LOOKING TO URSULA K. LE GUIN'S THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST TO FIND WAYS TO RESPOND TO THE DILEMMAS OF THE ANTHROPOCENE (original) (raw)
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Anthropocenica. Revista de estudios del Antropoceno y Ecocrítica, 2023
A Philosophical Journey into the Anthropocene. Discovering Terra Incognita is the latest book by Agostino Cera, published this year by Lexington Books. As has already been argued (Sklair, 2021), the Anthropocene is usually described as a "good" Anthropocene. This might sound quite strange given that the usual reports from the media are full of negative information. Catastrophist hypotheses regarding the ecological crisis, as well as eco-modernist readings of the issue are the two most widespread ideas about the Anthropocene and are based on the same theoretical premise: the modern idea of nature. This-follows Bruno Latour's definition of modernity (Latour, 1993)-according to which the main characteristic of this epoch consists of the fundamental dualism between nature and culture. The great merit of Cera's book is proposing an alternative to these two modern readings of the Anthropocene, based on a re-evaluation of this concept, no longer grounded in modern assumptions. The underlying hypothesis is that opening to a different way of thinking about the human-nature relationship will be crucial not only to understanding our historical condition but also to preparing the ground for a new ethical paradigm. To sketch his countermovement, Cera tackles two main research questions: what is and who is the Anthropocene? In the first part of the book, Cera answers the first question. The second part, which comprises the remaining two chapters, is addressed the other. The first chapter, "Epistemic Journey", opens with a lexical and chronological genealogy of the concept of "Anthropocene", first developed in the year 2000 by the chemist Paul J. Crutzen, the biologist Eugene F. Stoermer and the climate researcher Will Steffen (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000; Steffen & Crutzen et al., 2007). This book plays a central role in the discussion about Anthropocene
Placing the Anthropos in Anthropocene
Annals of the American Association of Geographers
In this article, we review the place of "the human" in influential approaches to the Anthropocene to expose the diverse conceptualizations of humanity and human futures. First, we synthesize current research on humans as landscape modifiers across space and time, making a key distinction between the "old Anthropocene" (beginning with human food production) and the "new Anthropocene" (coinciding with the start of the Industrial Revolution). Second, we engage critical perspectives on the structuring effects of capitalist and colonialist systems-now periodized as the Capitalocene and Plantationocene, respectivelythat have driven environmental degradation and human inequality over the past half-millennium. In the third section, we introduce alternative perspectives from anthropological and ethnographic research that confront the socioecological disruptions of capitalism and colonialism, drawing on indigenous Amazonian perspectives that have a more capacious understanding of the human-including species other than Homo sapiens. Finally, to conclude, we extend our analysis to a broader suite of visions for building socially and environmentally just futures captured in the framework of the pluriverse, which stands in strong contrast with the techno-modernist aspirations for the next stage in which humans become separated from Earth, in space. In recognizing these varied understandings of humanity, we hope to call attention to the diverse possibilities for human futures beyond the Anthropocene.
Global Environmental Politics, 2018
Many socioenvironmental struggles around the globe involve trying to protect the disappearance of other "worlds." Along with biological diversity, human languages, traditions, understandings, and the intimate relationships between peoples and their lands are under attack through various forms of colonization, capital expansion, or simply the globalization of lifeways. Scholars of international relations have recently come to appreciate that the world is made up of many worlds, and that great pressures threaten to reduce its diversity. This work has been essential for understanding the struggle of maintaining many worlds on a single Earth. Such scholarship has yet to penetrate fully studies of global environmental politics (GEP). This article extends such sensitivity and scholarly effort to GEP by dialoguing with Indigenous ways of knowing. It argues that Indigenous struggles are struggles for the survival of many worlds on one planet and that we could learn from this. The intention is not to generalize Indigenous knowledge but rather to make a call for engagement. Through Creative Listening and Speaking, a worldist methodology, the article focuses on the Yanomami's forest-world and presents a few perspectives to illustrate how relational ontologies, stories of nonhierarchical and dialogical divinities, make ways of knowing and being from which we could learn how to relate to the Earth as equals. Ursula K. Le Guin's novel The Word for World Is Forest tells the story of natives living on Athshe, a planet made up of thick forests and far from Earth, witnessing the destruction of their land and way of life. The novel describes how the Terrans, future humans, have traveled to Athshe to cut down the planet's trees (sending them back to Earth) and to prepare the land for future Terran colonizers. Two Athsheans talk about the sanity of the Terrans: "A people can't be insane."
Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest and the Feminist Critique of the Anthropocene
Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film and Culture, 2021
This presentation aims to analyze Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Word for World is Forest (1972) and its relation to the theories of the Anthropocene that have taken place since Crutzen (2000; 2002) and Stoermer’s (2002) studies, more specifically the feminist ones (HARAWAY, 2016; TSING, 2015). Written before the discussion of the Anthropocene took place, Le Guin’s novel deals with anxieties very similar to the ones we face today about the imminent destruction of our planet. The novel suggests that the patriarchal logic of exceptionalism, exploitation and progress is directly responsible for a great part of the social injustices and environment devastation we face today, something Le Guin would later develop in “The Carrier Bag Theory” (1989), when she questions the narratives focused on the hero’s story. In her essay, Le Guin proposes that long before the spear/weapon, the first tool that humans created must have been the bag – or some kind of container - and from that hypothesis she defends other possibilities in the way of telling stories. Taking into account Le Guin’s influence on both Haraway and Tsing’s theories, this presentation aims to analyze the feminist critique of the Anthropocene, stablishing a dialogue with the novel The Word for World is Forest and its narrative of an Earth military logging colony set up on the planet Athshe where the colonists enslave the non-violent native Athsheans.
Ecofeminism and Marxist Ecocriticism in Ursula K. Le Guin’ s The Word for World is Forest
2022
's fictional novella The Word for World is Forest narrates the story of Terran humans and Athshean aliens. Even though the novella was written as a reaction to the Vietnam War, it can also be analyzed from an eco-critical perspective as human' s interaction with nature is one of the sub-narratives of the novella. Athsheans live a peaceful and ecocentric life and make their living by trading their trees with Earth, where the wood is a highly scarce commodity. The destruction of forests in the World has caused the Terrans to seek wood on another planet: "when they came here there had been nothing: 'A dark huddle and jumble and tangle of trees' (Le Guin, 2009, p. 3). For Athshean people, the dark forest is the source of life set up as a dialectical counterpart to Terran modernity, industrialization, and science. For four years, Terrans enslave and have little green fury people work as slaves and personal servants in the camps. Atsheans do not revolt or protest because virtually they do not have a culture of violence, rape, assault, or murder. Instead, they have adopted singing to soothe their anger. An Atshean native, Selver is the only native to think of war and act upon it. The relentless and uncompromising Captain Don Davidson is the leader of humans and embodiment of anthropocentric dualism as he uses violence to 1 This study has been presented as a short proceeding in 14th International IDEA Conference, Studies in English: Trabzon, Turkey, 2021 titled as Deep Ecology and Eco Defense in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest.
Introduction. The Social Construction of the Anthropocene: Theoretical and Ethical Perspectives
Rivista italiana di filosofia politica, 2023
The ancient one-to-one relationship with the biological life cycle has gradually deteriorated due to the world undergoing a metamorphic process. Such a metamorphosis has affected ecological harmony, in terms of it being both an approach to studying the relationships between living beings and the environment, and a branch of knowledge protecting and promoting ecological balance. One of the crucial aspects of this phenomenon is the need to rethink and redefine the concept of life in an era that has been described as the "Anthropocene". In introducing this special issue of the Journal, the paper aims to investigate the environmental question, which plays a crucial role in contemporary political thought, due to the survival of both nature and mankind being threatened. Since the 1950s, such a complex situation has resulted in two lines of thought whose views follow two opposed ideologies-anthropocentrism and anti-anthropocentrism.
Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene in Latin American Culture (Syllabus)
In this course, we explore how Latin American cultural production, both past and present, exposes and confronts the profound challenges and consequences of the Anthropocene-a geological epoch defined by human impact on the planet. Through an ecocritical lens, we will examine the environmental and social consequences of this era, focusing on the intersections of cultural studies, literary studies, and environmental humanities. By engaging with works that conceptualize the Anthropocene and related terms like the Capitalocene and the Plantationocene, we will uncover the connections between our ongoing environmental crisis and the legacies of colonialism, racialization, and extractivism. Our interdisciplinary approach includes diverse texts and artistic pieces that illuminate these complex interactions while also proposing possible responses to the problems they pose. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with current scholarship in environmental humanities and have a deeper understanding of Latin American culture, literature, and environmental art. The course will be taught in English, with further readings suggested for those proficient in Spanish or Portuguese.
International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity
The dawning realization that the planet may have entered a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene could prove transformative. However, over the course of its brief history, the Anthropocene concept has often been framed in ways that reinforce, rather than challenge, the conventional modernist belief in a clear dividing line between human culture and a largely passive natural world, sharply limiting the concept’s potential utility. Reflecting the overestimation of human agency and power inevitably implied by a term that is often popularly translated as the ‘Age of Humans’, some have already begun to argue that powerful humans can be trusted to create a so-called ‘Good Anthropocene’ through massive geo-engineering projects. No deeper re-examination of the human relationship to the planet is thus necessary or desired. By contrast, this article draws on emerging neo-materialist theory to suggest a radically different approach that emphasizes the ways in which humans and their cult...