Lecture 2 humcore: representing nature

contingency of nature

-not destined

-ideas of nature change based on when and where you are talking about it

-ideas about nature can change

contingency

What came before is not a given

tentacular thinking

challenging binary hierarchy thinking

speculative fabulation

stories that are not our ordinary reality 

speculation = contemplation or observation

-challenges conventional thinking

backwards speculation

-speculating about the future through the past 

-shows the paths that didnt happen

-reminds us of contingency 

Skywoman

-excerpt of braiding sweetgrass

-anishanabee, great lakes

-woman falls from sky onto turtle island

-non-human entities help her

-she plants the seeds of future life

-alternative story to genesis

Biblical account of Genesis

-Eve is tempted by the serpant to eat the apple

-exile from the garden of eden

-original act of disobedience

-curse institutionalizes hostility of humans against non-human world

Natures femininity 

-natures femininity becomes a liability 

-nature is a source of fertility 

-femininity is frowned on

-nature as an organism 

Plato

-man as microcosm

-hybrid of mortal body and eternal soul

-universe declared as being with a soul

Gaia

-mother earth

-personifies earth

-nurturing mother

Godess natura

-Gods divine representative

-maintains cosmic order

-living, caring, agency

Death of nature

European society moved towards industrialism 

-society needed new nature narratives to profit 

Francis Bacon

-scientific domination of nature

-nature taken back by man

-mining of man will restore man’s dominion of Eden

Pliny

Mining is a violation of the feminine earth 

Ovid

mining freed evil from the earth

Agricola

concealed metals, concealed for reason