Shorter Fiction.6XVDQ'LFNLQWU
/RQGRQ 7ULDG*UDIWRQ%RRNV
:ULJKW$OH[LVCarpentaria1HZ6RXWK:DOHV *LUDPRQGR
WEBLIOGRAPHY
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Carmen ConcilioLV$VVRFLDWH3URIHVVRURI(QJOLVKDQG3RVWFRORQLDO/LWHUDWXUHDWWKH8QLYHUVLW\RI7XULQ+HUUHVHDUFKÀHOGVLQFOXGH%ULWLVK0RGHUQLVP3RVWFRORQLDODQG(QYLURQPHQWDO6WXGLHV+HUPRVWUHFHQWSXEOLFDWLRQVLQFOXGHDVHGLWRUDQGDXWKRUPlots and Plotters.
Double Agents and Villains in Spy Fictions 0LODQ 0LPHVLV,QWHUQDWLRQDO New Critical
Patterns in Postcolonial Discourse. Historical Traumas and Environmental Issues 7XULQ 7UDXEHQ
6KHKDVDOVRFRHGLWHG ZLWK5%URPOH\3'HDQGUHD ´(QJDJLQJ:RU O GVLQ3RVWFRORQLDO6WXGLHV +XPDQ5LJKWV(QYLURQPHQWDO+XPDQLWLHVDQG:HOOEHLQJµRicognizioni,
YROQ ZLWK5-/DQH Image technologies in Canadian Literature: Narrative, Photography and Film %UXVVHOV 3HWHU/DQJ
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Concilio. Floating / Travelling Gardens of (Post)colonial Time
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