Ecocrtiticism

This paper was given at the British Comparative Literature Association summer graduate reception in June 1016. In his outline of “first-wave ecocriticism”, Lawrence Buell considers it as ‘keen to celebrate nature rather than querying “Nature” as a concept; keen to derive inspiration as directly as possible from environmental activism” while contemporary, “second-wave ecocriticism”, which tends to focus on examining the conception of “Nature”, has a more ambivalent relationship to ecological activism. This paper will bridge this gap through an analysis of the depictions of environmental protest and intervention in forest, riverine and lakeside environments in Kerstin Ekman's Händelser Vid Vatten and Nell Zink's The Wallcreeper. The mediations in these two novels of these activities constitute outlines of permutations of possible relationships between subject and environment (rather than “Nature”).

Jason Voorhees is the most popular of all backwoods slasher killers. Very few masked killers have achieved the same iconic status and popularity as Jason, whose identity can be evoked simply via the image of the hockey mask he wears from Friday the 13th Part 3 onward. Fans masquerading as Jason simply need a hockey mask and a machete, his preferred weapon. Imitating Jason’s stalking motif (ch-ch-ch) has become shorthand for evoking a slasher movie menace.

Jason’s enduring popularity and iconic status are a result of his framing as a rural backwoodsman protagonist. Symbolically born from Crystal Lake, from which we see him rise numerous times, he haunts the woods of a northeastern summer camp, killing anyone who trespasses. In his early film appearances, particularly Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), his backwoods skills, including stalking prey and laying snares, are emphasized. However, Jason Voorhees, while celebrating whiteness as a hillbilly, can also signify as a berserker in light of the rise in interest in things European, Viking, and/or Medieval. There has been a recent spike in crusader and Viking imagery as signifiers of masculinity in red state US culture in particular. In recent news, Donald Trump Jr. posed with his custom assault rifle which has a Jerusalem Cross on a crusader’s helmet embossed on it. Jason’s last name, Voorhees, is Dutch, and his iconic hockey mask aligns him with northern winter sports associated with violence and fighting -- and whiteness. As Richard Dyer notes, the symbolic home of the mythical white race is northern Europe, especially its mountainous regions (White 21). Jason’s signification as a backwoods hillbilly and viking berserker, two idealized white masculine types, connect him to the primal and the rural, which justify his superhuman powers and allow him to render his suburban and urban victims as ineffectual and impotent.

The shift toward seeing Jason as the protagonist / fan favorite coincides with reading him as some form of unkillable warrior / berserker as a well as representative of white hillbilly strength and backwoods toughness. Ongoing sequelization / franchising plays a role in this too, breeding familiarity and increasingly non-serious / “camp” readings that allow viewers to side with Jason as slasher protagonist while disavowing or downplaying his retrograde politics (e.g., the later films are too silly to be taken seriously).

Jason has an oscillating significance that meets cultural moments. In Friday the 13th Part 2,  he is established as a Natty Bumppo type wild man of the woods. In subsequent films he dons the hockey mask and more frequently ventures into non-wilderness (e.g., Manhattan) and fantastical (Outer Space, Hell) locales. Nevertheless, he exemplifies how white hillbillies serve to authenticate whiteness in popular culture.

We support our case by first analyzing Jason's depiction in Friday the 13th Part 2, the first film in which he appears in adult guise as a backwoods slasher killer, as well as select moments from later franchise entries including Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003).

Although ecocriticism began to gain ground in the Western academy in the late 1990s, its impact in the comparative study of Turkish literature has not been visible until very recently. With the widespread destruction of natural landscapes and subsequent environmental protests that transform into nationwide uprisings, cultural studies in Turkey only recently started turning its eyes towards ecology. The landscape of Turkey, with its trees and animals inspires narratives of survival, struggle and escape. This volume aims to portray how the ‘defenseless’ and ‘silent’ partners of our lives appear in our language. To what extent have they been represented in Turkish literature and film? What roles have they appeared in? What roles did they bestow upon humans? To what extent have they been given a voice? What are the possibilities for a trans-species interaction? And what does it mean today within the context of Turkish identity to be a ‘defenseless’ and ‘voiceless’ other?

