A Critical Exploration of Human-Primate Dynamics and Ecological Reflections in 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' Movie: An Ecocriticism Literary Analysis (original) (raw)
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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN RESEARCH, 2020
The felicities of nature are bountiful but the basket of man is rather constricted, owing to the profiteering mindset of mankind. Essentially humans are inclined towards loving but when we tend to humanize nature there theeruption of desires starts crowning. In the history of human evolution there are numerous cases of humanly exploitation of nature and it’s tacit undermining of natural resources. Literature had always been true to the projection of life be it in conundrum of civilized cities or the pristine life in jungle. So as with The Jungle Book (2016) directed by John Favreau based on the classic work of children’s literature i.e. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894). This paper aims to deal with the projective analysis of the movie from ecocritical vision further elucidated with emerging biocritical approach of human in terms of their relationship with nature. Constructing an argument towardsthe anthropocentric vision of an ostensible humanity. Keywords: Nature, Eco-criticism, Anthropocentric vision, Speciesism, Biocentricism.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN RESEARCH, 2020
The felicities of nature are bountiful but the basket of man is rather constricted, owing to the profiteering mindset of mankind. Essentially humans are inclined towards loving but when we tend to humanize nature there the eruption of desires starts crowning. In the history of human evolution there are numerous cases of humanly exploitation of nature and it’s tacit undermining of natural resources. Literature had always been true to the projection of life be it in conundrum of civilized cities or the pristine life in jungle. So as with The Jungle Book (2016) directed by John Favreau based on the classic work of children’s literature i.e. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894). This paper aims to deal with the projective analysis of the movie from ecocritical vision further elucidated with emerging biocritical approach of human in terms of their relationship with nature. Constructing an argument towardsthe anthropocentric vision of an ostensible humanity.
2018
DOI: 10.21276/sjhss.2018.3.9.8 Abstract: This is an analysis, commentary, and critique of the “Planet of the Apes” saga, with major focus on the 2011 film, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”. The author examines the film from the perspective of an extended and continuing, overarching theme characterizing earlier films of the same: “Planet of the Apes” (1963), and “Planet of the Apes” (2001). The issue of freedom and anthropocentric values defining things human are examined in the face of what emerges as a merger or transformation of this “humanity” to, and with apes, and thus, the creation of what the author describes as “Apeity” in the film. The author examines what can be viewed as a bi-directional “violation” of both Humanity and “Apeity” and describes this “violation” in terms of its meaning to the concept of Humanity using various characters from these films and explores the “apish” and “human” values and behaviors inherent in concepts of culture – social psychological and sociol...
This series will take you to the last wildernesses”—Planet Earth and the Question of the Animal
Although generally marketed as disinterested and scientific sources of information, blue chip nature documentaries actively participate in both the maintenance and subversion of the nature-culture dichotomy. Using the award-winning BBC mega series Planet Earth (2006) as its example, the following article illustrates how non-human animals are presented as other to humans, but also argues that the degree and mechanisms used vary depending on the familiarity of both the species and habitat in question. In keeping with current ecofeminist theories, particular attention is also paid to scenes where the hierarchy reveals traces of its own production, which are revealed by a close reading of some sequences from three different episodes of the series. These traces allow a perceptive audience to question the othering of the non-human. One particularly potent problematisation of these narratives occurs whenever the series appeals to the audience's emotional engagement, since such an emotional appeal also weakens the documentary's overt claim to disinterested objectivity. Thus, on a metalevel, the article also furthers research into how documentaries can function as emotional machines. , non-human Othering, emotional involvement, maintenance and deconstruction of nature-culture divide.
An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood
2020
This paper addresses the Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Sustainable Development (#11), in light of United Nations Development Programme, Goals 4 and 17. Mine is less a mechanical or technological “solution” and more about an attitude shift and a change in human preconceptions about “animals.” My contribution to this session is based on my book An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood (2020) which argues that great apes are moral individuals because of their land ethic as ecosystem engineers, or how an organism sustainably modulates the supply of resources in a habitat. This approach brings together philosophy and science, environmental ethics, animal studies, and biodiversity conservation. Because of time constraints, I can touch on only a few points.
Through Thick and Thin: The Romance of the Species in the Anthropocene
International Communication of Chinese Culture, 2018
The emerging field of animal studies has a curious relationship with environmentalism. Instead of fitting comfortably in the latter’s capacious tent, animal studies has chafed at environmentalists’ commitment to holistic communitarianism best represented by Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic.” The land ethic approaches the biotic community as a pyramidal ecological system that turns on the relations between producers and consumers and between predators and prey rather than as an egalitarian moral community. Animal rights activists have thus repeatedly clashed with conservationists in an internecine fight poignantly dramatized in T.C. Boyle’s novel When the Killing’s Done (2011). In this paper, I argue that environmental justice cannot be secured solely from the third-person perspective of the deontological argument underlying animal rights or the utilitarian argument often used to justify the land ethic. Instead, we might draw on the pragmatist traditions East and West and view justice as a larger loyalty achieved as much by the moral imagination of the particular from the first- and second-person perspectives as by rational deliberation on the universal. Using a French novel (The Roots of Heaven, 1958), a Chinese novel (The Disappearance of Lao Hai, 2001), and a Chinese film (Monster Hunt, 2015) as my examples, I demonstrate how literature’s thick narratives can engender an ethics of care by bringing particular instances of non-human distress into aesthetic, affective, and moral proximity with us.
