UnderCurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies (E-Journal - York University)
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Carrying On and Going Beyond: Some Conditions of Queer/Nature
No full textA brand of 'queer' which addresses concerns within the broad parameters circumscribing a site called 'nature' may be as diverse, open-ended, and perhaps contentious as any examination of either of those two terms. Difficult though it may be, trying to map out a space for Queer/Nature within a politics of the environment demands the charring of courses through a discursive terrain of perils and possibilities. As insisted by the writers and artists in this issue of UnderCurrents, a politics of nature can no longer be an articulation of white, male, heterosexual prescriptive or descriptive privilege. Here, what is most evident is the disruptive power of any examination of the normative categories of nature and the natural from the perspective of queer identity. The breadth of perspectives demonstrated by the works included suggests the necessity for an ongoing project of investigation which takes apart both the categories of queer and nature, and then defines and recombines them in innovative, constructive ways. By no means is this an attempt to represent all the various ways in which this dialogue may occur and significant topics are absent, perhaps most importantly, the nexus of race, political economy or transgenderism and Queer/Nature. Despite these gaps, we hope to open up a discussion between queer and environmental politics, as well as initiate a consideration of the broader question of how, and by whom, nature is spoken of
Queer / Nature (Be Like Water)
No full textIn mind-numbing despair, she killed herself. Friend, kind of my kind--I begin with her body. She is no longer a poet, an artist, a shining star. Here she is evidence of failure: my own failure, and the failure of my community
Retrospective of Life in a Small Town
Get PDFThe following are photographs from my perspective as an insider/outsider in a rural midwestern village. I would characterise Selma as a place of traditional sex roles, conservative politics, racial/ethnic bigotry, Christian fundamentalism, and a devastated economy. I would also characterise Selma as the place which has most strongly formed my identity, since I lived there for 19 years among my entire extended family
Lavender's Green? Some Thoughts on Queer(y)ing Environmental Politics
Get PDFAt the Stein Valley festival in the Summer of 1989, Anne Cameron, who was presumed to be an authority on such things, was asked "what is the place of gay men and lesbians in the environmental movement?" She answered: "everywhere." Much applause. Next question
Sex, Earth, & Death in Gay Theology
No full textBecause I am a theologian whose ideas have been fundamentally shaped by the lived, sexual experience of gay men, both my understanding of what justice means and my perspective on ecology or environmental ethical theory are firmly grounded in or connected to the erotic. Both justice and ecology are relational matters, clarified by how we come to understand our most intimate (and usually also sexual) human relationships. More specifically, as I have internalized the work of Carter Hevward and Jim Nelson in my own theology, 1 I have come to affirm with them that our fundamental need for connectedness, love, and self-affirming acceptance--our erotic drive toward connectedness with all things--undergirds our quest for mutuality and, through the realization of that quest, our efforts to establish justice in all relationships, not just our sexually expressed ones. In other words, our sexuality is not so much about where, how, or with whom we put our genitals, but is rather something that permeates our lives and that both urges us toward and sustains our relationships--even those that are not genitally consummated ones. As such, our sexuality enables--nav, compels--liberational, justice-seeking activity in the world.
"Capitalizing on the Wealth Buried Deep Within Living Matter," or Politics and Patents
Get PDFThe intellectual property rights have become the mechanism of choice for "capitalizing on the wealth buried deep within living matter" by providing patents and copyrights in the products and processes of biotechnology. The most infamous of these developments was the U.S. Patent for the "Transgenic Mouse' - a mouse genetically engineered for a particular oncogene, "enabling it to get cancer on demand." [...
A Straightforward Philosophical Thought About Virtual Reality and Environmentalism
Get PDFThe world, not the planet, is becoming virtual. Our idea of 'the planet' is already a virtual one, as the currently multiplying photos of the globe from space wordlessly attest. When we try to conceive of a 'global system' of any kind, our imaginations prove inadequate to the task. Hence the sublime experience aroused when we attempt. to contemplate our earth in its entirety in one of our more peaceful, less procedural moments, as when a young adult cries at the beach on a summer evening over the fate of humanity. [...
My Mother: An Unwritten Environmental Education Curriculum
Get PDFOne day last winter, my classmates and I had a deep and broad discussion on the topic of environmental education curriculum.1 As the only student from Thailand in the class, I was surprised to see that many of the colourful curriculum guidebooks provided for Canadian students were designed to teach the children here how to touch, to hug and to kiss the trees. [...