Trees, Ecophilia, & Ecophobia: A Look at Arboriculture along the Front Range Cities of Colorado

Abstract

This essay is an ecocritical exploration of arboriculture, but it hovers within borderlands, or rather, biotones of theory (ecocriticsm) and praxis (pruning trees in an urban space), scholarly and creative non-fiction, image and text. It exposes the tension between ecophilia and ecophobia in an urban context, and moreover confronts the complex irrationality of planting trees (out of love) in the grasslands (out of an aversion to such an expansive biome). It aims to bring these ideas to the reader--and the reader to these ideas--through presenting a locus of intellectual and emotive energy.