Dissertation: The Relevance of the Animal Liberation Movement to Environmental Ethics
2006
Many environmental philosophers currently hold that animal liberation theories are not relevant to the development of the field of environmental ethics. Instead, they contend that the field is traversed most successfully within the context of ecocentric and/or wilderness perspectives. In this thesis, I utilize textual and conceptual analysis to argue that animal liberation theories are vital to environmental ethics. I examine and critique the reasons given by prominent environmental ethicists—including, most notably, John Rodman, Baird Callicott, Robert Elliot, and Val Plumwood—for marginalizing animal liberation views within environmental ethics. While most of human-centered ethics has rested on a human/nature dichotomy in which the human side is overvalued, much of environmental ethics (especially that developed by ecocentric and wilderness proponents) rests on the same dichotomy, but weights the value on the nature side instead. I hold that many of the reasons for claiming that animal liberation theories fall outside of the scope of environmental ethics rest on a commitment to the nature/human dualism. I maintain that our contemporary world is not divided into the natural and the human, but, rather, consists of an ongoing, shifting relationship between human and nonhuman nature. I claim that the appropriate aim of environmental ethics is to explore the human relationship to the nonhuman natural world, and that this aim cannot be accomplished by theories committed to a human/nature dualism. I conclude that, by focusing on the significance of our choices as human beings in relationship to morally considerable others, the animal liberation movement offers us a way to theorize about environmental issues that transcends the human/nature dichotomy. This project is morally and politically compelling because the way in which environmental ethics as a field is defined has ramifications not only for the relationship of individual nonhuman animals to the natural environment, but for the relationship of humans to the natural environment as well. Looking at the relationship between human and nonhuman nature allows us to address the human roles and responsibilities not simply in the human community, but in the broader context of nonhuman nature as well.
CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2018
Human interference to the environment is increasing day by day. As a result, the environment is facing complete destruction. Each member has an important role in the environment, they form a beautiful environment in harmony with each other. But human oppression destroyed and affected the other species of the environment. That's why the environment stand at the crucial point of the destruction today. Now we feel the urgency of analyzing it, when the environmental crises, like the exhaustion of natural resources and greenery, climate catastrophe, animal killings etc. are at doorstep. Human civilization has achieved significant progress in scientific, technological, industrial and economic fields, but all developments in these fields have been pursued, and are being pursued, at the high cost of exploitation and exhaustion of environment. Man cannot survive as a completely separate entity from the environment. Because the members of the environment are interdependent in relation to each other. So the environment must be protected. We have to protect other members of the environment as well as animals and to create a healthy and beautiful environment. Human are the most intelligent being of this world, who are capable of moral conduct. So they have responsibility to protect all members of the environment. We should overcome the narrowness of anthropocentric morality and to extend the circle of moral considerations to the ecocentic morality. The result will be a beautiful and healthy environment. In this paper, I will address the shortcomings of the anthropocentric approach to the moral consideration and try to show how the non-human beings can be included in moral consideration. That is, we will try to find a way to extend the circle of moral consideration from human-centric to leaving beings, where all living beings to be given respect. Finally, I will try to find out a guideline of on creating a healthy and peaceful environment through human friendly behavior towards animals by eliminating aggression and violence in society and environment.
Ecophilosophy in Contemporary Cinema. Rethinking the Relationship Human-NonHuman Through Film
Film-Philosophy Conference 2018. Gothenburg, Sweden July 3-5, 2018
More than 45 years after the publication of Arne Næss’s article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement” in which the Norwegian philosopher postulated the difference between shallow ecology and deep ecology, the human-nonhuman relationship continues to be at the heart of the debate of environmental philosophy. By adopting diverse approaches and moving from anthropocentric, biocentric, or ecocentric perspectives, environmental philosophers have proposed a variety of theories and models trying to identify the fundamental principles and values on which a coherent, adequate environmental ethics must be based. Within this broad and complex scenario, film can express new and more vivid arguments and offer filmgoers many different film worlds in which they can rethink themselves, reflecting on their role in the ecosystem and their relationship with the nonhuman. Moving from film as philosophy and the related concept of the film world, this paper will focus on the cinematic representation of environment and, in particular, on the analysis of the modes of expression of environmental philosophy in contemporary cinema. Through the analysis of the two conflicting movies The Shallows (Collet-Serra 2016) and The Red Turtle (Dudok de Wit 2016), a discussion on expressive forms will be carried out in order to highlight the key aspects of a film ecophilosophy in which the specific mode of relationship between human and nonhuman is raised to the status of philosophical principle.
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