This volume, as a collection of essays on some of the literary and cinematic milestones, will be the first of its kind. By establishing the relevance of the theoretical issues, creative works and the political circumstances, this volume will be a landmark in its field.

In the framework of contemporary ecocritical and posthumanist theories, this comparative analysis of works by Paolo Mantegazza, Ouida, and Vernon Lee focuses on the conflictual relationship of proximity and differentiation at stake in the human-animal distinction in a post-Darwinian context dominated by the rise of experimental sciences. A discussion of vivisection and animal taming prompted by anthropocentric works as Mantegazza's _Fisiologia del dolore_ and _Upilio Faimali_ in tension with pro-animal essays by Ouida and Vernon Lee shows how the animal, caught between pure inert materiality and idealization, emerges as an intrinsic lack that the human fills with contending rational, utilitarian, moral, and affective motivations.

ESTA claro que los vencedores son los que escriben la Historia. Al mismo tiempo, existen "otros" discursos sobre el pasado, o "contra-memorias," que resisten a las interpretaciones oficiales (Zemon Davis y Starn 1-6). A diferencia de la memoria historica impuesta por el poder, estas memorias alternativas arrinconadas plasman la experiencia de las victimas marginadas del pasado. De acuerdo con su analisis sobre los vinculos entre los estudios postcoloniales y la ecocritica, Anthony Vital asegura que habria que reconsiderar nuestro concepto del pasado y del presente para subvertir las formas heredadas de dominio con respecto al mundo, tanto humano como no humano (5). Destaca, asimismo, los perjuicios que la modernidad puede infligir sobre los humanos y otras formas de vida (7). Entre los locutores perjudicados por los poderosos, recalca Christopher Manes, se encuentra el mundo natural, cuya incapacidad de articulacion verbal ha propiciado la explotacion y la destruccion ecologica a lo largo de los ultimos siglos (44). Una de las sobrevivientes marginadas de la Historia es una tortuga llamada Harriet. Fue recogida por Charles Darwin en las islas Galapagos para formar parte de su estudio El origen de las especies (1859). Harriet es tambien la protagonista parlante de una suerte de fabula de teatro del dramaturgo espanol Juan Mayorga: La tortuga de Darwin (2008). Las tortugas, de acuerdo a la mitologia china, son animales inteligentes que canalizan sentimientos humanos y simbolizan la fuerza y la longevidad, amen de constituir emblemas de epocas en las que reinan la virtud, la paz, y la armonia entre el mundo humano y el natural (Ross 84). Si bien Harriet responde a estas caracteristicas simbolicas--es longeva, fuerte, perspicaz y benevola--, todo lo contrario ha resulTado ser el periodo de doscientos anos de historia belica y desarrollo anti-ecologico europeo, observados por Harriet "desde abajo," "a ras de tierra" (19). Desde su condicion como testigo intrahistorico y animal, distanciado de las ideas humanas, Harriet brinda una contramemoria ecologica del pasado que utiliza la ironia y la parodia para subvertir la historia antropocentrica, y el progreso ominoso, de los seres humanos que ha conocido. Sin duda harriet se encuentra entre los que padecen la historia, como puntualiza ella misma en el texto: "he ido de aqui para alla, donde la historia ha querido llevarme" (15). constituye un simbolo de un personaje "otro" por antonomasia. como subraya Laureano corces, harriet encarna la representacion de una inmigrante indocumentada que, al igual que muchos expatriados sin papeles, contribuye a su sociedad adoptiva mucho mas de lo que recibe de ella (275). Ademas de concebirla como una anciana de origen latinoamericano, de "color raro," y de aspecto fisico anomalo, quien exhibe rasgos judios y tintes transexuales, harriet tambien es un animal. Y la sociedad europea la trata como tal. Beti, la mujer del Profesor que acoge a harriet porque su "cabecita encierra doscientos anos de Europa," le tilda despectivamente de "bicho" y de "monstruo," le contempla "con una mezcla de asco, miedo y fascinacion" (35) y se queja de sus costumbres: "su primer dia en esta casa ha sido comer, dormir y ensuciar" (27). Unicamente deja de insultar a esta tortuga parlante cuando se le ocurre sacarle rendimiento economico: Beti: como la gente no se creera que eres tortuga, como pensaran que eres una actriz disfrazada, al final del show les dejamos subir a tocarte. Pero pagando. Tu no vas a tener que ocuparte de nada, yo me encargo de todo, yo soy tu representante. Te he preparado un contrato. Lo pone ante Harriet y le tiende una pluma. Harriet va a firmar. Se detiene. harriet: Que quiere decir "exclusividad por cincuenta anos, renovables automaticamente por cincuenta mas"? Beti: Tu firma y luego te lo explico. (49-50) Con un discurso que evidentemente parodia el capitalismo, Beti pretende convertir a este "otro" indefenso en una "estrella" de un espectaculo estrafalario, pero tambien "ameno" y "alegre," pues segun esta ama de casa, "la gente no va al teatro a que le cuenten desgracias" (49). …

