Black Swan Song: Life and Work of a Wetland Writer

Combining memoir and studies in the Environmental Humanities, Black Swan Song weaves together an autobiographically-based account of the unique life and work of Rod Giblett. For over 25 years he was a leading local wetland conservationist, environmental activist, and pioneer transdisciplinary researcher and writer of fiction and non-fiction. He has researched, written, and published more than 25 books in the environmental humanities, especially wetland cultural studies, and psychoanalytic ecology. Black Swan Song traces Rod’s early and later life and work from being born in Borneo as the child of Christian missionaries, through his childhood in Bible College, being a High School dropout and studying at three universities to becoming an academic, activist and author, and now a writer. Following in the footsteps of New Lives of the Saints: Twelve Environmental Apostles, Black Swan Song also comprises conversations in conservation counter-theology between the twelve minor biblical prophets and twelve environmental apostles, such as Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, and Rachel Carson. It also introduces the lives and works of twelve more environmental apostles, such as John Clare, Rebecca Solnit, John Charles Ryan, and others who have made a valuable contribution to green thinking and living. Black Swan Song mixes modes and genres, such as memoir, essay, story, criticism, etc., making up the writer’s black swan song. It provides ways of living and being with the earth in dark and troubled times by providing resources of a journey of hope for learning to live bio- and psycho-symbiotic livelihoods in bioregional home habitats of the living earth and in the Symbiocene, the hoped-for age superseding the Anthropocene.

Table of Contents:
Preface I: Early to Later Life and Work Born in Borneo Brought up in Bible College Shaped by Place and Work Some Teachers Who Taught Me Something A Most Homely House and Habitat The Nexus: A Pro-Symbiotic, Anti-Fascist Ecology of Education Farewell to Forrestdale Climbing the Family Trees My Thoreauvian Pilgrimage Closing the Circles The Way of Taoism The Writer’s Life The Writer’s Desk Wading out of Wetlands The Blue Angel and the Mountain Dragon Up the Inner Passage Tanked Streamed: A Tale of Illness, a Tale of Woe II: Conversations in Conservation Counter-Theology: Twelve Minor Biblical Prophets and Twelve Major Environmental Apostles Hosea and Paul Virilio, the Patron Saint of Grey Ecology Joel and Rachel Carson, the Patron Saint of American Conservation Amos and Aldo Leopold, the Patron Saint of Marshes Obadiah and Judith Wright, the Patron Saint of Australian Conservation Jonah and St Margaret, the Patron Saint of Marshy Motherhood Micah and St George, the Patron Saint of England Nahum and Raymond Williams, the Patron Saint of Ecocultural Studies Habakkuk and St Francis, the Patron Saint of the Earth Zephaniahand Seamus Heaney, the Patron Saint of Bogs Haggaiand Henry David Thoreau, the Patron Saint of Swamps Zechariah and Walter Benjamin, the Patron Saint of Cultural Studies Malachi and John Muir, the Patron Saint of National Parks III: More New Saints: Twelve Minor Environmental Apostles John Clare: The Patron Saint of the Fens Walt Whitman: The Singer of the Song of the Earth Richard Jefferies: The Patron Saint of Being at Home on the Earth H. P. Lovecraft: American Singer of the Song of the Bog Lord Dunsany: The Singer of the Song of the Bog Albert Howard: The Patron Saint of Soil Conservation Elyne Mitchell: The Patron Saint of Australian Soil Conservation Felix Guattari: The Patron Saint of Third Ecology Rebecca Solnit: The Patron Saint of Progressive Politics Glenn Albrecht: The Patron Saint of the Symbiocene John Charles Ryan: The Patron Saint of Plants Charles Massy: The Patron Saint of Regenerative Farming Further Reading/Other Books and Book Chapters by Rod Giblett Bibliography Index About the Author

About the Author :
Rod Giblett is Honorary Associate Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Writing and Literature Program of the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University.