當代魯賓遜文類中的生態轉向：豪斯霍弗爾、圖尼埃、巴拉德、馬泰爾

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系博士論. 文. Doctoral Dissertation Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 當代魯賓遜文類中的生態轉向：豪斯霍弗爾、圖尼埃、巴拉德、馬泰爾 An Ecological Turn in the Contemporary Robinsonade: Haushofer, Tournier, Ballard, Martel. 指導教授：陳春燕 Advisor: Dr. Chun-yen Chen 共同指導教授：曾思. 旭. Co-Advisor: Dr. Justin Prystash 研究生：楊宗樺 Advisee: Tsung-hua Yang. 中華民國一百零七年七月 July 2018.

(2) For my beloved parents.

(3) i. 摘要笛福（Daniel Defoe）的《魯賓遜漂流記》（Robinson Crusoe）常被視為是第一部英國小說，在出版將近三百年的期間被許多作家所改寫。誕生許多關於魯賓遜故事的改編作品、甚而產生次文類，稱之為魯賓遜文類。在魯賓遜的改編故事中，背景常是在無人的荒島上，基本情節包括船難、冒險與不幸、船難者與生還者，也包含描述人和自然的衝突、或是個人與社會之間的對立。如批評家指出，魯賓遜是一個殖民者，他掌控島嶼視之為他的王國，並且以自我為世界的中心。在此研究中，我以人類掌控自然的這個議題為轉折點，點出《魯賓遜漂流記》文本中自我與他者的問題。而進一步思考，魯賓遜改編故事如何提供我們其他觀看世界的角度，並探究生物與環境間超越自我／他者二元而產生新關係的可能性為何。此研究將進行四部小說的文本分析，包括豪斯霍弗爾（Marlen Haushofer）的《牆》（The Wall）、圖尼埃（Michel Tournier）的《星期五》（Friday）、巴拉德（J. G. Ballard）的《水泥島》（Concrete Island）與馬泰爾（Yann Martel）的《少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流》（Life of Pi）。我主張這些作品揭示了當代魯賓遜文類中的生態轉向。有許多改編作品鮮少注意到笛福小說裡的生態議題，但是這四部小說以不同的方式挑戰魯賓遜敘述中人類凌駕於自然與動物之上的觀點，並企圖重新塑造人與自然的關係。從生態的觀點來閱讀這些文本，我認為當代魯賓遜的改編文本，不僅只囿於探究在殖民與後殖民下自我—他者二元分野的情境，而更是對於自我的重新定位，與再次探索我們時代中關於倫理、本體、與性別的議題。在此研究裡，因受到涅斯（Arne Naess）生態哲學 T（Ecosophy T）的啟發，我鑄造「生態哲學 M」（Ecosophy M）一詞，此詞探究六個生態相關的概念：環境（Milieu）、網絡（Mesh）、相互性（Mutuality）、母性（Maternity）、少數（Minorities）和情態（Mood）。其他啟發生態思想的主要思想家亦包括德希達（Jacques Derrida）、德勒茲（Gilles Deleuze）、瓜達里（Félix Guattari）和莫頓（Timothy Morton）。.

(4) ii. 關鍵字：《魯賓遜漂流記》，魯賓遜文類，生態，《牆》，《星期五》，《水泥島》，《少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流》.

