Aaron Goodman: Welcome to the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast. I'm Aaron Goodman, host and creator of the show. I'm a long time journalist, documentary maker, university instructor, and communication studies researcher. And I've also lived with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, or MCS, for years. MCS is also known as Chemical Intolerance and Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance, or TILT.
[00:00:26] Aaron Goodman: The illness affects millions around the world, and the number of people with MCS is rising just about everywhere. Living with MCS means dealing with a range of overlapping symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating, muscle and joint pain, headaches, eye irritation, confusion, memory loss, rashes, and more.
Trace amounts of chemicals and synthetic fragrances in household and personal care products can spark a cascade of debilitating symptoms. Finding accommodations can be very complicated.
[00:01:00] Aaron Goodman: Dismissed by healthcare providers, employers, and even loved ones, many feel misunderstood, isolated, and invisible. This podcast aims to change that. We delve into the latest research and speak with all kinds of people impacted by MCS. You'll gain important knowledge, a sense of validation, and learn about navigating the realities of MCS.
We also explore wider issues connected to toxic chemical pollution and how individuals are pushing back against it and the harms it causes.
[00:01:32] Aaron Goodman: In this episode, I'm speaking with Heather Hauser. Heather is a professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of the 2014 book, “Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction.”
[00:01:51] Aaron Goodman: Heather, thank you so much for joining me on the Chemical Sensitivity Podcast.
Heather Houser: Thanks for inviting me, Aaron. It's good to be here.
Aaron Goodman: Would you like to say a little bit more about yourself for listeners, please?
[00:02:00] Heather Houser: Yeah, sure. I study environmental issues from cultural perspectives.So looking at literature and film and visual culture and how they depict and try to respond to environmental issues, usually problems, unfortunately.
[00:02:17] Aaron Goodman: I always like to ask guests, is there a personal element or angle that drew you to this work in this field?
[00:02:24] Heather Houser: Yes, the personal definitely informed my choice of work and the trajectory of my work. Way back when I was a graduate student, I was trying to decide what to do a dissertation on and looking at projects that would take me in somewhat different directions. And I decided to work on environmental themes because it was something I cared about in my personal life.
[00:02:47] Heather Houser: I grew up, my mother had a lot of health issues my entire life from my very young age and her relatively young age. And so I think that was there in my mind too, like wanting to learn more about what illness, disease, sickness, what they mean, how they're studied, how people experience them, and how literature then represents these issues.
[00:03:14] Aaron Goodman: Do you think your mother was living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, chemical intolerance or other environmental illness?
[00:03:22] Heather Houser: No, she actually had a very unexpected heart attack at a young age that set off a cascade of issues leading to kidney transplants and all that comes with that.
[00:03:37] Heather Houser: Growing up with someone who was immunocompromised was certainly informative of how I think I look at the environment, in the broadest sense, she was very susceptible to things that a lot of other people were not people might not be susceptible to. That was always in my life that I was living with someone who was immunocompromised, but it took me obviously till I was older to understand some of the bigger implications of that and how other people experience that…that interaction with their atmosphere, environment, everything.
[00:04:14] Aaron Goodman: Yes. And then was it the case that you started to see these themes in the literature that you were exploring?
[00:04:22] Heather Houser: Yes, absolutely. I… this is a little bit in the weeds of getting a PhD, but there's a stage where you basically just read a lot like you define a field. It's called a field exam. You like, read a bunch of books that you basically give yourself a big reading list or syllabus and that was focused on disease in literature writ large.
[00:04:46] Heather Houser: And so, as I was doing that reading, I was noticing, especially in the later 20th century, how many authors were interested in sort of causal relationships between like maybe a toxin that exists in the environment and how it might lead to things like reproductive issues or cancer. But then more broadly, some non causal relationships, authors were writing about the environment as damaged or diseased at the same time as they were thinking about sicknesses people might have.
[00:05:22] Aaron Goodman: You write in your book about ecosickness. Do you want to talk a little bit about how you understand ecosickness? And for the listeners, is it the same as, or are there parallels to environmental illness, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity?
