Beginnings




The relationship between literature and the outdoors is one that is both integral and often taken for granted. Setting is a given in 99% of texts yet, whilst forming the concrete foundations of the worlds that our favourite and most hated characters move within, the specific role and influence of a text's landscape is rarely unpacked. Rarer still is the thought given to the more "mundane" and everyday landscapes our natural world provides rather than those of science fiction, or history. Although some texts identifiably set out with the intention to revere and praise the natural world, we think less about those in which nature takes on a less central role and is simply "there". However, nature nonetheless shapes and informs any text that it is a feature of. 

I will be conducting research this summer, funded by the Laidlaw Foundation, which will seek to explore some of this. This blog will be dedicated to my research, which examines concurrent themes of nature and isolation, and articles of general interest that explore how we can make impactful links between literature and love for the outdoors. 

Before I delve start delving too deeply into all this and bore everyone to death, however, I thought it would be better to make some introductions and answer some questions:  

Who am I? 

I'm Mia! I'm going on 20, and am a student at the University of Leeds studying English Literature and Art History. I love reading, art, walking, swimming, running and the outdoors. I've recently been selected as one of the University of Leeds' Laidlaw Scholars, which is where all this research and the blog is stemming from! You can find out more about the Laidlaw programme here: https://laidlawfoundation.com/undergraduate-scholars/


What's the point in this blog? 

The point in this blog is to help track my summer research and put out general articles that promote literature as a tool to understand nature. Therefore, content will largely be split into these two camps: more academic, critical information for the record and more engaging and fun stuff. The second year of this scholarship focuses specifically on applying the skills and knowledge I have acquired into real-world action and impact - and this blog aims to also be a springboard for that. 

What's my summer research all about? 

For my Laidlaw Scholarship I am developing a full research project under the title of "Nature as Rejuvenation in Literary Depictions of Isolation Past and Present." My research will address how nature both positively and negatively shapes characters' psychological responses to isolation in 20th century and contemporary literature. The four texts my research will focus on are The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911), Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (1938), Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966) and Normal People by Sally Rooney (2018). I'm looking forward to learning more about these texts and engaging more with literary criticism such as ecocriticism, feminism, and that which addresses the representation of mental health. You can find out a bit more about my research here: https://laidlawscholars.network/posts/laidlaw-research-proposal


What other content will there be? 

Another aim of this blog is to encourage exploration of the links between literature and nature. Other content on this blog will be fun and mainly just be devoted to a love of reading/ the outdoors/ both. I think tools like BookTube, Bookstagram and BookTok have been so vital for engaging readers in a more digitized era and I hope this blog will feed into that. I've also set up an Instagram to go with the blog - instagram.com/outdoorfiction - where I will also be posting fun stuff that hopefully isn't too laden with bulky and off-putting academia. 

I hope this has been broadly informative. I look forward to putting out lots of content over the next couple of months as I get cracking on my project and the next two years of this exciting programme! 

Mia :) 

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