(5) iii. ABSTRACT Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, commonly considered the first English novel, has been rewritten by many writers over the course of nearly three hundred years. A myriad of reworkings revolving around the Crusoe story have been produced, generating a subgenre often termed “Robinsonade.” Robinsonades are basically stories, usually set on an uninhabited island, involving plots of shipwrecks, adventures and misadventures, castaways and survivors, as well as the conflict between man and nature or between individuals and society. As critics point out, Crusoe is a colonialist governing the island as his own kingdom and placing himself at the center of the world. In this study, I problematize the self-other discourse in the original text by taking the question of the human dominion over nature as a point of departure. I further consider how the rewritings of Robinson Crusoe provide us with alternative views of the world, and examine what new relationships are possible between living beings and their environment beyond the self-other dualism. This study offers close readings of four novels, including Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall, Michel Tournier’s Friday, J. G. Ballard’s Concrete Island, and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. These works, I claim, suggest an ecological turn in the contemporary Robinsonade. While numerous adaptations have given scant attention to environmental issues in Defoe’s version, these four Robinsonades challenge the Crusoe narrative of human primacy over nature and animals in varied ways and attempt to reshape the relationship between man and nature. By reading the texts in light of ecological perspectives, I propose that the contemporary Robinson Crusoe revisions are more than stories that indicate a self-other demarcation set in colonial or postcolonial contexts; they reorient the self and reexplore the ethical, ontological, and gender issues of our time. In this study, inspired by Arne Naess’s concept of Ecosophy T, I coin the term “Ecosophy M” that explores six ecology-related modes: Milieu, Mesh, Mutuality, Maternity, Minorities,.

(6) iv. and Mood. Other major thinkers that illuminate ecological thoughts include Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Timothy Morton.. Keywords: Robinson Crusoe, Robinsonade, ecology, The Wall, Friday, Concrete Island, Life of Pi.

(7) v. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to dedicate my dissertation to my lovely parents who have always supported and cared about me. Without their support, this dissertation would not have been possible. I warmly thank my advisor, Professor Chun-yen Chen, for offering academic guidance, deepening my knowledge of critical theory, and instructing me in how to think more critically and develop stronger arguments throughout my years at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). In addition, I thank her for providing me with the opportunity to act as an editorial assistant of Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, an AHCI journal published by the Department of English, NTNU, so I have the chance to learn the editorial process of the journal. I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to my co-advisor, Professor Justin Prystash, for his useful advice, supportive feedback, and positive encouragement in the process of writing my dissertation. I am very grateful to my committee members, Professors Hannes Bergthaller, Han-yu Huang, Sun-chieh Liang, and Iris Ralph, for their constructive comments, valuable suggestions, and insightful questions that are helpful in revising my dissertation and doing further research in the future. My thanks also extend to Professors Pheng Cheah, George A. Starr, and Mel Y. Chen for allowing me to audit their courses, respectively, on biopolitics, Daniel Defoe, and human animality in American cultures at UC Berkeley. Their courses not only enhanced my theoretical background but also generated ideas for my research project. Generous grants and scholarships helped me undertake this research and pursue my academic path. I would like to thank the Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan, ROC) for a dissertation research grant for the academic year 2017–2018. I also thank the “Academic Exchange and Cooperation Project” between the Top.

(8) vi. University Strategic Alliance (Taiwan, ROC) and the University of California, Berkeley (USA). I am grateful to the project for allowing me to have the opportunity to study, do research, and take advantage of the rich library resources at UC Berkeley for the academic year 2015–2016. I also thank the exchange student program of the NTNU and the school’s partial subsidy for living expenses, so I could study at San Francisco State University as an exchange student in Fall 2014. Finally, I would like to thank my friends for exchanging ideas, giving me confidence, and providing me with assistance when necessary: Shih-hong Chuang, Shao Wei Huang, Nien-ying Wang, Shan-ni Tsai, Cheng-Hao Yang, and Eric Cheng. I also thank my friends that I associated with in Berkeley and San Francisco for their care, hospitality, and cultural and intellectual exchange during my stay in the USA: La ChíHào, Lisa Heyer, Calvin Tsang, Camila Cofré, Kuan Hwa, and Ginevra Tehin. I will always remember those wonderful days when we pursued intellectual growth and cheered each other up together..

(9) TABLE OF CONTENTS CHINESE ABSTRACT ENGLISH ABSTRACT. i iii. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. v. INTRODUCTION Rewriting Robinson Crusoe, Reexploring Ecology. 1. CHAPTER ONE Robinsonade. 44. CHAPTER TWO The Female Crusoe and Maternity:. 77. An Ecofeminist Reading of Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall CHAPTER THREE A World with Strangers: Queer Ecology and Mesh in Michel Tournier’s Friday. 102. CHAPTER FOUR From Urban Ecology to Inner Ecology: Mutuality in J. G. Ballard’s Concrete Island. 134. CHAPTER FIVE Man, Milieu, and Religion: Becoming-Animal in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. 162. AFTERWORD. 193. WORKS CITED. 196.