[00:05:39] Heather Houser: Yeah, certainly. So there definitely are parallels in relationships. And I would say I came to this category of literature, ecosickness fiction from reading things and watching films for example, “Safe” by Haynes or memoirs like Suzanne Antonetta's “Body Toxic.” Those were part of my like big reading mission for my field exam I mentioned. So those diseases, many of them would be classified as environmental illness.
[00:06:13] Heather Houser: Representations of environmental illness, maybe more traditionally defined, were certainly informative to my conceptual approach to ecosickness, but I was interested in how many writers weren't necessarily drawing causal relationships. So it wasn't as if there was an actual or presumed or identified toxin that was leading to an illness.
[00:06:41] Heather Houser: A lot of writers were just sort of bringing readers to an environmental consciousness by thinking about sickness as a general category that affects both environments and bodies. Sometimes there's causality. But what are some of the other relationships under sort of a category of damage or illness that are affecting people today. When I define ecosickness it's about this sort of like pervasive dysfunction that a lot of writers were trying to capture. And that they were doing this often through narratives that would provoke certain emotions to connect both body and environment.
[00:07:23] Aaron Goodman: Can you take us back to when did this tradition start, this phenomenon of writers writing about environmental crises and impacts on human health? I think in your book you connected to the publication of the book “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson in 1962. Is that basically when this kind of literature began?
[00:07:53] Heather Houser: Yes, I think you can find antecedents, you can find older texts that are thinking in a similar vein, like George Perkins Marsh was writing in the 19th century I mean even people like Thoreau in the transcendental tradition. However, I think the 1960s and 1970s were really when this exploded and Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” was a big factor in that it brought this theme of entanglement of all kinds of bodies right from insects to birds to humans, sort of this entanglement in their environments through a toxin, in that case, a chemical DDT. So that was a big flashpoint, I think, in helping people recognize those entanglements and fight for things like air and water protections. The sixties and seventies are when you get the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act.
[00:08:49] Heather Houser: But you also have a bunch of other things going on then you have like, space missions, which give people this view of the Earth and a different sense of their place in the universe. You have the nuclear era, which, you know, not a chemical contaminant, but a nuclear contaminant that also brought a lot of fear and worry about how humans were changing environments irrevocably. And then you have simultaneously things like genetic technologies and gene splicing, like really changing a sense of what a body is and how humans and science intervene in it.
[00:09:32] Heather Houser: There's a sociologist, Nicholas Rose, who has this book, “The Politics of Life Itself” and he thinks of this as a moment when that changes what it is to be a biological organism. That's his phrase. So all of that was just scrambling people's understanding of the human body, the interaction with environments, what humans can do to their environments as well.
[00:10:04] Aaron Goodman: Very interesting. Heather, do you happen to recall any books, any writers that have made an impression on you who focus on synthetic chemicals and their impacts on human health by chance?
[00:10:19] Heather Houser: Yeah. So, I wrote about Richard Powers in in my book
“Ecosickness,” but another I mostly focus on his books “The Gold Bug Variations” and “Echo Maker” but he has another novel called “Gain” that's very focused on this. There's a protagonist who has cancer and at the same time as he's following that plot and her trying to understand this disease and how she might have become susceptible to it, if she can figure that out at all, there's a parallel narrative about the growth of a multinational corporation, from it's, I think it starts in the 18th century, where they started out making soap, but they end up making everything under the sun. And so that is thinking about the role of household chemicals that are pretty pervasive right in many households, things like detergents, flame retardants, shampoos, just things that are hard to avoid unless you're making a great effort. So that was one text, it's really thinking through especially the synthetic chemical environment.
[00:11:32] Aaron Goodman: You mentioned the film “Safe” - it’s a 1995 film and you touch on it in the book…
[00:11:34] TRAILER VO: It's in the air. In the water. In our homes…
[00:11:40] Aaron Goodman: Would you be willing to talk a little bit about any recollections you may have about the film “Safe?”
