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Performing Environmentalisms examines the existential challenge of the twenty-first century: improving the prospects for maintaining life on our planet. The contributors focus on the strategic use of traditional artistic expression--storytelling and songs, crafted objects, and ceremonies and rituals--performed during the social turmoil provoked by environmental degradation and ecological collapse. Highlighting alternative visions of what it means to be human, the authors place performance at the center of people's responses to the crises. Such expression reinforces the agency of human beings as they work, independently and together, to address ecological dilemmas. The essays add these people's critical perspectives--gained through intimate struggle with life-altering force--to the global dialogue surrounding humanity's response to climate change, threats to biocultural diversity, and environmental catastrophe. Interdisciplinary in approach and wide-ranging in scope, Performing Environmentalisms is an engaging look at the merger of cultural expression and environmental action on the front lines of today's global emergency. Contributors: Aaron S. Allen, Eduardo S. Brondizio, Assefa Tefera Dibaba, Rebecca Dirksen, Mary Hufford, John Holmes McDowell, Mark Pedelty, Jennifer C. Post, Chie Sakakibara, Jeff Todd Titon, Rory Turner, Lois Wilcken
Human degradation of the environment has been documented by scholars across a range of disciplines: the global temperature of the planet continues to rise, abandoned industrial sites stain once vibrant communities, and questions about the purity of our water and foods linger. In the shadow of these material conditions, concerned citizens have reacted by issuing critiques against careless consumerism and excessive lifestyles. Their hope is to illustrate and inspire alternative ways of living. As part of such efforts and activism, some have turned to performance as a means to investigate matters further, pose challenges and questions, and enact new ways of being and thinking in a globalized world. Performance on Behalf of the Environment is a collection of essays from a diverse group of scholars that explore critically the strengths, limitations, and processes of what can be termed environmental performances.
Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater tells the story of how American theater has shaped popular understandings of the environment throughout the twentieth century as it argues for theater’s potential power in the age of climate change. Using cultural and environmental history, seven chapters interrogate key moments in American theater and American environmentalism over the course of the twentieth century in the United States. It focuses, in particular, on how drama has represented environmental injustice and how inequality has become part of the American environmental landscape. As the first book-length ecocritical study of American theater, Earth Matters examines both familiar dramas and lesser-known grassroots plays in an effort to show that theater can be a powerful force for social change from frontier drama of the late nineteenth century to the eco-theater movement. This book argues that theater has always and already been part of the history of environmental ideas and action in the United States. Earth Matters also maps the rise of an ecocritical thought and eco-theater practice – what the author calls ecodramaturgy – showing how theater has informed environmental perceptions and policies. Through key plays and productions, it identifies strategies for artists who want their work to contribute to cultural transformation in the face of climate change.
How might understandings of environmentalism and the environmental humanities shift by incorporating Islamic perspectives? In this book, Anna M. Gade explores the religious and cultural foundations of Islamic environmentalisms. She blends textual and ethnographic study to offer a comprehensive and interdisciplinary account of the legal, ethical, social, and empirical principles underlying Muslim commitments to the earth. Muslim Environmentalisms shows how diverse Muslim communities and schools of thought have addressed ecological questions for the sake of this world and the world to come. Gade draws on a rich spectrum of materials―scripture, jurisprudence, science, art, and social and political engagement―as well as fieldwork in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. The book brings together case studies in disaster management, educational programs, international development, conservation projects, religious ritual and performance, and Islamic law to rethink key theories. Gade shows that the Islamic tradition leads us to see the environment as an ethical idea, moving beyond the established frameworks of both nature and crisis. Muslim Environmentalisms models novel approaches to the study of religion and environment from a humanistic perspective, reinterpreting issues at the intersection of numerous academic disciplines to propose a postcolonial and global understanding of environment in terms of consequential relations.
