Overview
Laura first joined the department as Lecturer in Human Geography between 2013 and 2016, and returned in January 2018. Before joining Exeter Geography in 2013, she was Lecturer in Human Geography at Oxford Brookes University. Laura received her Ph.D., Masters, and undergraduate degrees from the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University.
Laura is a cultural and historical geographer specializing in ecological restoration, environmental history, and 19th and 20th century American literature. She is interested in the intersections between the American nature writing tradition and ecological restoration policy and practice—especially the history and evolution of an ecological restoration sensibility in American nature writing, and how nature writing from across the 19th and 20th centuries has come to take hold as a practice and ideology in mid-20th century and early-21st century ecological restoration programs.
Broad research specialisms:
Ecological restoration and restoration ecology
Rewilding
Environmental history
Environmental humanities
Literary geographies
Nature writing and ecocriticism
C19th and C20th American literature
Wilderness
Theological ethics
Qualifications
Ph.D. City and Regional Planning (Cardiff University, 2010)
M.Sc. Social Science Research Methods (Cardiff University, 2005)
B.Sc. (Hons.) Geography (Human) and Planning (Cardiff University, 2004)
Research
Research interests
Laura is a member of the department’s Cultural and Historical Geographies and Life Geographies Research Groups, and the ECLIPSE Environmental Humanities Reading Group. Her research focuses on themes of:
Ecological Restoration
Laura’s research considers the moral, ethical, theological, and emotive languages that are used to articulate ecological restoration issues and value, specifically the idea of ecological redemption. She is especially interested in the use of redemption motifs in ecological restoration policy.
C19th and C20th American Literature
Laura is interested in the landscapes that have come to be associated with U.S. writers, and how these writers and their works might contribute to wider debates on ecological restoration practice and policy. Her research explores this interplay within the context of environmental organizations with a literary connection to the land.
Research projects
Book Project
2017-2020, under contract – Ecological Restoration and the U.S. Nature and Environmental Writing Tradition: A Rewilding of American Letters. Palgrave Macmillan.
Conference, Symposium, and Workshop Presentations
I. Organising Committee
2019 – Co-emergence, Co-creation, Co-existence, ASLE-UKI Biennial Conference, co-organised with Dr. Mandy Bloomfield, Dr. Evelyn O'Malley, Dr. Camilla Bostock, Dr. Jude Allen, Eva McGrath, Dr. Ben Smith, Sam Kemp, Rosie Corlett, and Dr. David Sargeant, University of Plymouth, September 2019
Chair, Survival in Paradise and Global Heating and Rising Waters sessions
II. Session Convenor
2015 – Ecological Restoration in the Anthropocene session co-organised with Dr. Jonathan Prior, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, University of Exeter, September 2015 Abstract
III. Presentations
2018 – ‘“How little there is on an ordinary map!” Beyond Henry David Thoreau's 1846 Survey of Walden Pond.’ Geohumanities, Literary Cultures, and New Landscapes of Cartography II session, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Cardiff University, August 2018 Abstract
2016 – ‘The Once and Future Glen: Southwestern Writers on the Promise of a “Glen Canyon Restored.”’ Moralities of Drought session, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, March 2016 Abstract
2015 – ‘Anticipate Redemption: Theo-Ethical Entanglements in Glen Canyon Restoration.’ Ecological Restoration in the Anthropocene session, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, University of Exeter, September 2015 Abstract
2012 – ‘Seeking Absolution in Restored Nature: Towards an Ethic of Ecological Redemption.’ Ecological Restoration session, Environmental Ethics Initiative conference: Conservation, Restoration and Sustainability: A Call to Stewardship, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, November 2012
2008 – ‘The Geography of Environmental Restoration: Creating a Local Dialect of Nature.’ Environment Research Group event, School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, April 2008
