The Ecophobia Hypothesis

ISBN-10: 1351384937
ISBN-13: 9781351384933
Category: Literary Criticism
Pages: 198
Language: English
Published: 2018-06-27
Publisher: Routledge
Author: Simon C. Estok

Description

The Ecophobia Hypothesis grows out of the sense that while the theory of biophilia has productively addressed ideal human affinities with nature, the capacity of “the biophilia hypothesis” as an explanatory model of human/ environment relations is limited. The biophilia hypothesis cannot adequately account for the kinds of things that are going on in the world, things so extraordinary that we are increasingly coming to understand the current age as “the Anthropocene.” Building on the usefulness of the biophilia hypothesis, this book argues that biophilia exists on a broader spectrum that has not been adequately theorized. The Ecophobia Hypothesis claims that in order to contextualize biophilia (literally, the “love of life”) and the spectrum on which it sits, it is necessary to theorize how very un-philic human uses of the natural world are. This volume offers a rich tapestry of connected, comparative discussions about the new material turn and the urgent need to address the agency of genes, about the complexities of 21st century representations of ecophobia, and about how imagining terror interpenetrates the imagining of an increasingly oppositional natural environment. Furthermore, this book proposes that ecophobia is one root cause that explains why ecomedia—a veritably thriving industry—is having so little measurable impact in transforming our adaptive capacities. The ecophobia hypothesis offers an equation that determines the variable spectrums of the Anthropocene by measuring the ecophobic implications and inequalities of speciesism and the entanglement of environmental ethics with the writing of literary madness and pain. This work also investigates how current ecophobic perspectives systemically institutionalize the infrastructures of industrial agriculture and waste management. This is a book about revealing ecophobia and prompting transformational change.

Get the book

Similar books

International Perspectives in Feminist Ecocriticism
By Greta Gaard, Simon C. Estok, Serpil Oppermann
... The ecophobia hypothesis is about keeping things visible. It is about remembering the past and present, about recognizing that the visions of feminism, of (feminist) ecocriticism, of queer theory, and so ... The Ecophobia Hypothesis 79 Notes.
Landscape, Seascape, and the Eco-Spatial Imagination
By Jonathan White, Simon C. Estok, I-Chun Wang
... The Ecophobia Hypothesis. Jonathan Locke Hart is the author of a number of books on history, culture and literature—most recently Empires and Colonies; Shakespeare: Poetry, History and Culture; Literature, Theory, History; Shakespeare ...
The Forest and the EcoGothic: The Deep Dark Woods in the Popular Imagination
By Elizabeth Parker
This book offers the first full length study on the pervasive archetype of The Gothic Forest in Western culture.
Packing Death in Australian Literature: Ecocides and Eco-Sides
By Iris Ralph
Ecocides and Eco-Sides Iris Ralph. The ecophobia hypothesis unapologetically and unabashedly confronts kinds of suffering and death directly caused by aversion to, hostility and indifference toward, and avoidance of nature. It is ...
Ecological Film Theory and Psychoanalysis: Surviving the Environmental Apocalypse in Cinema
By Robert Geal
... Ecophobia. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 16(2), 203–225. Estok, S.C. (2018a) The Ecophobia Hypothesis. Abingdon: Routledge. Estok, S.C..
Culture and Media: Ecocritical Explorations
By Rayson K. Alex, S. Susan Deborah, Sachindev P.S.
... the “ecophobia hypothesis” as a tonic to E. O. Wilson's “biophilia hypothesis” (the idea that our love of other living things guides our ethical relationships with the natural world). It seems, in many ways, as silly to theorize ...
Turkish Ecocriticism: From Neolithic to Contemporary Timescapes
By Sinan Akıllı
Thornber calls this ecoambiguity. The Anatolian plays reveal what seems innocent enough: a desire “to increase the fertility of the soil and to ensure that the animals reproduce in a healthy environment and in many numbers” (Özhan 1999, ...
Jane Austen and Literary Theory
By Shawn Normandin
In The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 475–525. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Richardson, Samuel. 1964. Selected Letters of Samuel Richardson. Edited by John Carroll.
Ecocriticism and Shakespeare: Reading Ecophobia
By Simon C. Estok
This book offers the term 'ecophobia' as a way of understanding and organizing representations of contempt for the natural world.
Material Ecocriticism
By Serpil Oppermann, Serenella Iovino
Bringing ecocriticism closer to the material turn, the contributions to this landmark volume focus on material forces and substances, the agency of things, processes, narratives and stories, and making meaning out of the world.