Solitude has gained attention lately due to the growing emphasis on mental and emotional health. Freedom is one of the fundamental aspects of solitude. This study comparatively explores the concept of solitary freedom in Bryce Andrews’s ranch memoir through the distinct perspectives of Philip Koch and Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas. While literary studies increasingly acknowledge the significance of solitude and its connection to freedom, there remains a gap in exploring how diverse philosophical traditions, particularly Islamic understandings of freedom, inform the theme of solitary freedom within Ranch Literature.  To address this, the study examines Andrews’s work by first employing Koch’s features of freedom to detail experiences related to solitude.  It then comparatively interprets these categories through the lens of al-Attas’s Islamic outlook on freedom.  Through a content analysis of textual evidence expressing solitude, the findings reveal complementary aspects of how Koch and al-Attas illuminate solitary freedom in Andrews’s ranch-themed work.  This paper responds to the need to heighten interdisciplinary awareness, as well as enabling inter-discourse studies of literature and Islamic philosophy. 

Keywords: freedom; Philip Koch; ranch literature; solitude; Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas 

Alvi, A., Vengadasamy, R., & Majid, A. A. (2019). The philosophy of nature in the poetry of Ghulam Sarwar Yousuf and William Wordsworth: A comparative ecocritical analysis. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies 19(4), 1904-1917. http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2019-1904-17

Anderson, J. L. (2007). homo on the range: Male intimacy and the figure of the cowboy in Owen Wister and Charles Badger Clark [Master’s Thesis]. Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Andrews, B. (2014). Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West. New York: Atria Paperback.

al-Attas, S. M. N. (1978). Islam and Secularism. Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC).

al-Attas, S. M. N. (1995) Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: An Exposition of the Fundamental Elements of the Worldview of Islam. Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC).

Barbour, J. D. (2014). A view from religious studies: Solitude and spirituality. In J. R. Coplan, & J. C. Bowker (Eds.), The Handbook of Solitude: Psychological Perspectives on Social Isolation, Social Withdrawal, and Being Alone (pp. 557-571). West Sussex. John Wiley &

Sons.

Benson, R. (2012). Wedding the wild particular. The Sewanee Review, 120(2), 292-303.

Bessetti-Reyes, G. M. (2014). Women and the American wilderness: Responses to landscape myth [Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University]. ProQuest, search.proquest.com/docview/1520045386/2CAC4462EE3B48A1PQ/1?accountid=27931

Davidson, J. E. (2003). Dwelling in a Shifting West: The Construction of Home and Identity in Contemporary Western Memoir [Ph. D. Dissertation]. The University of Utah.

Dombrowski, D. A. (2015). Religion, solitariness, and the bloodlands. American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 36(3), 226-239.

Frantz, M. D. (2007). “My Heroes Have always been Cowboys": The De-romanticisation of the Cowboy Mythology in Annie Proulx’s Close Range [Master’s Thesis]. University of Houston.

Halikowski-Smith, S. (2023). Solitude and despair in the literary oeuvre of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. Central Europe 21(2), 127-146. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790963.2023.2294403

Harris, M. (2017). Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World. New York: St Martin’s Press.

Healey, P. (2005). Editorial, planning theory & amp. Planning Theory & Practice 6(1), 5-8.

Hill, S. H. (2006). The Landscape of Western Women’s Memoir: Healing through Memoir Writing [Master’s Thesis]. Utah State University.

Khosravi, G. D., Vengadasamy, R., & Raihanah, M. M. (2017). Ecoethical significance of wilderness in Pablo Neruda’s selected poems. GEMA Online® Journal of Language Studies 17(3), 55-69. http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2017-1703-04

Koch, P. (1994). Solitude: A Philosophical Encounter. Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company.

Lyon, T. J. (2001). This Incomparable Land: A Guide to American Nature Writing. Minnesota: Milkweed Editions.

Madani, A. H. (2011). Freedom and its concept in Islam. Humanities, Historical and Social Sciences 17, 116-120.

Madhi, R. A. S. (2004). The Writer’s Journey into Solitude: Self-discovery in Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, Robinson Crusoe and Friday [Master’s thesis]. American University of Cairo, Thesis. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/retro_etds/2377

Marshall, H. W. (1980). Buckaroo: Views of a Western Way of Life. Nevada: Library of Congress.

Mohd Fadhli Shah, K., Ruzy Suliza, H., & Noraini, M. Y. (2022). A Psychogeographical Tracing of Place Attachment in Selected Poems of Kuala Lumpur. 3L: Southeast Asian Journal of English 28(1), 181-198. http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2023-2903-19.

Muhd Norizam, J., & Shaiful Bahri, M. R. (2013). In search of a just leader in Islamic perspective: An analysis of traditional Malay literature from the perspective of adab. Asian Social Science 9(6), 22-29. http://doi:10.5539/ass.v9n6p22

Muhd Norizam, J., & Shaiful Bahri, M. R. (2016). Traditional Malay literature and the generation of knowledge. Pertanika 24(S), 87-96.

Olson, D. K. (2012). Cowboys and Gauchos: Contrasting Views in the Frontier Literature of Argentina and the United States [Master’s Thesis]. University of Colorado Denver.

Pierre, B. S. (2013). Hunting & Heritage: I Prefer to Hunt Alone. Pheasants Forever. Retrieved December 26, 2023, from pheasantsforever.org/BlogLanding/Blogs/Bob-St-Pierre-s-Blog/I-Prefer-to-Hunt-Alone.aspx?feed=articles

Pritchett, L. R. (2004). Ranch Literature: Writing the Code of the New West [Doctoral dissertation]. Purdue University. ProQuest, search.proquest.com/docview/305152659/E3253A8A843446A3PQ/1?accountid=27931.

Raihanah, M. M., & Mohd Muzhafar, I. (2023). so much about myself I didn’t understand: Rememory and the problematics of a lost identity in Sally Morgan’s My Place. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English 29(3), 272-284. http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2023-2903-

Scheese, D. (1996). Nature Writing: The Pastoral Impulse in America. New York: Twayne Publishers.

Schlau, S. (2016). A nest for the soul: The trope of solitude in three early modern discalced Carmelite nun-poets. International Journal of Medieval and Modern Literature and Culture 7, 132-149.

Shelton, L. R. (1959). The Cowboy and the Gaucho as Treated in Two Novels of the United States and Argentina [Master’s Thesis]. University of Wyoming.

Spencer, A. B. (2000). A Cowboy Looks at Reality: Mourning the Loss of the American Frontier and Debunking the Cowboy Myth in Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy [Master’s Thesis]. Waco University, Texas.

Thomas, V. D. (2017). How to be alone: An investigation of solitude skills [Doctoral dissertation]. University of California Santa Cruz. ProQuest, search.proquest.com/docview/1941584283/F470568FC4A64A5BPQ/1?accountid=27931

Weinstein, N., Hansen, H., & Nguyen, T. (2022). Definitions of solitude in everyday life. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 00(0), 1-16.

Yoon, J., Whillans, A., & O’Brien, E. (2019). How to Make Even the Most Mundane Tasks More Motivating. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved December 30, 2023, from hbr.org/2019/07/how-to-make-even-the-most-mundane-tasks-more-motivating