"Pithy, funny, exasperated, and informed…You cannot read a more important hundred pages than Stop Saving the Planet!" —Richard White, author of The Republic for Which It Stands We’ve been "saving the planet" for decades!…And environmental crises just get worse. All this hybrid driving and LEED building and carbon trading seems to accomplish little to nothing—and low-income communities continue to suffer the worst consequences. Why aren’t we cleaning up the toxic messes and rolling back climate change? And why do so many Americans hate environmentalists? Jenny Price says Enough already! with this short, fun, fierce manifesto for an environmentalism that is hugely more effective, a whole lot fairer, and infinitely less righteous. She challenges you, corporate sustainability officers, and the EPA to think and act completely anew—and to start right now—to ensure a truly habitable future.
A study into the relationships between performance, theatre and environmental ecology.
Examines the underlying symbolic dimensions of corporate environmentalism, helping readers to separate useful environmental information from empty corporate spin.
Sounds, Ecologies, Musics poses exciting challenges and provides fresh opportunities for scholars, scientists, environmental activists, musicians, and listeners to consider music and sound from ecological standpoints. Authors in Part I examine the natural and built environment and how music and sound are woven into it, how the environment enables music and sound, and how the natural and cultural production of music and sound in turn impact the environment. In Part II, contributors consider music and sound in relation to ecological knowledges that appear to conflict with, yet may be viewed as complementary to, Western science: traditional and Indigenous ecological and environmental knowledges. Part III features multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches by scholars, scientists, and practitioners who probe the ecological imaginary regarding the complex ideas and contested keywords that characterize ecomusicology: sound, music, culture, society, environment, and nature. A common theme across the book is the idea of diverse ecologies. Once confined to the natural sciences, the word "ecology" is common today in the social sciences, humanities, and arts - yet its diverse uses have become imprecise and confusing. Engaging the conflicting and complementary meanings of "ecology" requires embracing a both/and approach. Diverse ecologies are illustrated in the methodological, terminological, and topical variety of the chapters as well as the contributors' choice of sources and their disciplinary backgrounds. In times of mounting human and planetary crises, Sounds, Ecologies, Musics challenges disciplinarity and broadens the interdisciplinary field of ecomusicologies. These theoretical and practical studies expand sonic, scholarly, and political activism from the diversity-equity-inclusion agenda of social justice to embrace the more diverse and inclusive agenda of ecocentric ecojustice.
An inside look at how grassroots groups organize and develop strategies over seven years of participant observation in multiple organizations.
Tree-huggers may actually be squeezing the life out of the environment. In a book that is alternately alarming, enlightening, ironic, and entertaining, award-winning journalist John Berlau explores the myriad ways in which shortsighted environmentalism actually endangers trees, wildlife, and people. In chapter after chapter, Berlau debunks myths and libels about: global warming and climate change the dangers of pesticides like DDT trees and pollution fuel economy and the auto industry the threat posed by asbestos the lifesaving role of dams and levees plans to "rewild" America Mother Nature is not a gentle person, and Berlau's pointed reporting reveals the very real dangers to people and their environments when Eco-Freaks prevent us from restraining her. "Berlau makes a powerful case. . . . Thinking environmentalists who read this book will be forced to revisit at least some of their most deeply held beliefs." -Joel Himelfarb, Washington Times "Berlau says a lot of things that are not generally known that needed to be said." -Bruce N. Ames, recipient, National Medal of Science, 1998 Save the Planet . . . and Ourselves In Eco-Freaks, award-winning journalist John Berlau provides a much needed and startling exposé about how the environmental movement with its radical, shortsighted eco-activists has actually helped amplify the dangers of natural disasters and destroyed the lives and property of millions of Americans. As Berlau writes, "America . . . is still mighty prosperous, but environmentalism is putting us on the brink of danger as well. As technology after technology that our grandparents put in place is being banned, and new technologies never even come to market, we risk a public-health disaster. Environmentalists have promoted all sorts of doomsday scenarios about population explosions and massive cancer crises from pesticides that have been shown to be false. But now, because we have done away with so many useful products based on those scares, we are in danger of an old-fashion doomsday returning, because we've lost what protected us from the wrath of nature. Indeed, as we will see throughout this book, public health hazards caused by environmental policies are already on the scene."