FloraCultures is a 2013 pilot project in development with Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth,... more FloraCultures is a 2013 pilot project in development with Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth, Western Australia, and funded by Edith Cowan University’s Early Career Researcher grant scheme. The project aims to develop a model for documenting the plant-based cultural heritage of 30–50 indigenous species occurring in the Kings Park bushland. The FloraCultures initiative integrates archival and digital design techniques, creating a unique web portal of potential interest to a range of users -- from first-time tourists and amateur naturalists to heritage consultants and evironmental conservationists . The initiative reflects the belief that research into environmental heritage (defined broadly to encompass natural and cultural heritage and tangible and intangible theory) is integral to the conservation of flora and fauna in their ecological habitats. The project stresses that the appreciation of biodiversity for its cultural significance helps to sustain broader conservation values
Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, 2019
This is a long poem, a sequence of 24 sonnets on trees. Resumen Éste es un poema largo... more This is a long poem, a sequence of 24 sonnets on trees. Resumen Éste es un poema largo, una secuencia de 24 sonetos sobre árboles.
Transcript: An e-Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 2021
This article outlines current developments in the Environmental Humanities, abbreviated as EH, th... more This article outlines current developments in the Environmental Humanities, abbreviated as EH, that underscore its diversity and timeliness as scholars from manifold disciplines turn progressively more to human-nature issues in the Anthropocene epoch. Emerging in the last decade in particular, the twelve specializations outlined in this article are animal and plant studies; Arctic and Antarctic humanities, Asian environmental humanities, blue humanities, emergency humanities, empirical ecocriticism, energy humanities, extinction studies, medical-environmental humanities, paleoenvironmental humanities, Symbiocene studies, and wetland humanities. On the one hand, new areas such as the emergency humanities and medical-environmental humanities have gained momentum in response to the Covid-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020. On the other, some EH areas focus on alternatives to Anthropocene malaise and possibilities for human-nature justice. Understood as a transdisciplinary meta-field—o...
FloraCultures is an online archive currently being developed in consultation with Kings Park and ... more FloraCultures is an online archive currently being developed in consultation with Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth, Western Australia. The archive will showcase the ‘botanical heritage’ of indigenous plant species found in the extant bushland areas of Kings Park near the heart of the city. A selection of multimedia content (text, images, audio recordings, video interviews) and social media approaches (crowd-sourcing, interactivity, participatory media) will be brought together to highlight the cultural value of Perth’s bio-cultural diversity. This paper will analyse FloraCultures in terms of Stuart Hall and Jacques Derrida’s theories of ‘the living archive’ in tandem with recent research into ‘digital storytelling’ through new media. Derrida argues that the living archive is brought into existence through the dialectic between the death drive (Thanatos) and the conservation drive (Eros), and that an interdisciplinary field of ‘archiviology’ is required to understand and develo...
Located in the state of New South Wales, Australia, the Northern Tablelands bioregion is a high p... more Located in the state of New South Wales, Australia, the Northern Tablelands bioregion is a high plateau landscape unique for its geological, faunal, and floristic variety. Known widely as the New England of Australia, the Tablelands is “a strange, almost inverted landscape” of undulating plains aside steep chasms. This article analyzes poetry about the flora of the New England Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia. The article focuses on the importance of plants and poetry to the biocultural heritage of Australia. The research objective was to understand the natural and cultural dimensions of Tablelands plants as expressed in poetry. The research involved visiting botanical communities, examining historical documents, interviewing conservationists, and writing poetry. The results suggest that poetry encourages engagement with, and respect for, human and more-than-human life. The article concludes that, in the Anthropocene age, environmental poetry is essential to environme...
A city of biodiversity, Perth in Western Australia faces significant environmental challenges. As... more A city of biodiversity, Perth in Western Australia faces significant environmental challenges. As species and habitats vanish, so too can their biocultural heritage. To address biological and cultural decline, FloraCultures is a digital conservation initiative that uses archival, ethnographic and design approaches to conserve and promote Perth's ‘botanical heritage’. This article examines the project's conceptual foundations in terms of nature/culture, tangible/intangible and thinking/making dualisms, as well as some of the practical strategies used to address these dualisms. To articulate biocultural heritage, I have had to rethink categorical oppositions through ecopoiesis – the making of interactive digital objects as informed by ecological discourses. The repository being developed will incorporate cultural materials (texts, visual art, interview recordings, music and video) not conventionally associated with environmental conservation. Key community-building approaches,...
