Humcore Fall Midterm - 2025

definitions, important peeps, etc

Environmental Humanities

-a branch of humanistic inquiry that situates human life within the context of a broader ecosystem

(themes of nature in cultural artifacts + looks at relationships between lit and nature in context)

(ex. Agriculture, sustainability)

-studying the environment is not only for people studying science, responding to social and ecological crisis can also be found in humanities

Binary Terms

-binary is a story, an idea used to think other ideas

-each term need its “opposite” for the definition of the other term to make sense in context (thus making them entangled)

-when you put complex words into binary terms they damage means and our understanding of the world

-Nature/Culture binary

-they are actually interconnected

-non human/human binary

-separates human from nature and creates a hierarchy

More-than-human

is an alternative to the human/non human binary

Note: a world outside of only human

Antropocentrism

 human is above nature (top of the food chain)

Biocentrism

human is apart of the world and at equal level with nature (more-than-human friends)

Ecology

 the branch of science that studies how organisms interact with each other and their physical surrounds

-from the Greek oikos meaning "household"

-the study of any intricate, interconnected system

Timothy Morton - Environmental Humanities

-ecology has to do with science and humanities

-ecological thinking has to do with factories, transportation, architecture, and economics

-ecology is everyone (humanmade and collaboration of more than human creation)

The anthropocene - anthropogenic change

-era of the human (humans have impact on the earth)

-anthropogenic effects - human effect - rival the natural world

-changes in the climate can be divided into human and natural causes

-some call it the capitolocene due to human involvement and economic involvement

-wealthiest nations cause most damage whereas poorest nations suffer the most damage

-economic involvement in current era

Storytelling

-builds a bridge between academic writing and the public

-foundation of knowledge

Beyond Binaries

-each binary is a seed in a story and it takes the form of a clash or opposition

-what is an alternation narrative framework so that we can reimagine our relationship with nature that is less negative or verses

“Nature narratives”

-foundational stories that give rise to the western understanding of nature

-through stories that view humans as equal to nature, taking away the culture/nature divide

Contingent

dependent on or determined by conditions, rather than being necessary or inevitable

-the meaning of nature isn’t fixed or universal

-ideas about nature can change

-ideas about nature change depending on when and where you’re talking about it

-tells us our ideas about nature can change

Donna Haraway

-she breaks down human and nature and viewed opposites that are actually interconnected

-storytelling is key to building connected to heal the environment

Donna Haraway - “Tenacular thinking”

A model of decentralized, non-binary, and non-hierarchical thinking that emphasizes interconnectedness rather than bounded individualism

Donna Haraway - “It matters what stories tell stories” 

-her rendition of the quote “It matters what ideas we use to this other ideas” Marilyn Strathern

-stories are cultural tools

-because stories are made things, we can choose different stories to believe in and it matters how we interpret the story

Donna Haraway - Speculative Fabulation

-a kind of storytelling that, similar to science fiction, explores alternative realities and challenges existing norms to cultivate new ways of thinking 

-departs from the explorative reality all around us

-speculation: the act of looking; from Latin speculatio, meaning contemplation or observation

-need not be “fictional”: can include academic, journalistic, and personal forms of writing

-scrutinize everyday practices in your routine

-ask you to see how things could be

-any form of writing can functions as a speculative fabulation as long as it challenges the current ideas

Donna Haraway - Backward speculation

-looking back at the past and speculating about the future through the past

-the past not only shows us how we got here but also the paths that did not continue

The past can teach us about resource consumption, the human and nature relationship

-the past reminds us of contingence that the past can change

-"the past reminds us that change can occur” Natalie Zemon Davis

cosmology

Nature Narratives - Braiding Sweetgrass

-she brings binary of traditionally indigenous knowledge and western understandings

Cosmology - skywomen

-a creation story, told by Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes region, which comprise the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Odawa groups

-uses the story to emphasis indigenous understandings of the human and nature relationship

-critizes the christian creation story

-created a very different world (told not to really interact with nature)

Cosmology - Genesis

-eve is tempted by the serpent to eat the fruit → her and Adam both eat the fruit → god curses them → they are exiled → god curses the serpent to eat dirt → the serpent and eve become enemies

-gods curse institutionalized the separation of nature and human

-based on struggle and control

-forced to labor and suffer (agriculture)

-forced to struggle to produce food (cannot just harvest from the earth)

Before tree situation, god demands that they rule over nature and multiply, insinuating that human beings are created to stand above nature

