Ecological Film Theory and Psychoanalysis: Surviving the Environmental Apocalypse in Cinema

Robert Geal

Informasi Umum

Kode

21.21.3032

Klasifikasi

791.437 - films. description, critical apraisal of specific films

Jenis

Buku - Elektronik (E-Book)

Subjek

Film

No. Rak

Dilihat

492 kali

Informasi Lainnya

Abstraksi

This book is part of a body of scholarship which explores the reasons why we are not taking sufficient action to ameliorate anthropogenic ecological degradation. The first chapter outlines the contours of this ecocritical academic project, focusing particularly on the idea that contemporary human subjectivity is grounded in the illusory separation of humanity from the rest of the world. The alienation of humanity from ostensibly separate and external ‘nature’ underpins our disregard for that which is not ‘us’. I discuss how this form of human subjectivity emerged from a series of historically specific circumstances which informed occidental thought.1 This subjectivity is exemplified in the dualistic philosophy of René Descartes. I claim that the Cartesian illusion that we are separate and hierarchically positioned over and above the ostensibly passive environment is an ‘epistemology we live by’ – our damaging behaviour towards the natural world is an inevitable result of our ingrained alienation from the natural world.

Existing ecocriticism makes a similar claim, but generally asserts that the problem can be resolved by consciously rejecting alienating dualism. This book argues, however, that humans do not have direct control over their consciousness, and that ecophobic dualism cannot be willed away. It utilises various strands of poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theory to demonstrate that a wilful rejection of this ecophobia is not possible, with Cartesian dualism operating at the unconscious level through what Jacques Lacan calls the Symbolic Order. This Order is a matrix of possible thoughts, beliefs and behaviours which any given human subject assents to adopt, without being aware that those ostensibly internal forces are imposed from without. Our Symbolic Order is inherently anthropocentric, so that our dualistic alienation from the nonhuman world is both an integral element of who we are as contemporary Cartesian subjects, and also something that is unconsciously imposed upon us through all the subtleties and complexities of our Cartesian culture.