Somewhere Like Here but Better
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This dissertation pairs a critical introduction with a book-length collection of creative nonfiction. The introduction applies auto theory to the American road essay, examining how Joan Didion and Alice Walker navigate identity, subjectivity, and ecological attention through the episodic forms of their essays. The creative nonfiction essay collection mixes personal experience with cultural criticism and historical research to explore the human drives towards transcendence and belonging, which can be at odds with one another. Drawing unexpected parallels between the historical and the contemporary, or between literature and pop culture, two anchoring essays mine connections between subjects as disparate as sublimity and the band Sublime, and between contemporary roadside kitsch and the long, violent roads of colonization. Additional essays catalogue lilacs across personal and poetic landscapes, map backyard ecologies over 19th century Concord (Massachusetts) viticulture, and consult docents, psychics, and archives to uncover the real story behind a Vermont castle-builder. This collection also considers the way addiction's highs and lows reverberate far beyond those directly struggling with it. Ultimately, Somewhere Like Here but Better concerns itself with the quest for home and the pursuit of experiences beyond expression.
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Ph. D.