Amy D. Propen's (2022) second book, At Home in the Anthropocene, is a collection of essays that tackle the intersections of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy by teasing out coexisting relationships in American ecosystems using several key narratives of human and more-than-human kin interactions. Steeped in the tradition of David Abram, the philosopher who initially coined the phrase "more-than-human," Propen highlighted Robin Wall Kimmerer's (2015) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Lori Gruen's (2015) Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals. As an associate professor in the writing program at the University of California at Santa Barbara with a background in technical and professional writing, Propen is a teaching storyteller who relies on environmental and technological shifts in her research.
Her first book in the Ohio State University Press New Directions in Rhetoric and Materiality Series in 2018 was Visualizing Posthuman Conservation in the Age of the Anthropocene. In beginning this second work, Propen said, "I wanted to further explore and integrate narrative and place-based writing in my subsequent work" (p. ix). Her research also evolved from an invitation to participate in the "Critical Questions" lecture series at Oregon State University to discuss the ways that wildlife and human environments were beginning to overlap. At the heart of this book is the question of how humans can define home along with their more-than-human kin. To reinforce this relationship, Propen opened the book with a detailed discussion of a walk that she took in March 2020 in the foothills of Santa Barbara. Although she had not originally planned this text to respond to the pandemic, the quarantine of humans led to a significant change in the relationship and definition of home at the crux of her research. To share this walk, which goes through Franceschi Park, you could tag along with Roam the 805 (2023). The walk stands in for the attitudes that Propen emphasized throughout—recognizing and respecting the gifts that are part of our entangled environments.
This chapter focuses on wildlife rehabilitation through compassionate conservation. Propen considered the technologies that can boost human empathetic responses to kin who require immediate attention but will eventually need to define home with their rescuers in a more distanced way. Her work at a wildlife center that rescues birds and fledglings launched a conversation on "how entangled empathy and compassionate conservation play out in ways that provide comfort, care, and shelter for vulnerable species" to constitute home (p. 29). Thus, her definition of home included this setting.
Lori Gruen's (2015) Entangled Empathy provided the basis for Propen's shift from the rights of animals to instead center the relationship established between humans, who are frequently tagged with the label "rescuer," and wildlife. As Propen described her interactions with individual wildlife, she emphasized the practice of care which goes beyond the physical rehabilitation to considerations of the needs of the animal in a kinship relationship. A second significant source in this chapter is anthropologist Tim Ingold's (2011) work in Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. In particular, Propen was interested in Ingold's concept of meshworks which are "highly context-dependent and always in flux" (p. 37). Narrative, then, is a primary tool in creating the definition of home within this evolving and relationship-specific anthropocene.
This chapter is easy to read and could be excerpted for any audience interested in rehabilitating animals. Propen easily moved from her own voice to quoting the work of others and then back to observations about her surroundings. In her hands, the theory behind entangled empathy and the idea of meshworks are not difficult to understand or relate to the specific setting of wildlife rehabilitation. Her ideas of kinship clearly related to the definition of home that she established here and used throughout the book.
At the crux of this chapter are two stories of mountain lions and their encounters with humans. The first story is of an Oregon resident who came home to find a mountain lion sleeping in her home, as a respite from wildfires that were spreading in the area in 2018. The narrative frame for this story alternates between third-person descriptions of the mountain lion who has been forced from her natural habitat and is confused and lost, with the accounts that were reported by the homeowner and the media. The story initially broke on social media before being picked up by the local NBC affiliate, KHQ-TV (2018), which published "Cat Nap." In detailing this interaction, Propen recounted the actions taken by the Oregon woman in building a relationship with the mountain lion. By highlighting both the experience of the mountain lion and the voice of the home owner, Propen created a conversation of equals. The attitude of wonder cultivated by the home owner gave her the generosity to allow the mountain lion to spend the night before encouraging her to move on by leaving the front door open and creating noise. Ultimately, the woman in Oregon described the visit as a gift.