-adam gives names to the animals, he becomes lord over animals and acts as a god

Human Exceptionalism

-the anthropocentric belief that humans are fundamentally superior to and separate from all other forms of life, justifying human dominance over the natural world 

-idea of human superiority, separates human and nature, takes away from the care for other beings (resulting in oil collecting, animal farming, slavery, and other atrocities)

Cosmology - Nature’s Feminity

-long combo of stories we can see the change and expansion of the story

-in this western story, nature’s femininity becomes a liability

-it begins a nurturing story but that same spirit becomes an entity that is vulnerable and needs to be controlled by men

Nature’s Feminity - Nature as Organism: an ancient idea

-man as microcosm

-establishes the universe are living with a soul

-Gaia/Mother Earth

-represents the planet as a nurturing mother

-godess natura

-often depicted as a beautiful women, gods depiction, helps world

-living entity with maternal nature

-the image of earth as a nurturing mother had served a cultural restraint, as long as the earth was considered alive, you could not break it (mine, break down the earth, etc.)

-the mother earth perspective because an economic barrier to better fit their needs (european expansion)

Nature’s Feminity - In between

-no longer just taking from the surface but taking from the internal being of earth

-mining shows a moral decay and a lack of respect for nature

-because metal and iron and gold is the root of evil

Nature’s Feminity - 16th Century

-by the 16th century, the humans now believe that nature (mother earth) has given the earth to humans to take any resource that is available on the surface and within the earth

-they argue that fishing is the same as mining and fishing was never morally wrong

-the story changes as the needs of man change

-Sir Francis Bacon, uses nature as a women hiding things for man to take, (all of the resources can be taken), men can take anything (mining the earth for knowledge)

-a women’s curiosity (eve), destroyed humanity so now this “mother earth” must give herself to man in order to further scientific knowledge through exploitation and slavery

The Green Man

-human plant hybrid (green man) were Celtic figures in the medieval times

-common decorative piece in medieval British churches

-in pagan context represented life and death and rebirth

-christan churches had similar values

-figure of the green man fundamentally disturbed the binary that human and nature are separate

-invites us to imagine our entanglement with plant life

-what was assumed to be lower than human life is actually the same in the green man

-connects human world with more than human world

-Is the green knight a Green Man?

(think in context of medieval readers)

SGGK - Description

-The poem lingers on description, using very specific language, elaborates on every piece that is green

-this announces who the poem is for

-for the noble audience that would recognize the vocabulary

-the description is world building

-takes place in a world of made things (human craft + human art)

-presence of more than human world

-the description and vocabulary points us to the material of the items

-i.e. Leather

-shows the connection between nature and human

-materials (animal products) are being used to dominate nature (fur, leather, etc)

-figure of the green knight reveals that human and nature are connected and not a binary

-hybridity: a blend of diverse elements

Medieval romance

-from “roman”, referring to the Romance languages, the vernacular, as opposed to Latin

-romance languages are for ordinary people

-subgenres: chivalric romance: specifically featuring knights on quests; Arthurian romance

-developed in Europe from the 12th century as entertainment for aristocratic audiences, especially women

-features marvels, supernatural events, love, courtly virtues

SGGK - Audience

-BORED NOBLE WOMEN

-a sophisticated noble audience

-hunting practice description and events description

-based on dialect located in the Northwest Midlands of England, near the border with Wales (based on the dialect used in the poem’s manuscript)

-made for patron in Northwest Midlands of England

-manuscript contains four other alliterative poems, with a religious focus (Pearl, Patience Cleanness, St. Erkenwald)

-likely written for a small elite circle of noble people

-literature for insiders

SGGK - Handbook

stock, bob, and wheel

Medieval Poem - Stock

-the main section of each stanza, consisting of the longer lines

-the length of the stock can vary - there is no fixed number of lines in each stanza’s stock section

-does not rhyme

Medieval Poem - Bob

-transition between stock and wheel

-features alliteration but also rhyme

-a short two-syllable line that comes after the stock

Medieval Poem - Alliteration Verse

-An old english verse form, dating back to Old English Poetry (c. 450-1066 CE)

-rhymed verse was introduced into English Poetry from the French after the Norman Conquest of 1066

-alliterative “revival” in the mide-to-late 14th century

Medieval Poem - Wheel

-features alliteration but also rhyme

-consists of four longer lines following the bob; like the lines of the stock, these lines follow an alliterative pattern

-slate rhyme

-difficult to keep the rhyme

-(when the rhyme is lost in the translation and it no longer rhymes)

-check the middle english if the rhyme doesn’t work

Medieval Poem - Form and Meaning

-Distinctive shape of bob and wheel: draws attention to the ending of every stanza

-Develops the thematic idea of endings, but also new beginnings

-Highlights cyclicality: rhyme, pattern, alternation

SGGk as a cultural hybrid:

-A Middle English poem using an older, traditional poetic form that looks back to pre-Conquest,

Germanic roots

-Fuses alliterative verse (Old English) + rhyming patterns of French poetic tradition.