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2016
This essay offers an initial attempt to think through how some of the ideas emerging from the new... more This essay offers an initial attempt to think through how some of the ideas emerging from the new field of "critical plant studies" (CPS) can elucidate, deepen, or challenge aspects of climate change discourse. Across the globe, the deleterious impacts of climate change on plants are increasingly documented by scientists. However, despite their fundamental role in the carbon cycle of the biosphere and the disruption of botanical communities in the wake of climate disturbance, plants occupy a marginal position in the narratives told about climate change. This assertion will be explored, substantiated, and expanded more concretely in reference to the "Keep It In the Ground Campaign" curated by the newspaper The Guardian in 2015. The stories circulating in the public imagination about climate change and that provoke debate, action, and reflection can be enhanced through the invigorated understandings of the vegetal world offered by the emerging field of critical plant studies (CPS).
Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press... more Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact:
Based in oral traditions and song cycles, contemporary Aboriginal Australian poetry is full of al... more Based in oral traditions and song cycles, contemporary Aboriginal Australian poetry is full of allusions to the environment. Not merely a physical backdrop for human activities, the ancient Aboriginal landscape is a nexus of ecological, spiritual, material, and more-than-human overlays-and one which is increasingly compromised by modern technological impositions. In literary studies, while Aboriginal poetry has become the subject of critical interest, few studies have foregrounded the interconnections between environment and technology. Instead, scholarship tends to focus on the socio-political and cultural dimensions of the writing. How have contemporary Australian Aboriginal poets responded to the impacts of environmental change and degradation? How have poets addressed the effects of modern technology in ancestral environments, or country? This article will develop an ecocritical and technology-focused perspective on contemporary Aboriginal poetry through an analysis of the writings of three significant literary-activists:
will be fostered. FloraCultures contributes to the second NRP by strengthening Australia's social... more will be fostered. FloraCultures contributes to the second NRP by strengthening Australia's social and economic fabric through sustained community engagement. In building the capacity of communities for heritage conservation, the project will enhance the potential for healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives in Western Australia.
Over the last 30 years, environmental philosophers and ecological researchers have turned their a... more Over the last 30 years, environmental philosophers and ecological researchers have turned their attention to the possibilities of narratives: the stories people tell about their lives in conjunction with the human and non-human agents they live with. An interest in narrative environmental ethics reflects a re-evaluation of canonical ecophilosophical texts. Works such as Paul W. Taylor's Respect for Nature suggest an essentialist view of environmental ethics in which predetermined principles are imposed on places and situations. On the other hand, Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac combines first-person prose with science-based explanations of the "biotic pyramid" towards the development of a land ethic. Examples, such as Leopold's, of narrative ethics are thought to offer relational, place-based, non-authoritative, and non-anthropocentric models. This article examines three critical components of environmental narratives: self, context, and tradition. In order for environmental narratives to advance ecological ethics, they must be accompanied by the tradition of natural science (geology, ecology, and evolution) to provide the "sponsoring ground" for ethical concern and action. The role of natural science as a tradition-and indeed one of many-in narrative ethics provides the basis for ecological selfhood in the context of place. These assertions will be supported by an analysis of the environmental narratives of Karen Warren and Jim Cheney. However, in the temporally expansive and ecologically conscious poetic narratives of John Kinsella we find an environmental ethics deeply rooted in the material realities of place.