2008 – ‘The Geography of Environmental Restoration: Creating a Local Dialect of Nature.’ Restoration Geographies I session, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, April 2008 Abstract
IV. Invited Talks and Sessions
2016 – ‘The Quiet Politics of Literature and Art in “Glen Canyon Restoration.”’ A Gentle Alertness to Geographies of the (Non)Human & (Ir)Responsibilities seminar, Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, June 2016
2016 – ‘Restor(y)ing the Desert: Ellen Meloy, Terry Tempest Williams, and Bearing Witness in Glen Canyon.’ Vibrant Localism symposium, Exeter Centre for the Literature of Identity, Place, and Sustainability, University of Exeter, June 2016
2016 – ‘Restor(y)ing the C19th Landscapes of Walden: What Would Thoreau Do?’ Garden–Landscape–Landscape-Garden: From 17th-18th Century Theories to Environmental Aesthetics. A Symposium, Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen, May 2016
2014 – Chair, Roundtable Discussion, Green Connections: Environmental Response and the Arts. An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Symposium. English, College of Humanities, University of Exeter, September 2014
Publications
Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year
Publications by category
Books
CHGRG ->, Sugg B, DeSilvey C, Cartwright C, Asker C, Freeman C, Curtis D, Harvey D, Ryfield F, Lucas G, et al (2020).
Academic Life in Lockdown Activity Book. San Francisco, Blurb.
Abstract:
Academic Life in Lockdown Activity Book
Abstract.
Journal articles
Smith L (In Press). The Quiet Politics and Gentle Literary Activism Behind the Battle for Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument.
AreaAbstract:
The Quiet Politics and Gentle Literary Activism Behind the Battle for Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument
In the closing weeks of his administration, President Obama used his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to designate the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah, a redrock landscape sacred to many Native American tribes. With the designation, Bears Ears became the second national monument in Utah—after Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated in 1996—where literature and the literary imagination had formed part of the arsenal of campaigners petitioning for the designation. This discussion looks to the works of writers across the American West who have spoken out in defense of Bears Ears (both pre- and post-designation), to consider the place of literature in environmental activism. In particular, this discussion examines how literary activism emerges as a creative yet gently subversive performance, allowing commentators to speak back to an ethics of (ecological) care, responsibility, and to respond to injustices at Bears Ears. Across these two national monuments, and three accompanying and pivotal anthologies, this discussion unpacks and interrogates an ongoing gentle political rhetoric and dialogue surrounding the Bears Ears national monument. But this quiet resilience has been disrupted, upended by the Trump administration’s review of more than two dozen national monument designations, which specifically targets Bears Ears, but also includes Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Abstract.
Full text.
Prior J, Smith L (2019). The Normativity of Ecological Restoration Reference Models: an Analysis of Carrifran Wildwood, Scotland, and Walden Woods, United States.
Ethics, Policy and Environment,
22(2), 214-233.
Abstract:
The Normativity of Ecological Restoration Reference Models: an Analysis of Carrifran Wildwood, Scotland, and Walden Woods, United States
In this article, we explore how ecological restoration reference models are produced and what work they do within an ecological restoration project. By tracing the genesis of two restoration reference models - at Carrifran Wildwood, Scotland, and Walden Woods, United States - we suggest that reference models are more than simply scientific-technical guidelines for restoration activities, and that they can be usefully conceptualised as normative visions of desired future ecosystem states, due to the range of values they are based upon. As a result, we challenge the widespread notion that reference models represent arbitrarily chosen moments in time.
Abstract.
Smith L (2018). The poetics of restoring glen canyon: the ‘desert imagination’ of ellen meloy and terry tempest williams.
Cultural Geographies,
25(4), 603-618.
