The Grassling : A Geological Memoir
- Submitting institution
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University of Northumbria at Newcastle
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 29507862
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Penguin
- ISBN
- 9780241374122
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- March
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- The Grassling’s multi-modal research methodology necessitated a long period of research across different disciplines. Studies in geology, soil science, linguistics, local history and topography were combined with personal immersive, performative encounters with landscape to produce a uniquely engaging form of nature writing. Topographical aspects required archival research, local history necessitated interviews with elderly residents in remote locations and soil science and geology strands required interviews with scientists. Specific fields were visited over several years to study the soil both creatively and scientifically and make tangible the environmental issue of soil health. An over-arching narrative brought these elements together through memoir.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Grassling: A Geological Memoir responds to the key research question: how might creative writing play a part in mitigating climate change? Through a local and personal story, The Grassling makes accessible a wider, crucial and topical environmental issue: the severely threatened health of the soil. This challenge is at the forefront of government policy, with Michael Gove warning that the UK is 30 years away from fundamental eradication of soil fertility.
Innovative in form, this first creative “geological memoir” explores a landscape scientifically and creatively, as geology and soil science is considered alongside the author’s family history and immersive, performative actions in the landscape – such as soil tasting. This blended mode of enquiry connects readers uniquely to the soil, as Smith notes in The Guardian, “The Grassling brings the sounds, smells and sights of the countryside alive like few other books” (2019).
Linguistically innovative, the book’s methodology includes the first use of nematode linguistics together with bioacoustic studies to convey non-human voices. Typographical choices simulate linguistic patterns of worms in a ‘soil voice,’ providing new insight into the sounds of the soil, while tree and grass voices are informed by bioacoustic studies into plant communication.
The author’s focus on race through its mixed-race narrator also challenges notions of belonging in rural England. In a market “colonised” (Jamie, 2019) by white male writers, it brings new diversity to the field of nature writing. Dissemination has been wide-ranging: it won Penguin Random House’s 2017 WriteNow award, has been widely reviewed (Countryfile, Country Living, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times Literary Supplement) and has been discussed on radio (Radio 3, 2017, 2018, 2020), in a Guardian podcast (Armistead and Lea, 2019), a practice-led article (Burnett and Thomas, 2019), a Wellcome Trust/BALTIC gallery podcast (2020) and a Literary Encyclopedia entry (Cousins, 2020).
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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