[00:11:45] Heather Houser: Yes, that was such a powerful film for me. So you have this main character, Carol, who is progressively becoming allergic to her environment. Like it's suggested she has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. And the way that Haynes represents this is you have this very muted character, Carol, right? She's very feminine. She's very petite. She's very quiet. She certainly doesn't want to ruffle any feathers. And it's filmed using some of the devices of horror film, some really irritating, progressively threatening noises, to suggest that things like hairspray, or things like going to the doctor and getting different tests are actually putting her in danger. This sort of chemical ambience I think is a phrase I used in the book. A lot of people who are living with MCS, you don't get an answer to what's happening to her.
[00:12:48] Heather Houser: So you're just living in this world of uncertainty with her and as she tries different explanations, different approaches, and eventually goes to sort of a retreat right away from industrialized, chemicalized society. Yeah, that film, I think, for a lot of people, including me, for one thing, brought the experience of things like MCS to the screen, to life in this disturbing way.
[00:13:20] Aaron Goodman: Are there many books that look at this particular angle? Do you expect to see more coming on the horizon?
[00:13:28] Heather Houser: There are more, but sometimes I can't pick them out immediately. There's a novel by Helena Maria Viramonte is called “Under the Feet of Jesus” that is looking at pesticide contamination, especially of workers, migrant workers in fields in California. I think you find maybe more representations of things like pesticides. I can think of several novels and films where that's central. However, other synthetic chemicals, I do think it, it's sprinkled in and not necessarily, the main event of a narrative, but they are out there and I think there will be more as these sort of persistent pervasive chemicals are just becoming a greater part of people's awareness.
[00:14:17] Heather Houser: David Foster Wallace called it chemically troubled times. This awareness and incorporation of the prevalence of these synthetic chemicals. You see it now, and I think we'll continue to see more and more.
[00:14:34] Aaron Goodman: David Foster Wallace is another writer whom you mentioned and in your book, you write about his novel, “Infinite Jest” which really is a massive tomb. I have it here and it's something like with references, it comes to over a thousand pages and it's amazing. I didn't find it the most accessible book. You want to talk a little bit, maybe like share any Cole's notes perhaps of how he explores the influence of chemicals in our world?
[00:15:02] Heather Houser: Sure. Yeah. That novel is thinking about chemicals as drugs. Recreational drugs and pharmaceuticals that treat things like depression or anxiety or other mental health issues. So for him, chemicals is a quite big category or like the way the novel represents chemicals has a lot of directions. The novel came out in 1996, and he's thinking basically about our period of time. It spans into basically the early 21st century. In this version of North America he envisions, there's so much toxic waste. There's so much just waste I mean, everything from trash to chemical like pesticides, pollutants. There's so much of that the US basically has to carve out a part of the continent and basically deem it the, the dust bin or the landfill for all of this toxic waste and when that happens, it also disrupts the environment there.
[00:16:03] Heather Houser: He imagined these cycles of extreme abundance where the ferns will grow to like the size of redwoods or something. And then these moments of where nothing is able to live. You have that envisioning of what chemicals, waste, trash, a whole slew of things are doing to the environment, but also like geopolitics that has geopolitical ramifications, but then he's, he features all of these characters who have drug addictions of various kinds and, or are taking pharmaceuticals to manage different issues.
[00:18:19] Aaron Goodman: You write about a number of authors, but maybe if we could perhaps talk about one more Leslie Marmon Silco and her book “Ceremony” and “The Almanac of the Dead.” Who is Leslie Marmon Silco for folks who aren't familiar perhaps, and how does she deal with chemicals in her work?
[00:17:00] Heather Houser: Leslie Marmon Silko is a Laguna Pueblo American writer. She also is of Mexican heritage and her first novel, I believe it was 1977, was “Ceremony” and it really put her on the literary stage.
[00:18:56] Heather Houser: And she, her, next major novel, “Almanac of the Dead” came out in 1991. Well the presence of like nuclear waste is very prominent in the first novel, “Ceremony,” in “Almanac of the Dead,” that continues to be a presence in the novel, and basically what it has done to the lands of the Laguna Pueblo people so she thinks about toxicity in terms of the nuclear, but then she's also interested again, in that sort of medical landscape in “Almanac of the Dead.” She also has addicted characters in that novel. So she's certainly focused on the nuclear, but she comes to include things like medication and the medical world as well.