-example that fusses together of old english alliteration and newer rhyming pattern of the french after 1066

SGGK - Armor and Assemblage

-many vocab of knightly equipment

-lengthy description of war gear

-attempts to protect human body in armor

-must surround himself with more than human protection in order to protect his human body

-similar to green knights description of gear

-Gawain has all of the knightly gear

New materialism

-a field of study that challenges the traditional separation between mind and matter by emphasizing the agency, vitality, and interconnectedness of all material entities – both living and nonliving — in constituting the world

Ex. food, storms, metal, oil

-even though not living beings they have the capacity to block the will of humans and have the ability to act on their own

-we ignore the agency of materials at our own peril

-she (Jane Bennet) wants to foster a new understanding of how humans and entities should work together

SGGK - Assemblage

-a critique of human-focused theories on agency

-enables us to see how human and more-than-human entities act together and share responsibility

-similar to web,network, mesh, and rhizome

-Assemblage as a household (oikos)?

SGGK - Knight Identity

-gawain’s capacity as a knight comes from armor and gear that he puts on

-horse is needed to be a knight

SGGK - Chivalry

Derives from French “cheval” (meaning “horse”)

1. “Knights or horsemen equipped for battle.” (OED, def. 1)

2. “The knightly system of feudal times with its attendant religious, moral, and social code, usages, and practices.” (OED, def. 5)

-makes reference to horse

-human masculinity depends on more than human world

-blurs the line between human and more than human world

SGGK - the “ENDLESS KNOT”

-gold pentangle on the center of gawain’s shield

-gawain bears a shield that has the endless knot in pure gold in a backdrop of red

SGGK - Protection: “five sets of five”

-five senses

-five fingers

-the five wounds of christ

-the five joys of Mary (she is also painted on the inside of his shield)

-the five virtues: friendship, fraternity, purity, politeness, and pity 

“The buffered self” vs “ the porous self”

-Charles Taylor

-green knight is porous self but gawain is buffered self

-gawain exhibits a buffered self when he insulates himself from the outside world

-firm boundaries, self control, immunity from outside world

-different from porous self that sees the supernatural world and connection with nature

-buffered self is not good because it gives a false sense of disconnect from nature

-even though written before the enlightenment that brought this theory, Gawain still embodies the buffered self

-different from green knight that is wearing no armor and is a porous self

-Gawain is shortsighted, the poem is not making fun of Gawain as he puts on his armor

-poet sees himself as the preserver of human culture

SGGK - Karen Barad

-being entangled is lacking an independent existence

-individual identity is the product of relational processes

-we become who we are through our ongoing relationships

-no thing and no person enjoy an individual existence

SGGK - Anna L. Tsing

-percarity is the condition of being vulnerable to others

-unpredictable encounters transform us

SGGK - Percarity

the condition of being precarious

-percaricous: originally a legal term meaning “held through the favor of another,” from the Latin verb Percari, to ask, beg entreat another

-dependent on unknown conditions or chance circumstances

-characterized by lack of security or stability

-to be precarious means to be dependent

-openness or poreness

Ontological Vulnerability VS Artificial Vulnerability

fundamental condition of all mortal beings VS bias, discrimination, violence

Ontological Vulnerability

-vulnerability comes from latin word meaning wounded

-without vulnerability we cant fully experience life

-being vulnerable isn't a choice, it's the condition of mortal life

-entanglement is the ontological condition of the world

isn't something that sometimes happens, the very condition of our existence

-if you exist you are vulnerable and dependent on others

Artificial Vulnerability

-percarity that one person or a group of people might impose on another group of people

Note: ecological perspective is also in gawain

Interlaced Narrative

-multiple plot lines are woven together

-2 basic narratives

SGGK - Conventions of Medieval Romance

-Fictions of Female Agency: courtly ladies appear powerful (inspiring deeds, granting/withholding favor) but operate within patriarchal constraints