Abstract:
The poetics of restoring glen canyon: the ‘desert imagination’ of ellen meloy and terry tempest williams
There has been a literary tradition supporting the restoration of Glen Canyon in southern Utah ever since construction began on Glen Canyon Dam in the late 1950s, and the canyons began to disappear behind the rising waters of Lake Powell. While some of Glen Canyon’s literary protagonists put forward a strong political and anarchical refrain for a ‘Glen Canyon restored’, this article considers those writers and texts that instead look to the power of appeals to emotion in defense of the desert. In particular, this article considers the evocative capacity of environmental writing to convey emotional and affective landscapes. This article examines the desert writings of Ellen Meloy and Terry Tempest Williams, and the ways in which they employ rhetoric, myth, story, motifs, metaphor, symbolism, and allegory to speak back to the environmental condition, and the ongoing call to restore Glen Canyon. Meloy’s and Williams’ works present individual testimonies molded by personal engagement, experience, and investigation in the desert – but also contribute to ecological and political discourse in the Glen.
Abstract.
Smith L (2018). What if Edward Abbey's “Monkey Wrench Gang” had Succeeded? the Ghosts of Glen Canyon Past, Present, and Future.
AntipodeAbstract:
What if Edward Abbey's “Monkey Wrench Gang” had Succeeded? the Ghosts of Glen Canyon Past, Present, and Future
Across the fiction and non‐fiction writings of Edward Abbey (1927–1989), the anticipated restoration of Glen Canyon on the Colorado River is a recurring theme. This article employs Abbey's polemic for the removal of Glen Canyon Dam to critique contemporary debates on dam decommissioning, water politics, and ecological restoration in Glen Canyon on the Utah–Arizona border. The endeavours (and fantasies) of Abbey's fictional quartet of eco‐saboteurs reveal his radical and anarchical imaginings on how to remove the dam, yet his non‐fiction works often suggest why Glen Canyon should be restored. The politicisation of Abbey's philosophy is explored through (1) organisational, institutional responses to the question of draining Lake Powell reservoir and decommissioning the dam, and (2) how the ideology of Abbey's fictional gang is recast—and plays out—in the actions of environmental activists. This article argues that Abbey remains an important voice in the battle to restore the Glen.
Abstract.
Smith L (2017). Henry David Thoreau, Walden Woods, and an Aesthetics of Garden. Journal of Scottish Thought, 9, 124-138.
Smith L (2016). Resurrection after the "Blue Death": Literature, politics, and ecological redemption at Glen Canyon. Western American Literature, 51(1), 39-69.
Smith L (2014). American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation. Ecological Restoration, 32(3), 338-339.
Smith L (2014). On the 'Emotionality' of Environmental Restoration: Narratives of Guilt, Restitution, Redemption and Hope.
Ethics, Policy and Environment,
17(3), 286-307.
Abstract:
On the 'Emotionality' of Environmental Restoration: Narratives of Guilt, Restitution, Redemption and Hope
This paper presents a moral–emotional critique of environmental restoration, through discussion of narratives of redemption. The importance of ‘redemption’ vis-a-vis other environmental discourses rests with its capacity to unpack how, why and in what circumstances the idea of ‘putting something back’ for nature exerts a hold on the popular imagination. This paper thus examines the ethical and emotional experiences bound up in restoration discourses, to identify the motives deployed to confront shame and an associated guilt, and achieve restitution. In turn, the paper also offers new insights into the value (and appreciation) of restored nature.
Abstract.
Smith L (2014). Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau I: from Literary Landscape to Politicized Landscape.
Ecological Restoration,
32(1), 78-85.
Abstract:
Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau I: from Literary Landscape to Politicized Landscape
Walden Woods, Massachusetts, U.S. is synonymous with environmentalism in North America, and yet in recent decades the area has had to confront its overlapping and sometimes contested literary, historical, ecological, cultural, and political representations. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the traditions underlying restoration in Walden Woods. In this study, I use the case of Walden to explore the claims and challenges that are made of restoring a landscape over time, and how landscapes are reconfigured to reflect those claims. I focus here on the generation and selection of restoration knowledges, and especially restoration knowledges as a reflection of prevailing social attitudes and wider political and ecological contexts. Restoration knowledge is bounded by the wider institutional setting at Walden, and is shaped by threat and response narratives, as well as by the strategic employment of the ‘idyll of Thoreau’ to limit the ‘wrong sort’ of landscape change. Framing restoration knowledges against the institutional context of Walden illustrates how changes to restoration practices have reflected changing thinking, changing stakeholders, and wider efforts to define what Walden is, and what it is for.
