Eco-Performance, Art, and Spatial Justice in the US

Courtney B. Ryan is a Lecturer in the Program in Writing and Critical Inquiry, University at Albany, SUNY, USA.

• Introduction: Toward a Spatialized Eco-Performance 1. In a Plant Time and Place: Plant Art in the City 2. "I Speak to Him of Seeds": Centering Black Experiences of Green Space 3. "Plant Some Shit": Guerrilla Gardening as Tactical Performance 4. "Touch the Water": Performing the Los Angeles River 5. Performing Ecological Irresolution in the 2010 BP Oil Spill

"Courtney B. Ryan’s piercing insights transform our relatedness to the everyday spaces around us, opening new understandings about how inequity is embedded into spatial relations, and how performance can partner with places both verdant and vulnerable to expose injustices and renew connections. Eloquent, passionate and particular, this book is a must read for those who seek to balance justice, beauty, and resilience through the arts. An important addition to ecodramaturgy and ecocriticism and the ways that place and privilege are intertwined."Theresa May, author of Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology, Environment and American Theater (Routledge, 2021), Professor, University of Oregon, USA"This is a fascinating, interdisciplinary study of how the control of the human and more-than-human world is spatially performed and resisted both 'in the dirt' of American backyards and 'online' in our Twitter feeds. Indeed, one of the pleasures of this book lies in the diversity of performances that Courtney B. Ryan assembles into a new archive of national acts of resistance to the logic of extraction driving climate change. She demonstrates that the often 'numbing' experience of the Anthropocene and climate change may be understood, addressed, and resisted through small, everyday acts. Ryan’s engaging voice and the new cast of eco-performers she identifies are most welcome contributions to research in the environmental humanities." Alicia Carroll, Professor of English, Auburn University, USA