What is Ecofeminism and how can I incorporate it into my academic work? (Blake's Personal Goal Statement)

As I begin this blog, I realize that my motivations for pursuing this independent study are rooted in my personal history.  I was lucky enough to be raised by three women, who each taught me to view the world through different perspectives. 

My grandmother, with her political and journalistic career, always told me to be aware of how people interact with the world around them because this relationship signals everything about a person and about the culture they live in.  By showing me how to raise our eclectic “farm” of animals, my mother taught me an acute awareness of animals, and I learned to see them as complicated living beings instead of as instruments of human survival.  Finally, my science-minded aunt always took me on nature walks; bought me a telescope so I could explore the stars; and even explained how thunderstorms work, that are necessary for our ecosystem, and that they are nothing to fear.

My interest in Ecocritical and Ecofeminist studies blooms from my childhood fascination with people, the environment, and animals.  I have always been curious about the juncture where human, animal, and plant meet and what happens when we write about these experiences. 

Of course, I believe that these divisions (human/nature) are merely misrepresentations perpetuated by our culture, and that people are always interacting with nature.  I believe that it is a myth that we can live separate from nature, and escape it in our houses. 

I am not using an Ecofeminist philosopher to reach these conclusions but actually Henri Lefebvre—I believe it is correct to describe him as a Humanist Marxist.  Unfortunately, I do not have enough experience with Ecocritical theorists to look at nature through their lenses. I want to participate in the Ecocritical conversation with scholars in this field. This is the root of my problem that I hope to solve during this independent study.    

My goals are to develop a theoretical foundation that will allow me to successfully interact with scholars as an Ecofeminist.  Along with this specialized knowledge, I want to develop my lexis so that I may write in a manner appropriate for a scholar participating in this discourse community.  I want to become familiar with the conventions of this community and learn what constitutes a good argument and what evidence is acceptable.  I hope to interact with many other academics through this blog as we all work together to discuss the issues in the texts that I will read for this semester.  I will write a paper which employs eco feminist theorists to better understand an American literary work and submit it to an academic conference. Basically, I want to learn and practice how to apply Ecofeminist theory to literary texts and decipher the implications for the culture the text was written in and what it means for society today. 

This first week I am reading eco theorist Lawrence Buell’s The Environmental Imagination.   I am looking for the tools to analyze the intricate web that is the intersection of human, animal, nature, and culture.

In his introduction, Buell says that if many philosophers, such as Freya Mathews and Neil Everden, believe that addressing the environmental crisis involves changing our ethics and the way we perceive the world, “then environmental crisis involves a crisis of the imagination the amelioration of which depends on finding better ways of imagining nature and humanity’s relationship to it” (2).  Buell encourages an exploration of the presentation of nature in literature in order to re-imagine nature in a way that will serve as a basis for humans to acknowledge the contradiction in the American attitude towards nature; for example, we “love” nature yet we use toxic substances and amass large piles of trash that we relegate to lower-class neighborhoods so the wealthy can enjoy the natural beauty of a landscape without a landfill.    

 Buell asserts that in literature “natives” and “women” are often linked with nature to justify viewing them as less-than human: “nature has been doubly otherized in modern thought. The natural environment as empirical reality has been made to subserve human interests, and one of these interests has been to make it serve as a symbolic reinforcement of the subservience of disempowered groups: nonwhites, women and children” (21).  He points out that these prejudices are built into our culture and we need to become aware of them, define them, address them, and ultimately imagine “alternative models” (21). 

In terms of addressing literature, I am beginning to see how Ecocritical theory can be used to find biases, and analyze them.  It seems to me that imagining alternative models will be the most fun an eco critic can have.  I am still not sure the specifics of how these steps should be accomplished, but by studying Buell’s application of Ecocritical theory to Thoreau, I will have an initial model for the process of Ecocritical analysis. 

As a closing thought, because of my eco-sensitive upbringing I have always sought to show others the inherent value in nature.  However I, like everyone else, operate within the ideology that commodifies and instrumentalizes nature.  My mother did ultimately sell the dogs that she bred as a commodity, and my nature-loving aunt lauded technology that helped us advance and “progress” as a culture. 

I wonder: Can America be an ecologically conscious nation and still be a capitalist nation? Can America be a technologically advanced nation and ecologically responsible? What has our literature said about our thoughts as a nation on this topic?

Again, many thanks to all of our followers who will take this intellectual journey with us; we can’t wait to read your responses.

Sincerely,

~Blake