(10) 1. INTRODUCTION Rewriting Robinson Crusoe, Reexploring Ecology. I. Background and Objectives Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), one of the most intriguing eighteenth-century works of English literature, is commonly considered the first English novel. It depicts what a civilized man might do after surviving a shipwreck and facing the struggle in living a primitive life. Defoe’s story has been rewritten and reworked by many writers over the course of nearly three hundred years. A myriad of reworkings revolving around the Crusoe story have been produced, generating a subgenre often termed “Robinsonade.”1 Robinsonades are basically stories, usually set on an uninhabited island, involving plots of shipwrecks, adventures and misadventures, castaways and survivors, as well as the conflict between man and nature or individuals and society. Robinson Crusoe, especially for the postcolonial critics, is a text with “tropes of invasion and colonisation” (McCarron 286). Crusoe, the only “man” on the island, establishes his own kingdom and acts as a sovereign governing the territory. In Robinson Crusoe, nature, animals, outsiders, and savages serve as the background, while Crusoe places himself at the center of the world he builds. His world represents various demarcations: Crusoe-Friday, master-slave, self-other, subject-object, man-animal, and civilization-nature. Crusoe is a colonialist who subjugates “savages” in his words. As a traveler who seeks adventure, Crusoe meets the Other in the form of Friday, whom he treats as a barbarian and attempts to civilize according to Western values. As Jacques Derrida comments, Crusoe represents “absolute sovereignty” and. Robinsonade is also spelled “Robinsonnade” with two Ns by some critics. The term “Robinsonade” can refer to the genre (of the Crusoe stories) or the story that is similar to Robinson Crusoe. 1.

(11) 2. is “the most arrogant and grandiloquently colonialist or ‘British Empire’ [form of] ethnocentrism or Eurocentrism” (The Beast II 21, 134).2 Crusoe never attempts to cross any conceptual or ideological boundary; instead, he examines other cultures through the lens of his own worldview. Friday, who is afraid of being killed by Crusoe’s mysterious power (i.e., his gunfire), becomes his submissive servant. In The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), the sequel to Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe more openly reveals his European supremacy.3 When he travels to Nankin, in China, he feels extremely disappointed about the city, for the city is far behind London in his eyes. As he says, “Our city of London has more trade than half their mighty empire: one English, Dutch, or French man-of-war of eighty guns would be able to fight almost all the shipping belonging to China . . .” (Defoe, Farther Adventures 176). If China could amaze people from Europe, Crusoe thinks, this is because “considering them [the Chinese people] as a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we [Europeans] did not expect such things among them” (176; emphasis added). His words reveal that he bears a European colonialist mindset. When he disdains the “wretchedness” and “barbarity” of China, he, consciously or unconsciously, still thinks of overwhelming China by Western weapons, as he does to the savages by his gun. Crusoe’s demarcation between we (Europeans) and they (Chinese people) echoes Edward W. Said’s critique of the West’s imaginings of the Orient as the Other. After analyzing how the East appears in Aeschylus’s The Persians and Euripides’s The Bacchae, Said remarks, “The two aspects of the Orient that set it. While many critics agree that Crusoe’s relationship with what he calls “savages” is colonial and dominating, some defend Crusoe’s attitude toward them. For instance, Tom Paulin, who reads Robinson Crusoe as an allegory of a dissenting voice, comments that “Crusoe is compassionate towards the cannibals and also learns not to be an absolutist governor of his island . . .” (100). However, in my opinion, Paulin overlooks the fact that Robinson asks Friday to call him “Master.” Crusoe’s demand for Friday’s recognition of him as a master implies that he holds the supreme power and right to command and subjugate Friday. 3 Robinson Crusoe has three volumes. The third book in the trilogy is Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1720). 2.