[00:18:09] Aaron Goodman: Richard Powers argues that literature or narrative imagination can twist our guts and shatter our souls. What can eco fiction do that raw data doesn't do so well?
[00:18:27] Heather Houser: I always want to be very clear that data is very important. There's a lot that it mobilizes and substantiates so data is not bad. I guess it's one of the things I like to put out there.
[00:18:37] Heather Houser: However, it has a lot of limitations. In terms of how it can be manipulated. How it affects people's guts and souls. It can be a very soulless approach to understanding a problem or an experience. And that can turn off certain people and it can also misrepresent people's lived experience. And so narrative can give the lived experience behind some of the data, to question some of the data, maybe about how we come to it, what it might not be including what might motivate it, how it gets used and I think, stories tend to make us care about things.
[00:19:19] Heather Houser: One of the things I'm interested in my work is in the fact that, we can be aware of things and care about them and still not do a lot about them. So narratives can give us an emotional attachment, an understanding of lived experience, modes of questioning what's happening around us, and inspiration to care about things. I don't think we do things because of data. We do things because the data points to something in the world that we find troubling or we find worth sustaining or holding on to. And that domain of things is where narrative imaginaries and literature come in.
[00:20:00] Aaron Goodman: You write, “Inspiring massive action against systemic harms to bodies and planet will require much more than literature and literary analysis alone can accomplish, fiction extends an invitation to read its stories out into the world.”
[00:20:25] Heather Houser: I think that idea of to read its stories out into the world can mean a lot of things. It can mean maybe you are activated to join a political cause or give money or vote in a certain way or join a city commission or start a non profit. I think that's one way to think about that. But also to read it stories out in the world is to sort of bring a different set of eyes, ears, and, you know, out into the world in a way that they've been transformed by reading a story or experiencing a piece of art.
[00:20:55] Heather Houser: I'm sure many of us listen to music while walking around and you just see and sense the world differently as a result of it. So that's one way I think of reading stories out into the world and also like seeking stories out in the world. I mentioned Viramonte's novel “Under the Feet of Jesus,” I teach that to undergraduates and I think they read that story out into the world and it's about a young woman, their age, it's a bildungsroman, a coming of age story.
[00:21:29] Heather Houser: And I think that helps them. They report that, reading about a migrant farm worker and the experience of toxicity and all that comes along with being a migrant farm worker, someone their age helps them think about other people's stories out in the world that might be different or similar to theirs.
[00:21:50] Heather Houser: So I think there's a lot behind that reading stories out into the world. And I do think that eco sickness fiction has helped and does help people think about the real interplay between environment and the body that right now is often mediated by sickness and or toxicity.
[00:21:11] Aaron Goodman: I just want to connect back to what you shared at the beginning, how you watched, observed, your mother who is navigating illness and, that developed an awareness of how people with all kinds of illnesses function in the world. Do you think eco fiction can instill in the reader a sense of empathy or greater understanding of people who live with MCS. and other environmentally related illnesses? And that's a kind of sweeping question, but do you think the portrayal on the whole is ethical and sensitive or is it sometimes the reverse?
[00:22:46] Heather Houser: I think it's important to think about how things cut both ways. So I do think that narratives can cultivate empathy of MCS and other things that people might be experiencing, the devil is in the details, or in the doing and in reception. We were talking about Hayne’s Safe before, and I think it is a very powerful film in a lot of ways, but I think people can object to the way that he represents this experience of being chemically sensitive becoming “allergic” to one's environment using methods of horror might not be representing the experience in a sensitive way for some readers or for some people living with MCS and other other issues, environmental illnesses. So I think there is a great potential for cultivating empathy but I think we do have to remember that no one artwork is experienced in the same way by all people. And so what might cultivate empathy or might be appreciated by one reader, might create a less sensitive response and in another reader.
[00:24:04] Aaron Goodman: Thanks so much to Heather Hauser, PhD, for speaking with me. The Chemical Sensitivity Podcast is by and for the MCS community.
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[00:24:42] Aaron Goodman: Thanks so much for listening!
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