Living coal : Robert Boyle, John Holland, and the bodily passages of chimney sweep literature, 1684-1824

This project attends to a body of literature that registers the extraordinary and tragic effects of chimneys infused with living coal upon young chimney sweeps. In so doing, I show how writers, especially John Holland, registered the dynamic interrelationship between chimney sweeps, chimneys and coal as bodily passages. To assist our imagining of these bodily passages, I adapt Edward Casey’s logic of place and Stacy Alaimo’s concept of “transcorporeality” in order to make sense of the material exchange between the child-sweeps and the lively matter of and within the chimneys. Together, place-thinking and transcorporeality help us see the way in which dwelling within toxic places might involve processes of what Rob Nixon has called “slow violence,” a violence often culminating in the spectacular erasure of bodies. In turn, I hope to contribute to a fuller understanding of what it means to live firmly emplaced in the environment in which we dwell.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

The University of Texas at Austin

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Goheen, Jeremy Cameron

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Moore, Lisa L. (Lisa Lynne)

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Baker, Samuel

• Chimney sweepers
• Chimney sweep literature
• John Holland
• Robert Boyle
• Logic of place
• Transcorporeality
• Eighteenth-century literature
• Nineteenth-century literature
• Science
• Living coal
• Bodily passages
• Young chimney sweeps in literature
• Chimney sweep health in literature
• Dwelling in toxic places
• Dwelling places
• Slow violence
• Bodily erasure

Language dc:language.iso

en

Identifier

doi:10.15781/T2N873H5R

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/65991