Abstract.
Smith L (2014). Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau II: a Recent Historical Tracing of Changing and Renegotiated Restoration Goals.
Ecological Restoration,
32(1), 86-95.
Abstract:
Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau II: a Recent Historical Tracing of Changing and Renegotiated Restoration Goals
Narratives of environmental restoration are subject to continual renegotiation and mediation by different groups and contexts. They are constrained by a combination of geo-political, socio-cultural, ecological, economic, legal, and moral-emotional influences. In this study, I focus on the case of Walden Woods (Massachusetts, U.S.) to provide empirical evidence of the evolution and historical portrayal of environmental restoration narratives, and the nature-society interaction and management of socio-ecological systems. Through a temporal examination of restoration narratives at Walden Woods, I provide evidence on the social mechanisms for restoration and the manifestations of ‘restored nature.’ the ‘who’, ‘where’, and degree of myth creation and selection (after Hall 2005) is critiqued to highlight changes and shifts in restoration practice. I compare changing restoration narratives across three sites in Walden Woods: 1) shoreline restoration at Walden Pond (1960s–1990s); 2) restoration of the former Town of Concord landfill (1990s–2000s); and 3) the creation of Thoreau’s Path on Brister’s Hill (2000s). Here, ‘what would Thoreau want?’ is a guiding restoration goal for practitioners. A key issue for this study is the limits to myth creation, grounded in the context and materiality of nature, and how it shapes practice.
Abstract.
Smith L (2013). Geographies of Environmental Restoration: a Human Geography Critique of Restored Nature. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38(2), 354-358.
(2005). Book review. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 7(1), 85-87.
Chapters
Smith L (2016). Writing (and Righting) the Desert Southwest: Literary Legacies and the Restoration of Glen Canyon. In Brannon W (Ed) Critical Insights: Southwestern Literature, Amenia, NY: Salem Press, 46-59.
Publications by year
In Press
Smith L (In Press). The Quiet Politics and Gentle Literary Activism Behind the Battle for Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument.
AreaAbstract:
The Quiet Politics and Gentle Literary Activism Behind the Battle for Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument
In the closing weeks of his administration, President Obama used his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to designate the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah, a redrock landscape sacred to many Native American tribes. With the designation, Bears Ears became the second national monument in Utah—after Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated in 1996—where literature and the literary imagination had formed part of the arsenal of campaigners petitioning for the designation. This discussion looks to the works of writers across the American West who have spoken out in defense of Bears Ears (both pre- and post-designation), to consider the place of literature in environmental activism. In particular, this discussion examines how literary activism emerges as a creative yet gently subversive performance, allowing commentators to speak back to an ethics of (ecological) care, responsibility, and to respond to injustices at Bears Ears. Across these two national monuments, and three accompanying and pivotal anthologies, this discussion unpacks and interrogates an ongoing gentle political rhetoric and dialogue surrounding the Bears Ears national monument. But this quiet resilience has been disrupted, upended by the Trump administration’s review of more than two dozen national monument designations, which specifically targets Bears Ears, but also includes Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Abstract.
Full text.
2020
CHGRG ->, Sugg B, DeSilvey C, Cartwright C, Asker C, Freeman C, Curtis D, Harvey D, Ryfield F, Lucas G, et al (2020).
Academic Life in Lockdown Activity Book. San Francisco, Blurb.
Abstract:
Academic Life in Lockdown Activity Book
Abstract.
2019
Prior J, Smith L (2019). The Normativity of Ecological Restoration Reference Models: an Analysis of Carrifran Wildwood, Scotland, and Walden Woods, United States.