Banksia are iconic of the Southwest of Western Australia, a region known for a flora that, throug... more Banksia are iconic of the Southwest of Western Australia, a region known for a flora that, through a variety of unique ecological adaptations, has become well-suited to intense periods of dryness and nutrient-poor soils. A walk with Kevin Collins, proprietor of Banksia Farm in Mt. Barker, W.A., is an exercise in bodily-engaged multi-sensory appreciation of Banksia. Rather than austere and inanimate, the Proteaceae−the hardy ancient family of plants to which the Banksia belong−are replete with perfumed aromas, enrapturing textures, nectarous tastes and the sound of wind whipping through needle-like leaves. Kevin crushes a handful of plant parts and passes his fist under my nose to inhale 'Proteaceae Perfume', a blend of the aromas of three notoriously prickly species. He speaks of the fragrance jocularly, considering the poetic irony that a family of plants known for its toughness and harshness−plants that symbolise the inhospitable appearance of the landscape−could produce sweet, elaborate, even soft, fragrances. i Kevin's approach to plants could be termed a 'corporeal aesthetics'. His appreciation is not constrained to the visual qualities of the indigenous flora−their spatial assemblage in the garden according to colour and form−but is instead inclusive of their
This article develops a reciprocity ethics of the environment through a discussion of ethnobotani... more This article develops a reciprocity ethics of the environment through a discussion of ethnobotanical medicines used in the treatment of cancer. The moral virtue of reciprocity, defined as the returning of good when good is received or anticipated, is central to the posthumanist rethinking of human relationships to the plant world. As herbal medicines are used progressively more around the globe and as plant diversity decreases as a result of habitat loss and climate change, an ethics of reciprocity should be a concern for environmental philosophers and conservationists. Aldo Leopold's land ethic and J. Baird Callicott's distinction between deontological and prudential environmental ethics provide theoretical contexts for the development of a reciprocity ethics vis-à-vis ethnobotanical species. While this article does not necessarily specify modes or forms of reciprocity, it does outline some of the more prominent ethnobotanical species used in the treatment of cancer, including those from Native American, African, Chinese, and Indian traditions. In the form of a dialogue between the fields of ethnobotany, herbal medicine, and environmental philosophy, this article presents a position from which further articulations of reciprocity can be developed, particularly those involving the rights of indigenous cultures and plants.
European journal of literature, culture and the environment, 2016
espanolA traves de la poesia del escritor y activista australiano John Kinsella (1963), este arti... more espanolA traves de la poesia del escritor y activista australiano John Kinsella (1963), este articulo hace hincapie en las dimensiones reales, en vez de metaforicas, de la muerte de las plantas frente al apremiante contexto internacional de acelerar la perdida de diversidad botanica (Hopper) y la alteracion antropogenica de las comunidades floristicas a nivel mundial (Pandolfi y Lovelock). En muchos niveles, cientifico, ecologico, social, metafisico, una apreciacion mas completa de la vida vegetal requiere una comprension de su declive, decadencia y desaparicion. Hacia una apreciacion mas matizada de las vidas de las planta, el debate suscita una distincion, pero tiene como objetivo evitar un dualismo, entre ejemplos “biogenicos” y “antropogenicos” de muertes de plantas. Teniendo en cuenta la correlacion entre la existencia vegetal, el bienestar humano, y nuestras vidas y muertes co-constituidas, afirmo que una perspectiva mas abarcadora y transformadora eco-culturalmente sobre las ...
Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, 2016
Through the poetry of Australian writer and activist John Kinsella (b. 1963), this article ... more Through the poetry of Australian writer and activist John Kinsella (b. 1963), this article emphasizes the actual, embodied—rather than metaphorical—dimensions of the death of plants vis-à-vis the pressing international context of accelerating botanical diversity loss (Hopper) and the anthropogenic disruption of floristic communities globally (Pandolfi and Lovelock). On many levels—scientific, ecological, social, metaphysical—a fuller appreciation of plant life necessitates an understanding of their decline, decay, and demise. Toward a more nuanced appreciation of plant lives, the discussion draws a distinction—but aims to avoid a binary— between biogenic and anthropogenic instances of plant-death. Considering the correlation between vegetal existence, human well-being, and our co-constituted lives and deaths, I assert that a more encompassing and ecoculturally transformative outlook on plants involves not only an acknowledgement of their qualities of percipient aliveness but a...
Anglophone environmental literary criticism has evolved within the bounds of regions and regional... more Anglophone environmental literary criticism has evolved within the bounds of regions and regionalism. Particularly during its early years, ecocriticism privileged local engagement with the natural world as a literary-activist mode. Recent approaches, however, emphasise translocal, transregional, and transnational frameworks. Moreover, intersections with studies of affect, ecofeminism, materiality, postcolonialism, risk, and other areas underlie the continuing theoretical diversification of ecocriticism. An Anthropocene Ecocriticism would confront the disorienting spatiotemporal scales of our age, resist longstanding local-global binarisms, place emphasis on the value of indigenous narratives, and embrace the environmental justice origins of the field.