(12) 3. off from the West in this pair of plays will remain essential motifs of European imaginative geography. A line is drawn between two continents. Europe is powerful and articulate; Asia is defeated and distant” (57). When Crusoe and his companions pass the Great Wall of China, Crusoe believes that the wall can be easily destroyed by “an army of [his] country people”; he treats it as “mighty nothing, called a wall” (Defoe, Farther Adventures 186). Later, when confronted by around forty Tartars, Crusoe and his companions fire their pistols at the Tartars, five of whom are killed. Conquering savages by his weaponry appears to be the formula for how he deals with them. Haiyan Ren contends that Defoe’s Crusoe is a rational colonialist. Crusoe’s rationality makes things “calculable and measurable” and manifests the elements of the Enlightenment (Ren 41). According to Ren, rationality is Western man’s tool to justify his desire to master the world; he, taking advantage of science, converts the world into “objects for exploration” and understands the world as that which can be divided into “mathematically calculable and thus measurable elements” (35). Rationality, for Ren, easily turns out to be a way to legitimize the West’s superiority and is thus utilized as a tool to oppress and dominate the colonized (44-45). Analogously, as a man of the Enlightenment, Crusoe takes advantage of his scientific knowledge to control the island; he also overpowers cannibals and intruders with his weaponry. In a sense, Crusoe represents a colonial juggernaut who explores a virgin land, cultivates it, and consumes it. Crusoe is not only a colonialist but also an exploiter of nature. The theme of Robinson Crusoe, Ilse Vickers points out, is “[m]an’s empire over things” (118). Defoe’s Crusoe imposes a pragmatic view on his surroundings. For instance, when he feels that three female kittens are annoyed, he kills them without hesitation (Defoe, Robinson Crusoe 75). Crusoe approaches the savages, animals, and his surroundings.

(13) 4. in terms of their usefulness to him. Nature for him is merely a means with which to satisfy his needs for surviving on a desert island. He is a practical maker who makes good use of natural resources to produce what he needs for everyday life, such as making a table or building a house. In one sense, Crusoe is a very productive worker. However, his productivity, in fact, aims to rebuild Western civilization. His productivity, along with his reconstructed culture and established order, becomes his way of conquering nature. In contrast, the counterparts of Defoe’s Crusoe in contemporary Robinsonades adopt views that are not limited to those of white European male colonialists. Many later writers, in their rewriting of the Crusoe story, explore and unpack the potential of the original text by shifting the perspective from the dominant—that is, a white European man—to the marginalized, be it a woman, a native, an animal, or even nature. This inspires me to examine how contemporary writers, in particular, Marlen Haushofer, Michel Tournier, J. G. Ballard, and Yann Martel, set out to rediscover nature and the voice of the minorities that were ignored by Defoe. Undeniably, some contemporary Robinsonades, such as Derek Walcott’s Pantomime, are postcolonial texts and continue the theme of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized as in Defoe’s version. However, some other Robinsonades, such as Tournier’s Friday, go beyond the postcolonial thematic and shift attention from the dynamic of the colonizer and the colonized to that of man and nature. Contemporary Robinsonades have sought to present a world in which the relationship between man and his surroundings is not anthropocentric and hierarchical, but interactive and symbiotic. Later writers not only revise the relationship between man and his environment in Defoe’s version but also excite our imagination of the environment by incorporating both the living and the non-living, man and animal, the alive and the dead. Most importantly, while the natural environment in Robinson.

