Papers by Netta Baryosef-Paz
Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education, 2023
This paper reflects on an interdisciplinary, environmental, and contemplative course the authors ... more This paper reflects on an interdisciplinary, environmental, and contemplative course the authors taught at Kibbutzim College of Education in Tel Aviv. Entitled "I am in Nature," the course was co-taught by an ecologist and a literary scholar. It included a two-day base camping and hiking experience in the Negev Desert and three on-campus meetings. The students read Nature Writing and Ecopoetry, practiced guided mindfulness meditations in the field, and kept contemplative-writing journals. In this community voices piece, we offer an innovative pedagogy for higher education that centers on the integration of the learner's mind, body, and heart through interdisciplinary, contemplative, and holistic approaches and ways of being.
Field Environmental Philosophy Education for Biocultural Conservation, 2023
Ecohumanism is a timely topic for educational undertaking in our global reality amid the pressing... more Ecohumanism is a timely topic for educational undertaking in our global reality amid the pressing climate crisis, mass migration, weakening commitment to social justice and liberal democracy, and the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020. In this chapter, we explore the philosophical, theoretical, and practical approach of ecohumanism in the context of teacher training education, focusing on the interrelations between the ideas of field environmental philosophy, the biocultural conservation, and the social-ecological system frameworks. One avenue of exploration may focus on the pressing predicaments of environmental sustainability. Namely, Mother Earth sustains many cultures. Surely many cultures should be able to sustain Mother Nature. This is achieved by harnessing strengths from all cultures, with their different perspectives and traditions, to sustain Nature. Another avenue of exploration that has philosophical and practical elements, is to endorse and cultivate worldviews that stress the moral and civic virtue of respect for dignity, diversity, democracy, and harmony (social and natural). Along the lines of Neil Postman’s book, The End of Education, we argue that ecohumanism, as a metanarrative or overarching goal for value education aiming for a good quality of life—for nature and humanity—defines the most appropriate and desirable common good for the twenty-first century. We include examples from the college’s integrative and activist curriculum, as well as from the experiential and explorative teaching-learning methods, demonstrating how pre-service and in-service teacher training courses contribute to a new paradigm of ecohumanist education. Our approach considers issues of social-ecological systems, contemplative environmental education, multiculturalism, shared life, and biodiversity conservation.
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 2022
A garbage collectors’ strike is in the center of Tristan Egolf Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the ... more A garbage collectors’ strike is in the center of Tristan Egolf Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Corn Belt. Trash overflows the fictitious town of Baker, Kentucky the novel portrays, alongside a truly extraordinary catalog of numerous kinds of filth. The novel thusly charts processes of deterioration and decay – environmental, as well as social and moral, interconnecting the classification of waste and the categorizations of people, while pointing at the lamentable disposability of both. Drawing on various theoretical approaches to waste, this paper offers an analysis of the interrelated environmental, social and racial layouts it portrays. A harsh critique of American culture, this great American novel protests against consumer culture and its waste production, yet it also traces a linkage between hyper-consumption, waste and the tendency to treat people as filth – based on race, class, species or work place. Lord of the Barnyard is constantly preoccupied with racial tagging and epithets, repeated mapping and categorization of racial layouts – mainly of stigmatypes of “white trash.” Carefully unfolding these layouts, the paper further shows how the novel playfully subverts social conceptions in order to uncover endemic injustices and criticize them.