FloraCultures is a 2013 pilot project in development with Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth,... more FloraCultures is a 2013 pilot project in development with Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth, Western Australia, and funded by Edith Cowan University’s Early Career Researcher grant scheme. The project aims to develop a model for documenting the plant-based cultural heritage of 30–50 indigenous species occurring in the Kings Park bushland. The FloraCultures initiative integrates archival and digital design techniques, creating a unique web portal of potential interest to a range of users -- from first-time tourists and amateur naturalists to heritage consultants and evironmental conservationists . The initiative reflects the belief that research into environmental heritage (defined broadly to encompass natural and cultural heritage and tangible and intangible theory) is integral to the conservation of flora and fauna in their ecological habitats. The project stresses that the appreciation of biodiversity for its cultural significance helps to sustain broader conservation values
Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, 2019
This is a long poem, a sequence of 24 sonnets on trees. Resumen Éste es un poema largo... more This is a long poem, a sequence of 24 sonnets on trees. Resumen Éste es un poema largo, una secuencia de 24 sonetos sobre árboles.
Transcript: An e-Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 2021
This article outlines current developments in the Environmental Humanities, abbreviated as EH, th... more This article outlines current developments in the Environmental Humanities, abbreviated as EH, that underscore its diversity and timeliness as scholars from manifold disciplines turn progressively more to human-nature issues in the Anthropocene epoch. Emerging in the last decade in particular, the twelve specializations outlined in this article are animal and plant studies; Arctic and Antarctic humanities, Asian environmental humanities, blue humanities, emergency humanities, empirical ecocriticism, energy humanities, extinction studies, medical-environmental humanities, paleoenvironmental humanities, Symbiocene studies, and wetland humanities. On the one hand, new areas such as the emergency humanities and medical-environmental humanities have gained momentum in response to the Covid-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020. On the other, some EH areas focus on alternatives to Anthropocene malaise and possibilities for human-nature justice. Understood as a transdisciplinary meta-field—o...
FloraCultures is an online archive currently being developed in consultation with Kings Park and ... more FloraCultures is an online archive currently being developed in consultation with Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth, Western Australia. The archive will showcase the ‘botanical heritage’ of indigenous plant species found in the extant bushland areas of Kings Park near the heart of the city. A selection of multimedia content (text, images, audio recordings, video interviews) and social media approaches (crowd-sourcing, interactivity, participatory media) will be brought together to highlight the cultural value of Perth’s bio-cultural diversity. This paper will analyse FloraCultures in terms of Stuart Hall and Jacques Derrida’s theories of ‘the living archive’ in tandem with recent research into ‘digital storytelling’ through new media. Derrida argues that the living archive is brought into existence through the dialectic between the death drive (Thanatos) and the conservation drive (Eros), and that an interdisciplinary field of ‘archiviology’ is required to understand and develo...
Located in the state of New South Wales, Australia, the Northern Tablelands bioregion is a high p... more Located in the state of New South Wales, Australia, the Northern Tablelands bioregion is a high plateau landscape unique for its geological, faunal, and floristic variety. Known widely as the New England of Australia, the Tablelands is “a strange, almost inverted landscape” of undulating plains aside steep chasms. This article analyzes poetry about the flora of the New England Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia. The article focuses on the importance of plants and poetry to the biocultural heritage of Australia. The research objective was to understand the natural and cultural dimensions of Tablelands plants as expressed in poetry. The research involved visiting botanical communities, examining historical documents, interviewing conservationists, and writing poetry. The results suggest that poetry encourages engagement with, and respect for, human and more-than-human life. The article concludes that, in the Anthropocene age, environmental poetry is essential to environme...
A city of biodiversity, Perth in Western Australia faces significant environmental challenges. As... more A city of biodiversity, Perth in Western Australia faces significant environmental challenges. As species and habitats vanish, so too can their biocultural heritage. To address biological and cultural decline, FloraCultures is a digital conservation initiative that uses archival, ethnographic and design approaches to conserve and promote Perth's ‘botanical heritage’. This article examines the project's conceptual foundations in terms of nature/culture, tangible/intangible and thinking/making dualisms, as well as some of the practical strategies used to address these dualisms. To articulate biocultural heritage, I have had to rethink categorical oppositions through ecopoiesis – the making of interactive digital objects as informed by ecological discourses. The repository being developed will incorporate cultural materials (texts, visual art, interview recordings, music and video) not conventionally associated with environmental conservation. Key community-building approaches,...