Ethics, Policy and Environment,
22(2), 214-233.
Abstract:
The Normativity of Ecological Restoration Reference Models: an Analysis of Carrifran Wildwood, Scotland, and Walden Woods, United States
In this article, we explore how ecological restoration reference models are produced and what work they do within an ecological restoration project. By tracing the genesis of two restoration reference models - at Carrifran Wildwood, Scotland, and Walden Woods, United States - we suggest that reference models are more than simply scientific-technical guidelines for restoration activities, and that they can be usefully conceptualised as normative visions of desired future ecosystem states, due to the range of values they are based upon. As a result, we challenge the widespread notion that reference models represent arbitrarily chosen moments in time.
Abstract.
2018
Smith L (2018). The poetics of restoring glen canyon: the ‘desert imagination’ of ellen meloy and terry tempest williams.
Cultural Geographies,
25(4), 603-618.
Abstract:
The poetics of restoring glen canyon: the ‘desert imagination’ of ellen meloy and terry tempest williams
There has been a literary tradition supporting the restoration of Glen Canyon in southern Utah ever since construction began on Glen Canyon Dam in the late 1950s, and the canyons began to disappear behind the rising waters of Lake Powell. While some of Glen Canyon’s literary protagonists put forward a strong political and anarchical refrain for a ‘Glen Canyon restored’, this article considers those writers and texts that instead look to the power of appeals to emotion in defense of the desert. In particular, this article considers the evocative capacity of environmental writing to convey emotional and affective landscapes. This article examines the desert writings of Ellen Meloy and Terry Tempest Williams, and the ways in which they employ rhetoric, myth, story, motifs, metaphor, symbolism, and allegory to speak back to the environmental condition, and the ongoing call to restore Glen Canyon. Meloy’s and Williams’ works present individual testimonies molded by personal engagement, experience, and investigation in the desert – but also contribute to ecological and political discourse in the Glen.
Abstract.
Smith L (2018). What if Edward Abbey's “Monkey Wrench Gang” had Succeeded? the Ghosts of Glen Canyon Past, Present, and Future.
AntipodeAbstract:
What if Edward Abbey's “Monkey Wrench Gang” had Succeeded? the Ghosts of Glen Canyon Past, Present, and Future
Across the fiction and non‐fiction writings of Edward Abbey (1927–1989), the anticipated restoration of Glen Canyon on the Colorado River is a recurring theme. This article employs Abbey's polemic for the removal of Glen Canyon Dam to critique contemporary debates on dam decommissioning, water politics, and ecological restoration in Glen Canyon on the Utah–Arizona border. The endeavours (and fantasies) of Abbey's fictional quartet of eco‐saboteurs reveal his radical and anarchical imaginings on how to remove the dam, yet his non‐fiction works often suggest why Glen Canyon should be restored. The politicisation of Abbey's philosophy is explored through (1) organisational, institutional responses to the question of draining Lake Powell reservoir and decommissioning the dam, and (2) how the ideology of Abbey's fictional gang is recast—and plays out—in the actions of environmental activists. This article argues that Abbey remains an important voice in the battle to restore the Glen.
Abstract.
Smith L (2018). Wilderness in America: Philosophical Writings.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES,
27(6), 711-712.
Author URL.
2017
Smith L (2017). Henry David Thoreau, Walden Woods, and an Aesthetics of Garden. Journal of Scottish Thought, 9, 124-138.
2016
Smith L (2016). Resurrection after the "Blue Death": Literature, politics, and ecological redemption at Glen Canyon. Western American Literature, 51(1), 39-69.
Smith L (2016). Writing (and Righting) the Desert Southwest: Literary Legacies and the Restoration of Glen Canyon. In Brannon W (Ed) Critical Insights: Southwestern Literature, Amenia, NY: Salem Press, 46-59.