The second story involves Propen's own sighting of mountain lion(s) on her campus in Santa Barbara in 2019. In this case, her memories were interspersed with emergency notification text messages from the University of California. Over several weeks in September and October, the campus alerted faculty, staff, and students that a mountain lion had been spotted in several places on campus and that those in the area should use care when traveling through those spaces. In this example, Propen's point was what she described as a "language of animacy" as opposed to empathy. The tenor of the warnings often seemed to posit the mountain lion as an invader in its natural habitat rather than as a gift. In contrast to the first story, this second situation could have been handled with greater attention to the more-than-human kin.
As in her first chapter, this second chapter could also be excerpted without losing any of its meaning or power. It could also be further divided into the story of the mountain lion escaping the fire and the response of her campus to sightings of various mountain lions. Although part of her point was the comparison of the responses, with editing, each story could also stand alone. If used together, her point about the difference between the responses works to reiterate the ways that the definition of home must move beyond physical ideas to the language and attitudes involved. In order to create kinship, empathy is necessary. Again, as in the first chapter, Propen's writing style was easy to understand and very relatable.
In her first interlude, Propen took a step back to consider the growing climate anxiety of the moment and her own sense of solastagia, a term created by philosopher Glenn Albrecht which combines nostalgia and desolation to encompass feelings of despair for home in both a physical and physiological sense. These interludes can stand alone as reflections on the alternating nature of the joyful gift of communion with the ecological moment and the anxiety derived from concern over the loss of aspects of that environment. Each interlude also served as a narrative reminder of the importance of place.
Each interlude was shorter than the surrounding chapters, and each served as a reminder of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Although the book would make the same point about home without the global pandemic, the quarantine provides a separation of humans and nature that stands apart as unique from the material that Propen gathered in her research for the book. There is also a clear sense that after the pandemic, the relationship of humans and animals will likely return to what it had been before the pandemic. The interludes were just that: brief pauses in the narrative to consider. In this case, Propen opted for an optimistic view over anxiety. As with the chapters, each interlude could also be read separately without losing the thread of the longer narrative.
Chapter 3 began with the story of P-22, a mountain lion who was tagged many years ago and resides in California's Griffith Park, which is surrounded by freeways. This story was anchored by Beth Pratt's (2016) TEDxYosemite talk, "How a Lonely Cougar in Los Angeles Inspired the World."
As director for the National Wildlife Federation in California, Pratt used images and narrative to challenge the persistent notion that wildlife cannot peacefully coexist in urban areas. Propen echoed these words arguing that this case is
in many ways a quintessential example of how entangled empathy can function in the public sphere, and how anthropomorphization, in specific contexts, and working in the positive, can play a role in fostering empathy and promoting a message of coexistence. (p. 91)
The story of P-22 led to a successful #SaveLACougars campaign to raise awareness about the more-than-human kin living among us.
This story provided a segue to the topic of wildlife corridors, a technology that would allow animals to cross above freeways in order to expand their home territories and migrate when necessary. While P-22 is now freeway-locked, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing at Liberty Canyon would provide a natural overpass for future wildlife to navigate the 101 Freeway.
Work on the crossing is underway and should be completed in 2025. Propen paired this technological breakthrough with the story of the Rainbow Bridge told by Alan Salazar of the Chumash people who are indigenous to this area. The Rainbow Bridge narrative exemplifies the care that Mother Earth takes to relocate the Chumash people when they become overcrowded. As part of the retelling, Salazar focused on the nature of kinship both during and after the relocation. As some of the Chumash are crossing the rainbow bridge, they fall into the water below and are transformed by Mother Earth into dolphins. Listen as Alan Salazar tells the story (2021).
As with previous chapters, this could be used as a standalone essay. The stories referenced in this particular chapter are also available visually, from the TEDxYosemite Talk on P-22, the cougar living in Griffith Park, to the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing to the story of creation told by Alan Salazar of the Chumash. Videos would be an excellent accompaniment to this reading. If you are looking for an application of this text to the classroom, this chapter stands out in terms of the visual ways that students could engage the material after reading the chapter.
