Dirt Theory and Material Ecocriticism

This essay speaks for dirty aesthetics. Although aesthetic landscapes readily inspire environmental thinking, a case can be made for grappling with the truly local dirty matter right at hand. Dirt, soil, earth, and dust surround us at all scales: we find them on our shoes, bodies, and computer screens; in fields and forests, and floating in the air. They are the stuff of geological structures, of the rocky Earth itself, and are mobile like our bodies. When “green thinking” neglects the less glamorous and less colorful components of dirt in both the built environment and other landscapes, it risks contributing to the dichotomy dividing our material surroundings into a place of “pure, clean nature” and the dirty human sphere. After all, we live on Earth, are dependent on earth and soil for most of our sustenance, and are surrounded by dust. This dust emerges from our bodies, the particulate matter of air pollution, the stuff in buildings, and the desiccated landscapes of a warming world. Dirty nature is always with us as part of ongoing interactions among all kinds of material agents, and thus is, in other words, more process than place. I propose “dirt theory” as an antidote to nostalgic views rendering nature a far-away and “clean” site precisely in order to suggest that there is no ultimate boundary between us and nature. We are enmeshed within dirt in its many forms. Looking at dirty nature allows a close-up and human-scale view of the environment, yet one that is inevitably interconnected with broader views, too.