-Love Outside of Marriage: “Courtly love” typically extramarital since noble marriages were arranged for political/economic reasons, not love 

-Competing Loyalties: Characters navigate conflicting commitments to lords, ladies, and christian values (e.g. Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot triangle)

-Religious Tensions: Courtly love functions as secular “religion” but conflicts with Christian doctrine and ideals of purity

-Homosociality

Homosociality

(coined by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire)

-social bonding between members of the same gender that may exclude the opposite gender

-manefests through the male interactions that guide the story forward

-homoerotic of the kisses exchanged by gawain and the lord

-ritualized male bonding practices

-hunting

-exchange scenes

-Gawain becomes feminized by being trapped in the castle

-the lady is being put between the relationship between gawain and the green knight

-power structures that often privilege male relationships and networks

-cultural practices that reinforce same-gender solidarity and hierarchy

SGGK - “Traffic in Women”

(coined by Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex”)

-female characters exchanged as rewards for male achievement

-marriage alliances that serve male political interests

-female characters whose primary function is to facilitate male relationships and establish social bonds

SGGK - The Medieval Hunt

Day 1: The Deer Hunt

-easy hunt

-hounds, horses, and humans work together to capture the deer

Day 2: The Boar Hunt

-boar breaks through hounds to attack the men

-the lord and boar fight

-much harder hunt

Day 3: The Fox Hunt

-sly fox (modern fantastic mr fox)

-reynard

-men and hounds over take the fox

-does the fox hunt signify Gawain's own demise?

SGGK - The “brittling” of the deer

-from the middle english verb britnen: to divide, cut up, to tear into pieces, to destroy

-ritual breaking of deer or dividing of deer

-uses the same word for breaking the deer to describe the destruction of troy

-very aggressive language

-the poems original audience would have appreciated and recognized the skill involved

-direct contrast on the arts at the beginning of the poem (gawain dressing in the knight garments, locking him in place)

-brittling is a counter technique that undoes the body

-depicts exposure that will be highlighted later in the poem

-animals body flows outward to nourish the hounds, and the rest of the castle

-living beings are not sealed beings but beings open to penetration and wounding, porous self

SGGK - Hunt scene - Precarious lives

-the hunt scenes show that all life is dependent on other life

-the deers unmaking recalls the undoing of troy but the building of empires

-gawain seeks a buffer (green girdle) - something to protect himself

-the deer shows Gawain's partial unmaking

-the impossibility of un-vulnerability

Beyond Green 

think beyond green

-moving past the traditional association with nature (more complex ecological understanding)

-not always green

-green has become synonymous with nature, sustainability, and positive environment

-too much emphasis on greenness will limit our need to expand our understanding of green

Jeffrey Jermone Cohen

-look beyond (blue environments/humanities)

-urban and other things count are environments and nature

-nature is part of our human world

-nature is deeply marked by human impact

-not untouched like we like to believe

Timothy Morton - Dark Ecology

-dark ecology

-think beyond green

-dark side of our environments

-tend to go unnoticed

-ideas about what counts as nature get in the way of proper ecological forms of art, society, etc

-ideas of nature are too narrow

environmental rhetoric is too light and doesn’t allow for negative opinions on environments

-”goth” sensibility to embrace the harsh realities of nature

-being attuned to ecologies dark aspects helped us understand our position are human beings in the world (biocentric)

-knowledge is dark and sweet

Timothy Morton - Layers of Dark Ecology

-dark depressing

-living through ecological disaster

-recones with sad emotions that come with climate change and the reality of the world

-dark uncanny

-something that is both strange and familiar

-disorienting reality that we are interconnected with ecological systems and other beings

-dark sweet

-ecognosis” (eco + gnosis, Greek for “knowledge” or “awareness,” especially knowledge of spiritual mysteries)

-heightened ecological awareness (of mystery), forever strangeness (cannot acclimate)

-sit and accept the strangeness

-heightened or ultimate form of self knowledge

-despite exposing us to the other depressing elements, there is something beautiful and joyful about the entanglement of humans with other beings

anthropocene (noun)

the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment

-anthropocene = fossil capitalism

Martin - what does Paul Crutzen mean by human activity?

