In an essay I'm re-reading for a course this semester, SuEllen Campbell asks, "When human desires ... conflict with other environmental values, how does the author-narrator choose?"
Human desires -- not human needs. So many of us in the developed world have so much beyond what we need, yet the culture of capitalism creates constant desire for more. And "more" has come into stark conflict with other environmental values: clean air, clean water, the survival of animal species.
So there's the key to moving forward as a human species trying to mitigate the damage we've done to the planet. What do we need? What do we want? How much more damage will we do before we learn to make the distiction?
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*"Asking Ecocritical Questions," in Teaching North American Environmental Literature, ed. Laird Christensen, et al. (New York: MLA, 2008), p. 219.
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Last night I had the strangest dream I've ever had before: I dreamed the world had all agreed to put an end to war.
Heide Estes
When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when antiracism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other and both interests lose.
Kimberlè Crenshaw
Professor of English at Monmouth University in New Jersey, environmental activist, disability blogger, parent. Find me @1greenblogger or on Facebook.
A List of Lists
On the Bedside Table
- Doug Tallamy, Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard
- Erving Goffman, Stigma
- Frank Herbert, Dune
- Melissa Terras, ed. Defining Digital Humanities
- Jeffrey J. Cohen, ed. Prismatic Ecology: Ecotheory Beyond Green
- David P. Clark, Germs, Genes, and Civilization
- Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project
- François Grosjean, Bilingual: Life and Reality
- J. Jack Halberstam, Gaga Feminism
- Judith Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure
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