In the second interlude, Propen acknowledged the on-going pandemic and resulting quarantine caused by the spread of COVID-19. Scientists and ecologists were just beginning to note and study the impact of the changes in human behavior, particularly in terms of travel, on the ecosystem and had coined the term "anthropause" to describe this infiltration of wildlife in what had been primarily human spaces. As a counterbalance to the solstagia of the first interlude, this essay found the response to the anthropause heartening as the ecosystem adjusts and regenerates quickly. Again, these interludes can be read independently of the longer narrative.
This second interlude, as in the first, relied heavily on Propen's biographical voice and sense of place. She was once again walking in Franceschi Park and taking specific note of the pandemic. She wrote:
While this book is not intended to be about the pandemic, per se, I have written much of it within the context of changing stay-at-home orders and the anxieties that now inform and have altered many of our daily routines and broader decision-making. As a result, the pandemic made its way into the introduction, and occasionally seeps into this book in ways that I would not have anticipated, even if I had tried. (p. 111)
This interlude would standalone as an essay on what happens when humans have their daily lives disrupted or on how quickly ecosystems can recover and thrive in even a short absence of humans and their usual travel. As Propen admitted, it was likely too soon to have all of the results of this period, so she offered only a glimpse.
Here, Propen looked at the black bears of Vermont's Green Mountain National Forest who have a reciprocal relationship with local beech trees which may be disturbed by the Deerfield Wind Energy Project. Large wind turbines have been placed in areas where the resulting wind could discourage black bears from approaching the beech trees. Propen wrote, "Part of a culture of reciprocity means understanding our own ethical responsibility to these vulnerable species as we embark on projects of human infrastructure, and as they seek safe passage through their home ranges and neighboring habitats" (pp. 25–26). The wind turbines which were originally placed to be a boon to the ecosystem seemed to be having unintended negative consequences.
This story was told using a specific black bear nicknamed "Stark" who was having his collar checked by a team of biologists with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and the US Forest Service. Each year, during hibernation, researchers sedate radio-collared bears and check their general health before returning them to their dens. Propen also drew heavily on the work of Benjamin Kilham and his book (2014) In the Company of Bears: What Black Bears Have Taught Me about Intelligence and Intuition. Largely based on his work in northern New Hampshire, Kilham has fostered cubs, which has resulted in greater access to the lives of bears as they grow into adulthood.
As in the other chapters, Propen wrote in such a way that this look at bears and their relationship to their ecosystem as tracked by humans could be excerpted and used as a standalone essay. Having a specific bear to track in the chapter provided a personal connection. As she has done throughout the text, Propen moved easily between her voice and the work of other writers, in this case Benjamin Kilham.
The book concluded with a reflection on how we can share these stories in order to celebrate this unique moment in redefining home within the anthropocene. In particular, Propen reflected on the curiosity of children as they encounter the natural world and their more-than-human kin. As the pandemic continued, Propen made a socially-distanced visit to see her brother and his family in northern Illinois. On a series of hikes with her nieces and nephew, Propen harnessed the curiosity of children to move between the smaller and larger pictures of this complicated ecosystem. She interweaved this chapter with the walk and comments from a variety of sources including the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Cape Cod Museum Trail, the Institute for American Indian Studies Museum and Research Center, and Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (2015).
This chapter read as a journal or memoir with separate entries or reflections framed by this walk with her family members. It is as if Propen made her larger point about the definition of home and kin by providing a window to members of her own family and the place that they call home. Longer quotes from the outside sources standalone in blocks that act as expert voices on the topography. Here, Propen was the visitor listening to these voices rather than summarizing them within her own narrative. Setting these sections off with circles marked them visually for the reader as well. This chapter would be an interesting excerpt for a composition course or study on style. Is the separation of voices successful? Why did Propen make the choice to set off these longer quotes? Her final words on entangled empathy open the door for additional research.
