UNIT 6: Environmental Humanities Flashcards
What is Environmental Humanities?
Environmental Humanities seeks to examine the relationship human beings have to and with nature as well as the cultural and artistic responses that emerge from this relationship. It is an interdisciplinary concept
What are some historical roots of Environmental Humanities
- Industrial Revolution where we moved to a mechanized, industrial society.
- literary movement that occurs in the 19th century United States: Transcendentalism whose writers, like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, see the environment as a central subject
- the rise of globalism and the global economy
What is Ecocriticism?
addresses environmental through literature, mainly fiction, but also non-fiction and cinematic texts. Oftentimes ecocritical texts are meant to heighten reader awareness and get the reader to act in the social or political sphere.
What is Anthropocentrism?
That Humans dominate over other living things. This is the wrong way to look at the world.
What is Ecofeminism?
Ecofeminism argues that the historic and contemporary oppression of women intersects with the oppression and degradation of nature. there also seems to be a correlation between the degradation of nature and the suffering of women, children, and animals when the environment collapses.
What is Ecofeminism usually linked to?
postcolonialism and Marx’s theory of the alienation of Labor
What is a novel that highlights ecofeminism?
Margaret Atwood’s popular novel The Handmaid’s Tale . Says that the environment would enhance gender inequality
What are some examples of Ecofeminist issues?
- Contaminants in water and breast milk
- Reproductive technology
- Equitable rights to basic living needs for children
What did Bolivia’s president, Eva Morales, pass?
Law of The Rights of Mother Earth
What is Deep Ecology?
environmental issues affect all aspects of our lives, and we belong to a larger global ecosystem in which we are just one of many equal parts
Environmental ethics builds itself off of three, classical ethical principles, or moral arguments. Those being:
Justice - equals should be treated equally unless there is sufficient reason to treat anyone (or anything) unequally.
Sufficiency - all forms of life are entitled to enough goods to live on and flourish.
Solidarity - how we relate to each other in the community.
Godzilla represents what?
Metaphor for post WW2 Japan and the After effects of the nuclear bombs
What is Climate Fiction?
Fiction surrounding the effects or consequences of nuclear ruin, environmental disasters, etc. Mainly looking at how humans take advantage and ruin the climate (pollution, overconsumption, etc.)