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2016
This essay offers an initial attempt to think through how some of the ideas emerging from the new... more This essay offers an initial attempt to think through how some of the ideas emerging from the new field of "critical plant studies" (CPS) can elucidate, deepen, or challenge aspects of climate change discourse. Across the globe, the deleterious impacts of climate change on plants are increasingly documented by scientists. However, despite their fundamental role in the carbon cycle of the biosphere and the disruption of botanical communities in the wake of climate disturbance, plants occupy a marginal position in the narratives told about climate change. This assertion will be explored, substantiated, and expanded more concretely in reference to the "Keep It In the Ground Campaign" curated by the newspaper The Guardian in 2015. The stories circulating in the public imagination about climate change and that provoke debate, action, and reflection can be enhanced through the invigorated understandings of the vegetal world offered by the emerging field of critical plant studies (CPS).
Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press... more Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact:
Based in oral traditions and song cycles, contemporary Aboriginal Australian poetry is full of al... more Based in oral traditions and song cycles, contemporary Aboriginal Australian poetry is full of allusions to the environment. Not merely a physical backdrop for human activities, the ancient Aboriginal landscape is a nexus of ecological, spiritual, material, and more-than-human overlays-and one which is increasingly compromised by modern technological impositions. In literary studies, while Aboriginal poetry has become the subject of critical interest, few studies have foregrounded the interconnections between environment and technology. Instead, scholarship tends to focus on the socio-political and cultural dimensions of the writing. How have contemporary Australian Aboriginal poets responded to the impacts of environmental change and degradation? How have poets addressed the effects of modern technology in ancestral environments, or country? This article will develop an ecocritical and technology-focused perspective on contemporary Aboriginal poetry through an analysis of the writings of three significant literary-activists:
will be fostered. FloraCultures contributes to the second NRP by strengthening Australia's social... more will be fostered. FloraCultures contributes to the second NRP by strengthening Australia's social and economic fabric through sustained community engagement. In building the capacity of communities for heritage conservation, the project will enhance the potential for healthy, productive, and fulfilling lives in Western Australia.
Over the last 30 years, environmental philosophers and ecological researchers have turned their a... more Over the last 30 years, environmental philosophers and ecological researchers have turned their attention to the possibilities of narratives: the stories people tell about their lives in conjunction with the human and non-human agents they live with. An interest in narrative environmental ethics reflects a re-evaluation of canonical ecophilosophical texts. Works such as Paul W. Taylor's Respect for Nature suggest an essentialist view of environmental ethics in which predetermined principles are imposed on places and situations. On the other hand, Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac combines first-person prose with science-based explanations of the "biotic pyramid" towards the development of a land ethic. Examples, such as Leopold's, of narrative ethics are thought to offer relational, place-based, non-authoritative, and non-anthropocentric models. This article examines three critical components of environmental narratives: self, context, and tradition. In order for environmental narratives to advance ecological ethics, they must be accompanied by the tradition of natural science (geology, ecology, and evolution) to provide the "sponsoring ground" for ethical concern and action. The role of natural science as a tradition-and indeed one of many-in narrative ethics provides the basis for ecological selfhood in the context of place. These assertions will be supported by an analysis of the environmental narratives of Karen Warren and Jim Cheney. However, in the temporally expansive and ecologically conscious poetic narratives of John Kinsella we find an environmental ethics deeply rooted in the material realities of place.
