本論文擬以生態文學批評（ecocriticism）的觀點，旁及生態女性主義（ecofeminism）來閱讀芙蘭西絲．梅耶思（Frances Mayes）的《托斯卡尼艷陽下》（Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, 1996）。梅耶思在義大利托斯卡尼（Tuscany, Italy）購買一棟三十年的老舊房屋，文中首先探討位在鄉間的這棟房子與敘述者（即作者）自失婚後亟待修復的自我之間的關係；以生態女性主義論點探討文本中女性與自然的論證；並檢視敘述者的這棟家屋在空間上對作者的意義與其回憶、夢境之間的關連。第二部分藉由生態文學批評該具備的自我批判的能力，以另一種批判的眼光細究梅耶思與伴侶所追尋的托斯卡尼生活。從生態文學批評作為一種批評論述檢視在義大利的慢活生活與美食經驗究竟是一種俗常的生態意識的顯現，還是令旁人妒羨的布爾喬亞式的奢華生活？她建立在托斯卡尼的地方情感是一種逃避主義還是深思熟慮？這些問題透由第三部分的佩屈尼的慢食運動所推行的慢活精神與緩慢知識，與生態文學批評所強調的批判性的「地方情感」的思考，將提供面對不斷流轉質變世界的另一種生活方式與選擇。

Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy is a memoir of bodily and sensory adventure the author experiences in Tuscany after she purchases, renovates, and lives in a deserted villa, Bramasole, in the Italian countryside. As a celebrated food and travel writer, poet, and university professor, Mayes manages a wildly overgrown and abundant garden at Bramasole, strolls in vibrant markets with fresh foods nearby, and meets pleasant people in the neighborhood. This paper examines parallels between the narrator's renovation of her Italian villa and her self-recovery after her divorce. I firstly examine the critical positions of gender, nature, place and space in ecocriticism. The supposed closeness between woman and nature will be analyzed through the critical lens of ecofeminist theory. The second part of the paper engages in an ecocritical analysis of the negotiation between "bourgeois dreams of self-fulfillment" (Jeffrey J. Folks) and how one might practice a sense of place mindfully. Does this memoir offer a dose of escapism from the author's everyday life in San Francisco? Does Mayes's sense of place in Tuscany reflect stereotypes and clichés of expected Italian lives or a "realistic" sense of place? The third part approaches these questions by bringing the work of Carlo Petrini and the slow food movement and the concept of "sense of place" and "placeness" to my analysis to show how one might have an alternative lifestyle choice in face with a world of constant change.