Good morning everyone!

Today we are going to talk about the essay called ‘Ancestral structures
on the trailing edge’ by Lauret Edith Savoy. Д First of all, we are going to make an introduction,
then the resume of the essay and the conclusion. Д Д The essay was published in The
Emergence Magazine which was created in 2018. The Emergence Magazine is an award-winning
and independent magazine as well as a creative production studio. Its main fields of exploration
are ecology, culture and spirituality. This magazine voices ecological concerns in the context of a
changing environment and explores the connection between human-beings and the Earth.
Volume 4 of the magazine is focused on “Shifting Landscapes”, of which the article under study
is part. “Shifting Landscapes” consists in an immersive project that will be held in London in
December 2023. Basically, the audience is invited to develop a sensorial approach so as to
experience the music of birdsong, the migration of microbes, the sounds of silence and the
breath of a rainforest. Д
The author of the essay, Lauret Edith Savoy, is a professor of environmental studies and geology
at Mount Holyoke College. She created her own definition “understanding Earth” and she is a
Fellow of the Geological Society of America that shows her keen interest in geology. She is also a
writer, photographer and pilot. Lauret Savoy is the author of Trace: Memory, History, Race, and
the American Landscape, winner of the American Book Award and the ASLE Creative Writing
Award. Д
Lauret Edith Savoy’s life and work draw from her need to put the eroded world into language, to
re–member fragmented pasts into present. A woman of African American, Euro-American, and
Native American heritage, she explores the stories we tell of the American land’s origins—and
the stories we tell of ourselves in this land. For her, writing of the complex intertwining of
natural and cultural histories is a way of seeking home among the ruins and shards that
surround us all. The work is as necessary as breath. Д
In her essay, Lauret Edith Savoy tries to reconcile the geology and history of the Chesapeake
region with her own family/personal inheritances. I quote: “Perhaps, too, it might help me
locate myself within many inheritances—as a descendant, as a Black woman, as a geologist-
writer, as a citizen of this nation and of Earth.” But the conclusion is unclear. The essay doesn’t
have a clear end, and the answers are less clear than the questions she asks. Д
The essay is also about overcoming the trauma as the author needs to put the eroded world
into language, to re–member fragmented pasts into present. And the spelling of re–member
here is quite interesting. It is not one word. She is weaving together the personal and the
national, the historical and the geographical, the human and the environmental, nature and
culture. Д
We are moving to the resume of the essay. The essay has a very poetic opening. Savoy’s double
competence of writer and geologist is quite patent here. The text’s settings in the essay are very
important because they constitute it, and they play a big role in it, so it is interesting that she
chose to start her article by this view of the still landscape at night, just before dawn. It is a
special moment where life seems suspended, between night and day, last quiet moment of the
night, before day breathes in buzz and movement again.
In her essay, Savoy is focusing on Chesapeake region in America. There is an idea that the
region has been shaped both geographically (landscape and tectonic movements) and socially
(colonization and race issues). That is why the author uses the words as “convergent forces”.

By describing the environment right before the sun rises, Savoy is overlooking perspective on
the coast. She adopts the posture of an onlooker. And the description of the environment itself
is very sensory (touch, sight). Д

There is also the sense of timelessness in the essay. Chesapeake appears as an ancestral
environment: it has been there since the beginning of the earth almost. I quote: ‘Contorted
gneiss, cold to the touch, its grains and fabric expose a small window to Earth’s past. Ancient
roots of mountains that formed kilometers underground now lie high on the Blue Ridge’.

We could also see the contrast between the seeming peacefulness of the place and the
underlying violence it has encompassed. Savoy first mentions the environmental violence that
affected Chesapeake back in the pre-historic times: in fact, tectonic movements made the
supercontinent Pangaea break into various pieces of land 200 million years ago. This division
gave birth to mountain ranges and oceans, such as the Atlantic Ocean for example, and
simultaneously obliterated other areas. Also, the process of erosion and weathering also
contributed to altering the environment. Chesapeake was therefore informed by all these
geologic changes, movements and collisions: “Vestiges of repeated geologic collision, rupture,
and erosion fill this broad Chesapeake-Appalachian terrain”. But there was not only geologic
“erosion”, but also human one. Д

Our impressions
-Very poetic text, which links writing and geography (specifically geology) → creates a very lively
composition, even more so because a recording of Lauret Savoy reading her own text is
available on the website. It is very interesting to hear her own reading of the text, and it made
us pay closer attention to the words, because it is quite slow and calm.

-Quoting various specialists (geologists, historians) throughout the article = impression of a well-
grounded, well-documented article.

-1st person narration: sense of realism + a kind of testimony, very personal approach.