Banksia are iconic of the Southwest of Western Australia, a region known for a flora that, throug... more Banksia are iconic of the Southwest of Western Australia, a region known for a flora that, through a variety of unique ecological adaptations, has become well-suited to intense periods of dryness and nutrient-poor soils. A walk with Kevin Collins, proprietor of Banksia Farm in Mt. Barker, W.A., is an exercise in bodily-engaged multi-sensory appreciation of Banksia. Rather than austere and inanimate, the Proteaceae−the hardy ancient family of plants to which the Banksia belong−are replete with perfumed aromas, enrapturing textures, nectarous tastes and the sound of wind whipping through needle-like leaves. Kevin crushes a handful of plant parts and passes his fist under my nose to inhale 'Proteaceae Perfume', a blend of the aromas of three notoriously prickly species. He speaks of the fragrance jocularly, considering the poetic irony that a family of plants known for its toughness and harshness−plants that symbolise the inhospitable appearance of the landscape−could produce sweet, elaborate, even soft, fragrances. i Kevin's approach to plants could be termed a 'corporeal aesthetics'. His appreciation is not constrained to the visual qualities of the indigenous flora−their spatial assemblage in the garden according to colour and form−but is instead inclusive of their
This article develops a reciprocity ethics of the environment through a discussion of ethnobotani... more This article develops a reciprocity ethics of the environment through a discussion of ethnobotanical medicines used in the treatment of cancer. The moral virtue of reciprocity, defined as the returning of good when good is received or anticipated, is central to the posthumanist rethinking of human relationships to the plant world. As herbal medicines are used progressively more around the globe and as plant diversity decreases as a result of habitat loss and climate change, an ethics of reciprocity should be a concern for environmental philosophers and conservationists. Aldo Leopold's land ethic and J. Baird Callicott's distinction between deontological and prudential environmental ethics provide theoretical contexts for the development of a reciprocity ethics vis-à-vis ethnobotanical species. While this article does not necessarily specify modes or forms of reciprocity, it does outline some of the more prominent ethnobotanical species used in the treatment of cancer, including those from Native American, African, Chinese, and Indian traditions. In the form of a dialogue between the fields of ethnobotany, herbal medicine, and environmental philosophy, this article presents a position from which further articulations of reciprocity can be developed, particularly those involving the rights of indigenous cultures and plants.
European journal of literature, culture and the environment, 2016
espanolA traves de la poesia del escritor y activista australiano John Kinsella (1963), este arti... more espanolA traves de la poesia del escritor y activista australiano John Kinsella (1963), este articulo hace hincapie en las dimensiones reales, en vez de metaforicas, de la muerte de las plantas frente al apremiante contexto internacional de acelerar la perdida de diversidad botanica (Hopper) y la alteracion antropogenica de las comunidades floristicas a nivel mundial (Pandolfi y Lovelock). En muchos niveles, cientifico, ecologico, social, metafisico, una apreciacion mas completa de la vida vegetal requiere una comprension de su declive, decadencia y desaparicion. Hacia una apreciacion mas matizada de las vidas de las planta, el debate suscita una distincion, pero tiene como objetivo evitar un dualismo, entre ejemplos “biogenicos” y “antropogenicos” de muertes de plantas. Teniendo en cuenta la correlacion entre la existencia vegetal, el bienestar humano, y nuestras vidas y muertes co-constituidas, afirmo que una perspectiva mas abarcadora y transformadora eco-culturalmente sobre las ...
Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, 2016
Through the poetry of Australian writer and activist John Kinsella (b. 1963), this article ... more Through the poetry of Australian writer and activist John Kinsella (b. 1963), this article emphasizes the actual, embodied—rather than metaphorical—dimensions of the death of plants vis-à-vis the pressing international context of accelerating botanical diversity loss (Hopper) and the anthropogenic disruption of floristic communities globally (Pandolfi and Lovelock). On many levels—scientific, ecological, social, metaphysical—a fuller appreciation of plant life necessitates an understanding of their decline, decay, and demise. Toward a more nuanced appreciation of plant lives, the discussion draws a distinction—but aims to avoid a binary— between biogenic and anthropogenic instances of plant-death. Considering the correlation between vegetal existence, human well-being, and our co-constituted lives and deaths, I assert that a more encompassing and ecoculturally transformative outlook on plants involves not only an acknowledgement of their qualities of percipient aliveness but a...
Anglophone environmental literary criticism has evolved within the bounds of regions and regional... more Anglophone environmental literary criticism has evolved within the bounds of regions and regionalism. Particularly during its early years, ecocriticism privileged local engagement with the natural world as a literary-activist mode. Recent approaches, however, emphasise translocal, transregional, and transnational frameworks. Moreover, intersections with studies of affect, ecofeminism, materiality, postcolonialism, risk, and other areas underlie the continuing theoretical diversification of ecocriticism. An Anthropocene Ecocriticism would confront the disorienting spatiotemporal scales of our age, resist longstanding local-global binarisms, place emphasis on the value of indigenous narratives, and embrace the environmental justice origins of the field.
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