(14) 5. Crusoe serves as a static backdrop, in some contemporary rewritings nature is portrayed as a lively figure. In this study, I would like to problematize the self-other discourse in Robinson Crusoe by taking the question of the human dominion over nature as a point of departure. I further consider how the rewritings of Robinson Crusoe provide us with alternative views of the world, and examine what new relationships are possible between living beings and their environment beyond the self-other dualism. This study offers close readings of four novels, including Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall (1963), Michel Tournier’s Friday (1967), J. G. Ballard’s Concrete Island (1973), and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2001). These works, I claim, suggest an ecological turn in the contemporary Robinsonade. While numerous adaptations have given scant attention to environmental issues in Defoe’s version, these four Robinsonades challenge the Crusoe narrative of human primacy over nature and animals in varied ways and attempt to reshape the relationship between man and nature. By reading the texts in light of ecological perspectives, I propose that the contemporary Robinson Crusoe revisions are more than stories that indicate a self-other demarcation set in colonial or postcolonial contexts but reorient the self and reexplore the ethical, ontological, and gender issues of our time. In my study, I employ ecology studies as a general theoretical framework with which to examine contemporary Robinsonades. Etymologically, ecology is composed of eco, from Greek oikos, which means “house” or “habitation,” and logia, denoting “study of.” According to Sam Mickey, ecology has two meanings. First, it associates with “ecofriendly” (Mickey 17): anything that is beneficial to the environment can be regarded as ecological. Second, the word “ecology” refers to a scientific discipline as “a subfield of biology” (17). In 1866, the German biologist and naturalist Ernst Haeckel, who drew upon Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, coined the term.

(15) 6. “ecology,” treating this field as a study concerning the links between living organisms and their surrounding environments (Mickey 17-18). Ecology studies are thus helpful for us to reconsider the position of humans in a natural state and how living and non-living beings have effects on their environment and vice versa.. II. Zigzagging through Ecological Minds Ecology studies broadly defined include the fields of ecocriticism and environmental studies and are even connected to animal studies because these fields all involve the relationship between organisms and their environments. In this section, I first provide a brief history of ecocriticism and pinpoint crucial concepts and debates in the field. Next, building upon ecocritical ideas and reaching out to different lines of thought, I propose my own ecosophic view, which I call “Ecosophy M.” M stands for Milieu, Mesh, Mutuality, Maternity, Minorities, and Mood, as I will explain in more detail later. Similar to ecology studies, Ecosophy M is an interdisciplinary thought and approach where I explore ecological thoughts from the perspectives of both ecocriticism and philosophy, with a focus on the relationship between a (non-)organism and its environment.. A. The Three Waves of Ecocriticism What is ecocriticism? According to Cheryll Glotfelty, ecocriticism is “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” and “takes an earth-centered approach to literary studies” (xviii). Similarly, Lawrence Buell defines ecocriticism as a “study of the relationship between literature and the environment conducted in a spirit of commitment to environmentalist praxis” (Environmental Imagination 430). Their definitions both indicate that ecocriticism is a field of study that examines the contact zone between literature and the environment. Ecocriticism.

(16) 7. engages in the reading of literary texts with a critical perspective regarding our relationship with nature, for example, how nature is represented in literature, how humans treat and look at nature, and how humankind affects or is affected by the environment. The term “ecocriticism,” as Glotfelty points out, may have been coined by William Rueckert in his 1978 essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism.” In this essay, Rueckert refers to ecocriticism as “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature” (107). This application, for him, is experimental and he ventures it because “ecology . . . has the greatest relevance to the present and future of the world we all live in . . .” (107). Although Glotfelty comments that Rueckert’s definition of ecocriticism appears “restrictive” because it involves specifically “the science of ecology” (xx), Rueckert proposes to “develop an ecological poetics,” to be applied not only to the reading of literature but also to the writing and teaching of literature (107). He treats poems as green plants and as a kind of stored energy that can be released to flow in the world and that constitutes meaning and order (110-11). At the end of his essay, Rueckert demonstrates how we may put “ecological concepts” into practice by offering ecocritical readings of several literary pieces (W. S. Merwin’s The Lice, for instance) (107). First-wave ecocriticism is generally said to have started with the publication of Joseph W. Meeker’s The Comedy of Survival in 1972 and continued through the mid-1990s (Hu 69). In his 1972 book, Meeker puts forth the term “literary ecology,” which he defines as “the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works” (29). He proposes a cross-disciplinary approach to literature. For him, it is worthwhile for an English-speaking person to learn German so as to read Goethe’s works, just as it is worthwhile for someone to study biology so as to comprehend Darwin’s theories (32). Additionally, Meeker ponders literary ecology by.