2015
Smith L (2015). Lakeshore Living: Designing Lake Places and Communities in the Footprints of Environmental Writers.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES,
24(3), 416-418.
Author URL.
2014
Smith L (2014). American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation. Ecological Restoration, 32(3), 338-339.
Smith L (2014). On the 'Emotionality' of Environmental Restoration: Narratives of Guilt, Restitution, Redemption and Hope.
Ethics, Policy and Environment,
17(3), 286-307.
Abstract:
On the 'Emotionality' of Environmental Restoration: Narratives of Guilt, Restitution, Redemption and Hope
This paper presents a moral–emotional critique of environmental restoration, through discussion of narratives of redemption. The importance of ‘redemption’ vis-a-vis other environmental discourses rests with its capacity to unpack how, why and in what circumstances the idea of ‘putting something back’ for nature exerts a hold on the popular imagination. This paper thus examines the ethical and emotional experiences bound up in restoration discourses, to identify the motives deployed to confront shame and an associated guilt, and achieve restitution. In turn, the paper also offers new insights into the value (and appreciation) of restored nature.
Abstract.
Smith L (2014). Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau I: from Literary Landscape to Politicized Landscape.
Ecological Restoration,
32(1), 78-85.
Abstract:
Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau I: from Literary Landscape to Politicized Landscape
Walden Woods, Massachusetts, U.S. is synonymous with environmentalism in North America, and yet in recent decades the area has had to confront its overlapping and sometimes contested literary, historical, ecological, cultural, and political representations. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the traditions underlying restoration in Walden Woods. In this study, I use the case of Walden to explore the claims and challenges that are made of restoring a landscape over time, and how landscapes are reconfigured to reflect those claims. I focus here on the generation and selection of restoration knowledges, and especially restoration knowledges as a reflection of prevailing social attitudes and wider political and ecological contexts. Restoration knowledge is bounded by the wider institutional setting at Walden, and is shaped by threat and response narratives, as well as by the strategic employment of the ‘idyll of Thoreau’ to limit the ‘wrong sort’ of landscape change. Framing restoration knowledges against the institutional context of Walden illustrates how changes to restoration practices have reflected changing thinking, changing stakeholders, and wider efforts to define what Walden is, and what it is for.
Abstract.
Smith L (2014). Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau II: a Recent Historical Tracing of Changing and Renegotiated Restoration Goals.
Ecological Restoration,
32(1), 86-95.
Abstract:
Restoring Walden Woods and the Idyll of Thoreau II: a Recent Historical Tracing of Changing and Renegotiated Restoration Goals
Narratives of environmental restoration are subject to continual renegotiation and mediation by different groups and contexts. They are constrained by a combination of geo-political, socio-cultural, ecological, economic, legal, and moral-emotional influences. In this study, I focus on the case of Walden Woods (Massachusetts, U.S.) to provide empirical evidence of the evolution and historical portrayal of environmental restoration narratives, and the nature-society interaction and management of socio-ecological systems. Through a temporal examination of restoration narratives at Walden Woods, I provide evidence on the social mechanisms for restoration and the manifestations of ‘restored nature.’ the ‘who’, ‘where’, and degree of myth creation and selection (after Hall 2005) is critiqued to highlight changes and shifts in restoration practice. I compare changing restoration narratives across three sites in Walden Woods: 1) shoreline restoration at Walden Pond (1960s–1990s); 2) restoration of the former Town of Concord landfill (1990s–2000s); and 3) the creation of Thoreau’s Path on Brister’s Hill (2000s). Here, ‘what would Thoreau want?’ is a guiding restoration goal for practitioners. A key issue for this study is the limits to myth creation, grounded in the context and materiality of nature, and how it shapes practice.
Abstract.
2013
Smith L (2013). Geographies of Environmental Restoration: a Human Geography Critique of Restored Nature. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38(2), 354-358.
2005
(2005). Book review. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 7(1), 85-87.
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