Reading Workshop on Environmentalism and Ecofeminism

On February 22, at 6 pm EET, a reading workshop on environmentalism and ecofeminism will take place. The workshop is organised in collaboration with semiotician Kadri Tüür and will address the issues of anthropocene, climate change and environmentalism through the prism of ecofeminism, inquiring what does it mean to be human in the current ecological and sociopolitical climate.

The workshop will take place online. Link to the meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87193548876?pwd=V1FZRE5oRnFBbFJ3alIxeUc2WTdtdz09

Meeting ID: 871 9354 8876
Passcode: 302253

Texts to be discussed:

Cara Daggett, “Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, June 20, 2018, pp.1–20. DOI: 10.1177/0305829818775817

Stacy Alaimo, “Bodily Natures”. Bodily natures: science, environment, and the material self. Indiana University Press 2020, pp. 1–25.

To receive the texts, please email to: ieva.ast@gmail.com.

“As the planet warms, new authoritarian movements in the West are embracing a toxic combination of climate denial, racism and misogyny. Rather than consider these resentments separately, this article interrogates their relationship through the concept of petro-masculinity, which appreciates the historic role of fossil fuel systems in buttressing white patriarchal rule. Petro-masculinity is helpful to understanding how the anxieties aroused by the Anthropocene can augment desires for authoritarianism. The concept of petro-masculinity suggests that fossil fuels mean more than profit; fossil fuels also contribute to making identities, which poses risks for post-carbon energy politics. Moreover, through a psycho-political reading of authoritarianism, I show how fossil fuel use can function as a violent compensatory practice in reaction to gender and climate trouble,” writes feminist and environmental politics scholar Cara Daggett.

How do we understand the agency and significance of material forces and their interface with human bodies? What does it mean to be human in these times, with bodies that are inextricably interconnected with our physical world? Bodily Natures considers these questions by grappling with powerful and pervasive material forces and their increasingly harmful effects on the human body. Drawing on feminist theory, environmental studies, and the sciences, Stacy Alaimo focuses on trans-corporeality, or movement across bodies and nature, which has profoundly altered our sense of self. By looking at a broad range of creative and philosophical writings, Alaimo illuminates how science, politics, and culture collide, while considering the closeness of the human body to the environment.

Reading Workshop is organised in collaboration with Estonian literary scholar, ecocriticist and semiotician Kadri Tüür, who is working on nature writing, environmental humanities and ecofeminism. In 2018–2020, Kadri served as the head of the Estonian Centre for Environmental History (KAJAK). Please read more here.

The reading workshop is part of the project “Reflecting Post-Socialism through Postcolonialism in the Baltics”, which analyses the imprints of post-socialism and post-colonialism in the Baltic region, exploring them through the prism of environmental history and the current ecological crisis. The programme is curated by Ieva Astahovska and Linda Kaljundi.

The workshop is supported by the Nep4Dissent Research Network, an EU COST Action Association.