-anthropogenic climate change

-human caused climate change

-alteration of earth’s climate through the burning of fossil fuels (combustible carbon based (oil, coal), the fossilized remains of plants and animals)

-the carbon once burned, releases into the atmosphere and stays, thus warming the planet like a greenhouse

-earth’s climate is changing and its changing must faster than scientists thought just 15 years ago

-natural disasters are becoming more destructive, warming oceans, melting ice caps

- “vital signs” dashboard at climate.nasa.gov 

-carbon dioxide increased, oceans have risen, the oceans have warmed, temp of the planet has risen

Evidence on Climate Change

-images

-graphs and stats

-climate events

-first hand events

How we got to climate change

Climate Change: 1950s

-the great acceleration

-globalizied

-moment when measures of social and economical growth start to rise

-series of major social economic spikes that happen after 1950s

-changes to climate change and earth’s ecology happened at exactly the same time (around 1950)

Climate Change: 1980s

-evidence that his lab at nasa that the built up of carbon in the atmosphere that global warming had begun

-first time global warmings become front page news

Climate Change: 1988

-ipcc (intergovernmental panel on climate change)

-hundreds of scientists working together

Climate Change: 1989

-Time replaces person of the year with the endangered earth

-The end of Nature Bill McKibbin

-the exact moment that we see the creation of corporate strategies for climate denial

-ex. Exxon oil company, in 1977 understands that carbon dioxide release causes global warmings

Climate Change: 2007

-the warming of the climate system is unstoppable

-in a society where climate change grows by the day, politics and people work to make us doubt the science and storms that comes from climate change (they don’t want us to look with our eyes)

Is this the end of nature?

-changes the world we live in and the way that we think about the world

-has to do with the meaning of nature

Bill Mckibben - the end of nature

-the meaning of nature has changed as we change it

-the past few centuries there has been a distinction between social and nature

-weather has been a very distinct boundary between human and nature because humans have no control over them

-but humans do have control because now due to human activity, the natural disasters have changed

Martin - Readings

-The broader imaginative failure that lies at the heart of the climate crisis (amitav ghosh)

-when it comes to contemplating real-world warming dangers, we suffer from an incredible failure of imagination (David Wallance-Wells)

-both lines are criticism of humans for not solving the climate crisis

-but there is a more literal idea - idea that climate change does pose significant challenges to basic aspects of human thinking and human imagination

What makes climate change so hard to imagine?

-several distinctive features that make it illusive to humans…

-very large numbers 

-immense geographical scale

-very long timespans

-(some) very slow effects

Climate Change - very large numbers

-ex. We are losing 402 billion metric tons of arctic sea ice every year

-essentially magical counting - the number is so large and outside the human range that is it not a real number

-thinking of numbers that large is a weak spot for human beings (there is no concrete reference of size for us to make sense of the number)

Climate Change - immense geographical scale

-happening everywhere, all at once, across the entire planet

-something happening at the scale of the planet (similar natural disasters in different places on the planet caused by climate change)

-hard to imagine that all of these weather events are because of one thing (climate change)

Climate Change - very long timespans

-talking about extremely long periods of time

-need to talk about at least last few decades of industrialization

-also british industrial revolution

-carbon dioxide will stay in the atmosphere for 300 - 1,000 years

Climate Change - (some) very slow effects

-early 2000s → climate change was going to be a catastrophic event but it would 

occur slowly

-a lot is happening much faster than scientists thought

Rob Nixon

coined the term slow violence to describe the slowly drawn out effects of climate change (ex. Factory run off, endangered species, slow build up of greenhouse gases)

-we tend to view the effects of climate change as fast acting (gun shot, falling trees, iceberg falling)

-but there are climate change events happening very slowly (meaning we can't be shown photos of them)

-we use the photos to illicit reactions and emotions and therefore people aren't thinking about them

Climate and Culture

initial explanation about the cultural representation of climate change is so important

-The difficulty of perceiving climate change… helps explain the importance of climate storytelling

-storytelling helps us work around the time and concept obstacles of climate change

-draw a line of connection from the imaginative climate change to the imaginative work of storytelling and art

-what is the relation between the reality of climate change and the fictional depiction of climate change

Martin - Culture - Readings

the field of artistic production (the arts)(novels, movies, painting, performance art)

-set of human made object that is the result of the human artistic mind

-ghosh: well known novelist - the great deration was his first non-fiction

-wells: science journalist

-but both agree

Martin - Reading - Wells

-what is the relation between what's happening in the world and whats playing to keep us entertained - wells

-the purpose of stories is to divert our minds

-they distract us from realty

Sublimation

refers to the way that we divert our feelings from a complicated subject to something that is less complicated

