An Interview with Falmouth Lecturer Amy Greenhough
FalWriting: Were you involved in the creation of the module or was it something you took on? I guess what we're asking is did you get to create the module content, or was it prescribed by the university?
Amy Greenhough: As a team we decided what the modules would look like when we did the revamp of the course (titles, topics covered, etc). Then later I created the module as you see it now. So the texts and the topics covered are all chosen by me - which is such a fun thing to do, but with this module it was very hard to narrow down!
FalWriting: If you had a hand in creating the module, what was your motivation?
Amy Greenhough: That’s a good question. I think I wanted to disrupt, as much as possible, the concept of the Human and the security that concept gives us. To get students to think about the boundaries between humanity and ‘everything else’ and the possibilities for their own writing when they break out of the boxes that we just accept as ’natural’ or ‘fact’.
FalWriting: A big part of the module is discussing the Anthropocene as a geological age. How important do you regard this discussion within the conversation around environmental issues?
Amy Greenhough: It feels important to me as a framing device to think about our impact on the planet as not just individuals but as part of a broader, historical shift. But I also recognise that it has limitations from an individual perspective and can feel overwhelming. I suppose I think on some level that because environmental issues aren’t going away, the more we can face our impact and sit with the discomfort of it, the better equipped we might be to deal with the consequences of that impact.
FalWriting: Which is your favourite text within the module? And why?
Amy Greenhough: I love OKJA, and I really like Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem. I’m also a big fan of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. This is a hard question! I tried to choose texts that make us confront ideas we might not usually confront, and those texts all do that in interesting ways. OKJA is such a powerful film, and I love discussing where that power lies and whether it translates into action.
FalWriting: Are there other texts you consider important in this context and that you wish you could have included in the module?
Amy Greenhough: So many! Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind very nearly made the cut - I love the way it looks at memory and it’s also interesting as a kind of quantum fiction. I also wanted to include Ali Smith’s How to Be Both because it’s got some amazing DNA/dualism stuff going on and I love that it starts in two different ways, depending on which copy you pick up.
FalWriting: Your speciality is the use of fairy tale in contemporary fiction. In your opinion, how can fairy tales be used to make a comment on environmental issues?
Amy Greenhough: One of the things I’ve always found so interesting about fairy tales is the way they exist in a kind of social, shared consciousness, so they often dwell in the recesses of people’s minds, which is, I think, why they don’t stop being popular, because even in the terrible remakes of fairy tales people feel a sense of nostalgia or connection to something they used to know. So I think they have a lot of power in that way. They have also historically enabled societies to perpetuate ideals about behaviour and morals, and so I wonder if we can reimagine those narratives today to tell stories about nature (which is a dominant theme in many fairy and folktales) that reflect more positive morals and behaviours towards the earth and the creatures that live in and on it. Perhaps societies could take on those lessons in the way they took on other ideas that were naturalised by fairy tales, such as the passivity of women.
Fairy and folklore have always depicted nature and animals in anthropomorphic terms, but the anthropomorphism does offer the potential to see the natural world as being alive - full of vitality - and that feels like something we could embrace more, the sense that the world around us is alive in ways that we, in the West specifically, may not have been encouraged to see or experience.
FalWriting: What's your take on the separation of humans and nature, and how we can dismantle it in our writing?
Amy Greenhough: I think we dismantle things like the separation of humans and nature in our writing firstly by dismantling the separation - as much as possible - in our own lives. By paying attention to the world that exists outside our normal frame of reference - insects, stars, etc. Taking the time to sit and think about our relationship to the nonhuman world feels like a great start, but thinking alone can only do so much, we also have to experience nature and nonhuman beings and (where possible) actively engage with them too in order to experience what connectivity can bring us, which is so clearly much more than separation ever can. Taking time for that isn’t always easy, with our screens and our lists of things to do, but it feels to me like the only way to dismantle anything. Narratives around environmentalism can be driven by fear, but I find myself much more affected by the idea that we are losing the joy of nature and therefore losing something in ourselves when we watch biodiversity plummet, and it’s hard to fully appreciate that joy if you aren’t aware of its existence.
Edited by FalWriting