פדגוגיה מתבוננת ותיקון עולם
קצרים בהוראה: זמן קורונה, המכון לחינוך מתקדם. סמינר הקיבוצים, 2021
החינוך וסביבו, 2022
תרגום סיפור מאת ת"ק בויל
The Steinbeck Review
T. C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain (1995) begins by paying homage to John Steinbeck’s
The Grapes... more T. C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain (1995) begins by paying homage to John Steinbeck’s
The Grapes of Wrath (1939): Boyle’s epigraph, quoted from Steinbeck’s novel,
creates a direct analogy between the Okies and the Mexican immigrants, their
(im)migration, and their subsequent fate. Indeed, both novels protest against the
Californians’ attitude toward the weakened “Other” who struggles to make a living
in their home state. As critics have noted, the parallels between the two novels are
visible in various features, structural as well as thematic. Similar themes include
the Californian Edenic dream, the economic depression, and a critique of consumer
culture. I argue that a deeper similarity between the novels is their common preoccupation
with filth. This focus, overlooked by scholars, can be read as part of an
entire subgenre which I call “filth-fiction.” Exploring the novels’ shared interest in
the racial and socioeconomic significations of filth and the latter’s connection to the
ecological aspects, my article demonstrates how Tortilla—like the entire corpus of
novels within this subgenre—carefully follows Steinbeck’s lead despite the fact that
it depicts a different racial layout. As my analysis shows, the impact of The Grapes
of Wrath on contemporary U.S. fiction is evident, both in the representations of
filthy “Others” and in the environmental awareness.
החינוך וסביבו, 2019
מאמר זה בוחן סיפורת דיסטופית עכשווית, שבה (בדומה לספרות האמריקנית הפופולארית) נושאים אקולוגיים תו... more מאמר זה בוחן סיפורת דיסטופית עכשווית, שבה (בדומה לספרות האמריקנית הפופולארית) נושאים אקולוגיים תופסים מקום נכבד. נושאים אלה משקפים התעניינות גוברת והולכת של החברה הישראלית בסביבה, התעניינות אשר נחקרה סוציולוגית בעיקר בעשור האחרון (גוטקובסקי, גרוסלניק ושני, 2017). רומנים דיסטופיים אשר נכתבו בשנות ה-80 וה-90 של המאה הקודמת, ייצגו בעיקר חזונות אפוקליפטיים מלחמתיים הכרוכים בעימות עם אויבים מחוץ, כמו הדרך לעין חרוד מאת עמוס קינן (1984), או השתלטות של גורמים קיצוניים דתיים או חרדיים מתוך החברה הישראלית, כמו פונדקו של ירמיהו מאת בנימין תמוז (1984) ומלאכים באים מאת יצחק בן-נר (1987). בניגוד לטקסטים אלה, רומנים עכשוויים משלבים את האיומים הלאומיים הללו עם נושאים אקולוגיים. עיסוק זה של הספרות העברית בסביבה, שטרם קיבל את תשומת הלב המחקרית הראויה לו, משתקף בשני אופנים עיקריים: אסון סביבתי כמקור לקטסטרופה – כמו בהרים אני רואה לרועי בית-לוי או ב-2023 ליגאל סרנה, שניהם מ-2014, או, לחילופין, הזנחה ופזיזות סביבתית כביטוי לשחיתות מוסרית, כמו ברומנים השלישי מאת ישי שריד (2015) וטיט מאת דרור בורשטיין (2016), המקשרים בין אי-צדק חברתי ואקולוגי לבין תיאוקרטיה יהודית. המאמר מציע קריאה צמודה (close reading) של ספרים אלה ונוספים, בגישה של ביקורת אקולוגית (Ecocriticism) (Buell 1996, 2005; Garrard 2013). בראש ובראשונה הוא מצביע על התנועה התמטית הזאת בספרות העברית ככזו שמשקפת שינוי חברתי ואולי אף שואפת להיות ממחולליו. לצד זאת, המחקר סוקר את ההשפעה התרבותית האמריקנית הניכרת בטקסטים הללו מחד גיסא, וממקם אותם גנרית בזיקה לחזון הציוני האוטופי (אלבוים-דרור, 1993) מאידך גיסא.
AbstrAct: This article examines contemporary Hebrew dystopic novels in which ecological issues pl... more AbstrAct: This article examines contemporary Hebrew dystopic novels in which ecological issues play a critical role, reflecting an increasing preoccupation of Israeli culture and society with the environment. The literary turn to dystopia is not new, but whereas Israeli dystopias published in the 1980s–1990s focused mainly on military apocalyptic visions, current novels combine these national anxieties with ecological dangers, following present-day trends in American literature and cinema. These contemporary dystopias either conjoin a national crises with an ecological disaster as the source of the catastrophe or represent environmental recklessness as evidence of moral corruption, linking ecological and social injustice to the emergence of a Jewish theocracy. Offering an eco-critical reading of these novels, the article pinpoints the American cultural influence on the narratives. This thematic shift in Hebrew fiction, I argue, reflects a rising environmental awareness and positions literature as a major arena in which these issues are raised.
