- Delray Beach, Florida, United States
Jane Caputi
Florida Atlantic University, Women, Gender and Sexuality, Faculty Member
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Item consists of a digitized copy of a video recording of a Vancouver Institute lecture given by Ann Scales and Jane Caputi on March 27, 1993. Original video recording available in the University Archives (UBC VT 279)
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Research Interests: Art, Advertising, Beauty, Undergraduate, Perfection, and 3 moreMonoculture, Environment, and Ideal Ethics
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The African concept of Nommo understands language to be the force of life, allowing speakers to participate in bringing something into existence, albeit with care. Words are alive, inspired, filled with breath or spirit, and hence able to... more
The African concept of Nommo understands language to be the force of life, allowing speakers to participate in bringing something into existence, albeit with care. Words are alive, inspired, filled with breath or spirit, and hence able to move and change speakers and listeners. Ecological living requires what Robin Wall Kimmerer describes as “grammars of animacy,” which recognize and respect the being of all life and allow relationships with other-than-human beings. Creativity is a mothering power, which cannot be understood as purely female or biological. Mothering for social justice characterizes those who create community, who love and help, who decide, who act. Man’s motherfucking is countered with cuntspeak, telling the truth, laying down the law of respect, and conjuring other worlds. While the motherfucker claims omnipotence, power over all, the “Mutha’ ” evokes cunctipotence, the conjoined power of all.
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Aldo Leopold’s experience with a dying wolf and vision of ‘green fire’ has led to green fire becoming a ubiquitous signifier of environmental concerns, while also understood as carrying a spiritual significance. To explore this conjunction, I... more
Aldo Leopold’s experience with a dying wolf and vision of ‘green fire’ has led to green fire becoming a ubiquitous signifier of environmental concerns, while also understood as carrying a spiritual significance. To explore this conjunction, I put Leopold in dialogue with aspects of Native American philosophy and science, and ecologically minded theologians and philosophers Mary Daly and Val Plumwood, finding a common theme of integrity. To understand the symbolic significance of green fire, I employ a method drawn from Jungian studies, amplification, finding parallel refer¬ences to green fire in the theology of Hildegard of Bingen, alchemical symbolism, contemporary art, poetry, and popular culture, the nature writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer, and discourses and practices around biotechnology. These parallels similarly reveal green fire to be a symbol of that integral life/death force, linked in turn to ‘Mother Earth’ or ‘Mother Nature’.
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Course Description: In this class we will look at modern environmentalist perspectives on American identities-values, attitudes and practices toward Nature (which includes nonhuman and human nature) -as these are formed and influenced,... more
Course Description: In this class we will look at modern environmentalist perspectives on American identities-values, attitudes and practices toward Nature (which includes nonhuman and human nature) -as these are formed and influenced, not only by our now globalized national experience, but also by our understandings and experiences of gender, class, sexuality and race, learning and incorporating the perspectives of both ecofeminism and environmental justice. We consider founding figures of global import like Rachel Carson as well as current leaders, including Wangari Maathai, and examine specifically American ideas and their “green” implications, including individualism, property rights, consumerism, bodies, food, birth, death, sexuality, the nature of animals, and the place of humans in the given world. We will pay particular attention to the ideas and practices of Native American cultures. We also will look at how contemporary popular culture transmits concepts through symbolic s...
This is an op ed that deplores the finale of Game of Thrones for its misogyny, with ramifications to the current political scene disparaging women candidates for the presidency and legislation aiming to end women's reproductive rights.
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There exists in contemporary North American culture an abundance of metaphorical references to nuclear technology. These metaphors participate in an overall “nuclearization” of life. Here I analyze nuclear metaphors from a feminist... more
There exists in contemporary North American culture an abundance of metaphorical references to nuclear technology. These metaphors participate in an overall “nuclearization” of life. Here I analyze nuclear metaphors from a feminist viewpoint, specifically: slang terms and everyday images—nuclear fashion; images that link nuclear technology to sexuality—“nuclear fashion”; and images that mythicize/divinize nuclear technology—“nuclear fundamentalism.” I critique not only the ways in which these metaphors support the nuclearist status quo, but also the ways in which they are based in patriarchal ideology and conclude by suggesting ways that feminists can develop a strategy of “psychic activisim,” using word and image power to counteract patriarchal/nuclearist reality. I examine three specific metaphors, the Gossip, Gorgon, and Crone as well as the transformative potential of gynocentric nuclear metaphor found in the theoretical writings of Native American women.