Bioregional LIterature II

While recently visiting the Western Literature Association website, I noted a literary term that was new and yet familiar to me; bioregional literary criticism. Merriam-Webster defines a bioregion as "a region whose limits are naturally defined by topographic and biological features (as mountain ranges and ecosystems)." In the 1970s, Peter Berg described bioregionalism as "an environmental perspective that emphasizes action over protest, lifestyle over legislation." He later expanded the definition of a bioregion as "a geographic terrain and a terrain of consciousness." 
"A terrain of consciousness." Mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, meadows and plains shaped (and still shape) not only our physical expansion as a nation, but also stirred (and still stir) American writers to deeper insight about the human experience. For example, Marilynne Robinson in Housekeeping gave us Fingerbone, a lakeside mountain town as physical and dreamlike as any in American literature. She demonstrated with insight and precision that a literary "place" absorbs and exceeds its ecology, topography and biology.
According to the WLA site when I consulted it, Tom Lynch, Cheryll Glotfelty and Karla Armbruster are currently at work on a volume of essays on the topic of bioregional literary criticism. They propose to examine situations and writing from "community-based writing projects" to "place-based publication ventures," as well as considerations of how "post-colonialism, globalization, and environmental justice affect literature worldwide." I haven't discussed the topic or their developing project with these editors, but I look forward to their future publication.
As writers, we only approach and honor the universal when we attend to the concrete details of human experience. Through vivid, specific characters, actions and places, we create an alternative interpretation and influence of reality, whether we render it starkly, ornately, or with a touch of the fantastic. Bioregional literary criticism is another way we might explore "where we are" and "who we are" in literature and in life.
I hope that this blog becomes "fertile ground" for exploration and discussion of how fiction, poetry and essays help us read and write ourselves into a sense of where and who we are.