Social Justice Commons^™

What The Gorilla Saw: Environmental Studies And The Novel Ishmael, Ian Drake

Department of Political Science and Law Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The novel Ishmael, a late twentieth-century text, demonstrates how fiction can provide philosophical, political, and moral commentary on humanity's interaction with the environment. Daniel Quinn's 1992 novel offers an example of discourse on environmental ethics and its utility as a way of engaging college students in the study of environmental issues. Ishmael reflected and proposed to address some of the fears of environmental degradation and was the recipient of the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, which was a one-time award providing a $500,000 prize (McDowell).1Ishmael was generally favorably reviewed in major print media, including The New York Times and Los …