T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain (1995) begins by paying homage to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes o... more T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain (1995) begins by paying homage to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939): Boyle’s epigraph, quoted from Steinbeck’s novel, creates a direct analogy between the Okies and the Mexican immigrants, their (im)migration and their subsequent fate. Indeed, both novels protest against the Californians’ attitude toward the weakened “Other” who struggles to make a living in their home-State. As critics have noted, the parallels between the two novels are visible in various features, structural as well as thematic. Similar themes include the Californian Edenic dream, the economic depression and a critique of consumer culture. I argue that a deeper similarity between the novels is their common preoccupation with filth. This focus, overlooked by scholars, can be read as part of an entire sub-genre which I call “filth-fiction”. Exploring the novels’ shared interest in the racial and socio-economical significations of filth and the latter’s connection to the ecological aspects, my paper demonstrates how Tortilla—like the entire corpus of novels within this sub-genre—carefully follows Steinbeck’s lead despite the fact it depicts a different racial layout. As my analysis shows, the impact of The Grapes of Wrath on contemporary U.S. fiction is evident, both in the representations of filthy “Others” and in the environmental awareness.
Books by Netta Baryosef-Paz
ניישטט, ל', ובר יוסף-פז, נ', (עורכות). פדגוגיה מתבוננת ותיקון עולם. תל אביב: הקיבוץ המאוחד ומכון מופת. , 2022
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Papers by Netta Baryosef-Paz
The Grapes of Wrath (1939): Boyle’s epigraph, quoted from Steinbeck’s novel,
creates a direct analogy between the Okies and the Mexican immigrants, their
(im)migration, and their subsequent fate. Indeed, both novels protest against the
Californians’ attitude toward the weakened “Other” who struggles to make a living
in their home state. As critics have noted, the parallels between the two novels are
visible in various features, structural as well as thematic. Similar themes include
the Californian Edenic dream, the economic depression, and a critique of consumer
culture. I argue that a deeper similarity between the novels is their common preoccupation
with filth. This focus, overlooked by scholars, can be read as part of an
entire subgenre which I call “filth-fiction.” Exploring the novels’ shared interest in
the racial and socioeconomic significations of filth and the latter’s connection to the
ecological aspects, my article demonstrates how Tortilla—like the entire corpus of
novels within this subgenre—carefully follows Steinbeck’s lead despite the fact that
it depicts a different racial layout. As my analysis shows, the impact of The Grapes
of Wrath on contemporary U.S. fiction is evident, both in the representations of
filthy “Others” and in the environmental awareness.
Books by Netta Baryosef-Paz
The Grapes of Wrath (1939): Boyle’s epigraph, quoted from Steinbeck’s novel,
creates a direct analogy between the Okies and the Mexican immigrants, their
(im)migration, and their subsequent fate. Indeed, both novels protest against the
Californians’ attitude toward the weakened “Other” who struggles to make a living
in their home state. As critics have noted, the parallels between the two novels are
visible in various features, structural as well as thematic. Similar themes include
the Californian Edenic dream, the economic depression, and a critique of consumer
culture. I argue that a deeper similarity between the novels is their common preoccupation
with filth. This focus, overlooked by scholars, can be read as part of an
entire subgenre which I call “filth-fiction.” Exploring the novels’ shared interest in
the racial and socioeconomic significations of filth and the latter’s connection to the
ecological aspects, my article demonstrates how Tortilla—like the entire corpus of
novels within this subgenre—carefully follows Steinbeck’s lead despite the fact that
it depicts a different racial layout. As my analysis shows, the impact of The Grapes
of Wrath on contemporary U.S. fiction is evident, both in the representations of
filthy “Others” and in the environmental awareness.