Volume 37, Number 1, 2021

EN:

In support of abandoning the term Anthropocene in favor of calling our current epoch the Humilocene, this essay addresses Lynn White, Jr.’s critique that a particular understanding of Christian creation theory is the cause of our current ecological crisis, briefly discussing contemporary attempts to read the Old and New Testaments in a manner harmonious with White’s critiques and recommendations, and explores the embodied rhetoric of St. Francis of Assisi. I argue that Francis’s manner of embodying three of Cicero’s canons of rhetoric is relevant to contemporary rhetoricians and to deep ecologists. Francis’s rhetorical style is an embodied rhetoric that assists advocacy by transforming everyday experiences, builds community through an embrace of agapē, and, through Francis’s adoption of the position of “servant,” helps establish a more equal distribution of power. Franciscan rhetoric offers equipment for moving through the humiliation, humility, and redemption of the Humilocene.

EN:

This study provides a reading of Julio Cortázar’s short story “Axolotl” through the dual lenses of ecocriticism and mid-century existentialism. Specifically, the critical perspective of this work is inspired by the writings of existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, and German biologist Jakob Johann von Uexküll. Such an interdisciplinary approach is intended to articulate a unique ecological perspective known as environmental existentialism. This critical approach not only acknowledges the longstanding influence that the existentialist movement has had on environmental scholarship, but also suggests that existentialist concepts are especially relevant to our contemporary ecological moment, and thus should continue to be employed in current ecological discourse. The primary locus of critical attention in this work centers on Sartre’s theory of the Look, Uexküll’s notion of the search tone, and Cortázar’s emphasis on suffering. These concepts are examined in concert to suggest that the correlations between the dominant issues of existentialist thought and our contemporary moment ought to signal to readers the existential threat that the age of the Anthropocene poses, as well as the value of reading texts both old and new through the lens of existential ecocriticism.

EN:

It is commonly believed that Neo-Kantian moral theory is necessarily hostile to enlightened environmentalism. My argument: Kantians can acknowledge our obligations toward nature once they recognize the value that the aesthetics of the natural world have as a proving ground for moral judgment. Treating this as an empirical claim, I supplement it with Maurice Mendelbaum’s notion of “fittingness” and test it via appeal to a specific case study provided by the phenomenological expertise of the twentieth century nature writer Loren Eiseley. What emerges is a (very) broadly Kantian defense of ecologically responsible action which does not presuppose the intrinsic moral value of non-human nature.