One of the many strengths of At Home in the Anthropocene is its wide appeal to a broad audience. Graduate students will find the text does not rely on a great deal of prior knowledge, but the notes provided for each chapter and the bibliography contain a wealth of sources for additional learning. Early career scholars will sense an invitation to a growing field and the oppotunity to connect, not only with Propen, but with her colleagues. Throughout the text, Propen emphasized reciprocity with nature, including the way that the pandemic provided a welcome pause for humans to reconsider their relationship to the natural world, but this reciprocity could also be applied to the way that she made space within her discussion for students, career academics, and interested members from the general public. For seasoned academic readers, this text brings together earlier scholarship while deepening the conversation around definitions and modes of thinking. Finally, a general audience would also be interested in this work. Propen brought her personal voice to the text and warmed many of her stories with vivid descriptions of her encounters with nature. By incorporating news stories and inviting readers to look up accompanying video footage online, Propen grounded the text in shared experience. Any reader seeking a narrative that explores the definition of home would find much to recommend in this book.
The text is structured around ecosystems that provide a working definition of home. As detailed above, the first of these chapters centered on temporary homes for rescued animals and the empathy created in the interaction between humans and animals. The second continued this theme by retelling the story of a home owner who temporarily allows a mountain lion to shelter in her home during a fire. In the third chapter, Propen stepped back to the broader idea of wildlife corridors which would manage human interactions with migrating animals. In chapter 4, the human and animal interaction centered on bears who are being tracked. In the interludes and the final chapter, Propen reminded the audience of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the ecosystem. While the book would not have been significantly different without the pandemic, the pause in human life caused by quarantine allowed many of the suppositions of Propen's research to be tested. Within the structure of the book, each interlude is a reminder of the human author and her entangled empathy with her subjects.
With its interdisciplinary nature, the text also invites scholars from a variety of fields. Propen's graduate work at the University of Minnesota was in Rhetoric and Scientific & Technical Communication, so while the subject of this book would interest those in the fields of sustainability, wildlife biology, zoology, ecology, and forestry, it would also work well in rhetorical and writing seminars. In her blurb on the back cover, Emily Plec notes, "With its informative, accessible prose, it is suitable to general readers interested in the environment and sustainability as well as graduate seminar students." The text would also be very easy to excerpt for general readings in an undergraduate course, such as a composition course, botany, or zoology. In reading the text, I was struck by the standalone nature of each chapter, along with the independence of the interludes. At Home in the Anthropocene is not only informative, but exemplifies the sort of conversational narrative voice that draws readers into complicated philosophical discussions.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. (2015). Stone: An ecology of the inhuman. U of Minnesota Press.
Cougar Conservancy. (2020, September 21). Liberty Canyon wildlife crossing [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPS5NPF5Flw
Gruen, Lori. (2015). Entangled empathy: An alternative ethic for our relationships with animals. Lantern Books.
Ingold, Tim. (2011). Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description. Routledge.
KHQ News. (2018, July 5). Cat nap: Woman finds mountain lion sleeping behind couch. Retrieved from https://www.khq.com/news/cat-nap-woman-finds-mountain-lion-sleeping-behind-couch/article_3f706d43-4bc8-599a-abb8-ab4d7fb1a5c3.html.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kilham, Benjamin. (2014). In the company of bears: What black bears have taught me about intelligence and intuition. Chelsea Green Publishing.
Propen, Amy D. (2022). At home in the anthropocene. Ohio State University Press.
Propen, Amy D. (2018). Visualizing posthuman conservation in the age of the anthropocene. Ohio State University Press.
P-22 The Mountain Lion. (2021, November 3). P-22 Presents . . . Indigenous voices with Alan Salazar [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88qZRSvM0mU.
Roam the 805. (2023, January 17). Santa Barbara's secret riviera pathways [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwkNmKSiLrU.
TEDx. (2016, February 22). How a lonely cougar in Los Angeles inspired the world | Beth Pratt [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMO8-f70nFY.