What can the poetic or experimental mode of documentary contribute to the discourses of the New Taiwan Documentary, which tends to favor more politically engaged modes such as the observational, participatory and expository? In this lecture, I will use Huang Hsin-yao’s Nimbus and Taivalu as case studies to demonstrate that the poetic or experimental documentary mode provides a different outlet to address issues such as psychological eco-trauma and ecological adaptation. It also dares to imagine a broader, deep-time, more-than-human world and aesthetics. This is much needed in an era now called the Anthropocene.

Nigeria has entered another significant phase of its national development when the impacts of environmental neglect are clearly visible and felt all over the country’s landscape. From north to south, and west to east, the checklist of ecological failures is long and awesome. Interestingly, each region has its peculiar pressing environmental woes. The consequences of ecological crises in our towns and villages cause internal displacement of population as the situation is with dam failures or drought occurrence. Conflicts between nomads and farmers are growing with increasing desertification and land desiccation. Poverty and poor health may all be a direct corollary of ecological dismemberment. To fence the failures of natural resources in Nigeria, environmental experts1 advocate for application of scientific knowledge, land reform, land use control, resource management and environmental education. In spite of such suggestions the pathetic environmental problems remain in the state of...

This article reads the Vita Merlini as a parable of Merlin’s progression from
ethical consideration of non-human Others within a fantasy wilderness
to sovereignty over the Calidon Forest. This narrative of domination over
Nature is complicated as Merlin’s colonialist perspective is challenged by
Ganieda’s desire for a pre-Conquest British wilderness.

Nigeria has entered another significant phase of its national development when the impacts of environmental neglect are clearly visible and felt all over the country’s landscape. From north to south, and west to east, the checklist of ecological failures is long and awesome. Interestingly, each region has its peculiar pressing environmental woes. The consequences of ecological crises in our towns and villages cause internal displacement of population as the situation is with dam failures or drought occurrence. Conflicts between nomads and farmers are growing with increasing desertification and land desiccation. Poverty and poor health may all be a direct corollary of ecological dismemberment. To fence the failures of natural resources in Nigeria, environmental experts1 advocate for application of scientific knowledge, land reform, land use control, resource management and environmental education. In spite of such suggestions the pathetic environmental problems remain in the state of flux. But of course, the cited recommendations of the experts remain instructive though need to be complemented by our common heritage – the literature resources. This paper attempts to classify the major ecological challenges specific to northern Nigeria. It also offers a prognosis of the effects of such ecological disasters on national development. It also highlights some of the potentialities of the regional literature in the promotion of public sensitization towards environmental protection, enhancement and in achieving the overall goals of sustainable development in the region and Nigeria as a whole.

Nigeria has entered another significant phase of its national development when the impacts of environmental neglect are clearly visible and felt all over the country’s landscape. From north to south, and west to east, the checklist of ecological failures is long and awesome. Interestingly, each region has its peculiar pressing environmental woes. The consequences of ecological crises in our towns and villages cause internal displacement of population as the situation is with dam failures or drought occurrence. Conflicts between nomads and farmers are growing with increasing desertification and land desiccation. Poverty and poor health may all be a direct corollary of ecological dismemberment. To fence the failures of natural resources in Nigeria, environmental experts1 advocate for application of scientific knowledge, land reform, land use control, resource management and environmental education. In spite of such suggestions the pathetic environmental problems remain in the state of...