SOURCE: Armbruster, Karla. “‘Buffalo Gals Won't You Come out Tonight’: A Call for Boundary-Crossing in Ecofeminist Literary Criticism.” In Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy, edited by Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy, pp. 97-122. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Armbruster considers the state of ecofeminist literary criticism and offers a poststructuralist ecofeminist reading of Le Guin's “Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come out Tonight.”

The developing field of ecofeminism has recently produced an impressive array of anthologies, special issues of journals, and articles devoted to exploring and explaining the field's history and potential.¹ The differing and sometimes contradictory approaches represented within this growing body of ecofeminist literature make clear that ecofeminism is a constantly changing field that has evolved from a diverse background, including not only ecology and feminism but also socialism, philosophy, women's spirituality, and grassroots political activism.² While the heterogeneous and dynamic...