-walace wells claims that culture is the thing that we push our emotions on to in order to feel better

-ex. When watching an apocalyptic movie, when it's over there is no more fear (not like actual climate change)

Martin - Reading - Ghosh

Ghosh: make no mistake: the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture - Amitav Ghosh

-only the small writers were talking about climate change in writing

-he was disappointed to learn that contemporary lit was no addressing the life altering event that was happening (mid 2010s)

-ghosh: culture plays a crucial role in concealing or revealing a society

-they help us recognize reality

-people don’t want understand climate change because climate change hasn't been seen in culture

Martin - Reading - Both

Ghosh = culture conceals

Wells = culture distracts

fairly negative and grime reality to the role that culture has played in climate change

-both claims imply a hopeful or optimistic belief that the stories we tell about the climate matter (they make a difference to the fate of the planet)

-culture is the place where people’s climate knowledge is shaped and defined

“Can literature save the planet?”

-this is the wrong question to ask

-does reading a book cause people to take action?

-some very famous books that cause people to take action (ex. “Silent spring in 1960s that lead to environmental law and action in USA)

-the real question to ask is does culture affect how or how often people think about climate change?

-how could it not

Climate storytelling is all around us?

-we are positively surrounded by stories about climate change

-it is happening in every sphere of culture (climate stories)

-large scale of climate change storytelling

-in contemporary novels

-new lit genre: (climate fiction) clifi

-attemps to imagine a new world with climate change

-try to imagine the apocalyptic world after climate change

Annihilation

-case study of what it looks like for one novelist to use one set of novel ideas to try to tell a story about ecological environments

Jeff Vandermeer

-best known for the three volumes of the Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation,

Authority, and Acceptance) published in 2014

-there are 4 novels but the last is not apart of the original trilogy

-founded the Sunshine State Biodiversity Group nonprofit, focused on conservation and rewilding projects

-rewilding: taking a piece of developed or tended land and leaving it alone to allow the wild ecosystem to return

Taxonomy (noun)

a system of classification

-that helps us identify and organize things by sorting things into categories

-allow us to distinguish different types of life (kingdom of animals, kingdom of plants)

-allow us to distinguish the different climate systems on the planet

-Koppen Climate Classification System 

-sub categories of specific genres

Annihilation - idea of narrative world that is made through scientific observations

-the four women were chosen for their specific skill sets (they represent 4 specific scientific branches - biologist: nature life , anthropologist: human life/culture, surveyor: topical structure, psychologist: human mind)

Annihilation - Vandermeer's point

-taxonomies is an important aspect of scientific observation

-organizes information

-allows items to become familiar

-vandermeer’s point is not to say that all scientific classification is bullshit

-not a novel about rejecting scientific classification

-why is vandemeer focused specifically about these classification confusions?

Annihilation - Category Mistakes

--what happens when our powers of observation and system of categories don't work

-tunnel vs tower

-What she thought was stone is actually something else (living tissue of the tower)

-Vines vs words

Annihilation - Classification confusion

• Normal or unusual

• Alive or inert

• Plants or words

• Nature or culture

Climate Change in Annihilation

 the categorical confusions of the Anthropocene

-this list sounds like the big questions pertaining to climate change

-Is this event unusual? Is the climate alive and changing? Is this natural event involved in human culture?

-the Anthropocene is when the categorical usage of humans for thinking about the climate doesn't work for climate change

-Area X is a fictional way to resemble how the earth has become unrecognizable in climate change

Annihilation - when the tower is breathing…

-almost identical to the intro to Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement

-parable for climate change

-the startling discovery that the earth is alive and changing

-its transforming with frightening consequences for the life on it and in it

Annihilation Genre Classification

New weird fiction

New weird fiction

-term comes from the early 20th century magazine weird tales where H.P Lovecrafft and others published supernatural stories where they didn’t fit into other categories

-lack of fit into traditional ghost stories or gothic horror

Weird Fiction

-an offshoot of the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and gothic

-named in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, founded in 1923

-introduces an ambiguous supernatural element into a realistic setting

-thematizes difficulties of categorization (is this phenomenon supernatural or mundane? Real or fantasy?)

-can itself be, as a genre, difficult to categorize (the founding tagline for Weird Tales was: “The Unique Magazine)

-weird fiction is a kind of horror story about the limits of rational explanation

-difficulty of categorizing things we are not familiar with