Lagoonscapes

The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities

Ecologies of Life and Death in the Anthropocene

open access | peer reviewed
    edited by
  • Peggy Karpouzou - National and Kapodistian University of Athens, Greece - email orcid profile
  • Nikoleta Zampaki - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece - email orcid profile
Abstract

The special issue titled Ecologies of Life and Death in the Anthropocene examines a multifaceted notion of ecology: life and death involve numerous entities, processes and relationalities that cannot be analyzed separately. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of environmental humanities, blue humanities, continental philosophy, arts and film studies, this special issue explores life and death eco-imaginaries and entanglements of the human and non-human world, highlighting an eco-ontology that exposes these entanglements where ethical territories of eco-grief and eco-mourning are unfolded. This special issue is structured in three main axes: articles that study existential aspects of death and life in the Anthropocene and are apt to environmental approaches concerning the intricate relationship between death and life in water narratives, articles that focus on how to deal with eco-grief through the literary and artistic conceptualization of the ecologies of life and death, and articles that shed light on alternative ecologies of life and death beyond the Anthropocene and the western discourses. The discussion about various narratives of ecologies of life and death moves across boundaries, considering that all research fields involve forms of expression that somehow ‘disrupt’ entrenched patterns while at the same time ‘revealing’ their contingency and opening the discussion about life and death, ‘(un)settling’ dominant grief imaginaries and ‘mobilizing’ different sensibilities for the humans and non-humans.

Keywords SustainabilityInformational picturebooksPhilosophical AnimismEcological griefEthicsIronyEye of the CrocodileLossPostmodernEnvironmental mourningIntersectionalityEcophobiaEcological mourningVal PlumwoodHuman and nonhuman animal corpseAgential narrativeNed BeaumanEco-critical dystopiaClownsEcocriticismHumanismJames JoyceSamuel BeckettAlenka ZupančičBatailleSøren KierkegaardGeorges BatailleDonna HarawaySpeculative fictionLaughterCultural ecologyExtinctionBoglandsMultispecies studiesLila AvilésLand agencyTraditional knowledgeNew taxidermySlimeDeath StudiesCaroline Walker BynumAfrican American StudiesAnthropocenePosthumanWaterGriefHegelHumanistic CareSympoiesisPlumwoodRelationalityDark ecologyIndigeneityHuman-animal relationshipEco-artMourningBlue humanitiesCrocodilePostmodernismWonderLifeCyborgNortheast IndiaPlanetary literacyPosthumanismClownChinese Contemporary ArtTaxidermySacrifice zonesThe Marrow ThievesNecroceneSlow violenceRebirthContinental PhilosophyDeathHarlem RenaissanceWetland ecologyEcofeminismMexicoImmanenceRavenceneExistentialismAnimal StudiesCinemaIndigenous epistemologiesLiterary lagoonsEco-horrorComedyEcology

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2024/02 | Published Dec. 6, 2024 | Language en