(17) 8. borrowing from biology, particularly “the ethological studies of Konrad Lorenz” (Buell, The Future 18). In his studies of tragedy and comedy, Meeker points out that while tragedy reveals an anthropocentric view of nature, comedy is more concerned with the traits that humans and non-humans have in common. Tragedy presupposes that “the universe cares about the lives of human beings” (Meeker 47): here, “man is essentially superior to animal, vegetable, and mineral nature and is destined to exercise mastery over all natural processes, including those of his own body” (48). Meeker further argues that tragedy fails to imitate people’s real life but instead creates an “artificial” one that people mimic to obtain “the flattering illusions of dignity and honor” (48). In contrast, comedy reflects the real conditions of life and its “comic strategy” is to treat life as a “game” (48). As Meeker notes, “The comic mode of human behavior represented in literature is the closest art has come to describing us as adaptive animals” (49). Comedy demonstrates that we human beings need to change ourselves, instead of our environment, to make survival possible (49). Meeker’s drawing on ethology in his reading of literature is considered to be the starting point of first-wave ecocriticism. Meeker’s understanding of tragedy and comedy resonates with some of the prominent themes in the Robinsonade genre: for instance, what one’s attitude is toward one’s environments and how one adapts oneself to the surroundings. If we follow his interpretation, we can say that the view of nature in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is more like that in tragedy, whereas the perspective on nature in contemporary Robinsonades tends to be more aligned to the comic. That is to say, Defoe’s version, in which the human masters the natural world and feels self-important, adopts an anthropocentric position; contemporary Robinsonade, by contrast, is keen to question the position of the human in the world and to describe how one tries to coexist with nature..

(18) 9. The Ecocriticism Reader, edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, marks the milestone of ecological literary study. Some of the scholars whose essays are collected in The Ecocriticism Reader had already explored the field of environmental literary studies in the 1970s, but they did not unify their efforts into “an identifiable group,” so their efforts were not treated as some concerted movement (xvi-xvii). The publication of The Ecocriticism Reader is a remarkable achievement, with the anthology recognized as “the first major collection of ecocriticism,” more specifically first-wave ecocriticism (Estok 228). However, while The Ecocriticism Reader is a significant achievement in the history of ecocriticism, this anthology has its shortcomings. As Simon C. Estok points out, “It suffers from a slightly narrow, Americanist focus and a strong partiality for texts about nature and the natural” (228). Most of the chosen texts and cases of study are from the American context; the scope of the anthology thus appears narrow. First-wave ecocriticism sides with the deep ecology movement in terms of their rejection of anthropocentrism (Hiltner, “First-Wave Introduction” 2). The term “deep ecology” was coined by Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, in 1973; this concept has been prevalently discussed by early ecocritics even up to today and its influence can also be found in writers, such as Gary Snyder (2).4 Naess distinguishes deep ecology from shallow ecology;5 i.e., if shallow ecology deals with the issues of ecological crises from the standpoint of people, particularly those in the wealthy developed nations, deep ecology considers environmental issues from the holistic viewpoint of the entire biosphere. For instance, when it comes to pollution, shallow ecology tackles this by relying on technology to purify air and water and by exporting. For more introduction to and discussion on deep ecology, see Merchant’s Radical Ecology 85-109 and Pepper 17-21. 5 Naess first made the distinction between shallow ecology and deep ecology in 1973. See his article, entitled “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement: A Summary.” 4.

(19) 10. polluting industries to developing nations, whereas deep ecology proposes to examine the cause of pollution and focuses on “life as a whole.” Deep ecology also refutes the transporting of pollutants to developing countries on the grounds that “[e]xporting pollution is not only a crime against humanity, but also against life” (Naess, “Deep Ecological Movement” 53). One of the most important tenets of deep ecology is an “ecocentric rather than a homocentric (or anthropocentric) ethic” (Merchant, Radical Ecology 87). While people ask how to take advantage of natural resources, deep ecologists address the question as to whether human beings really need so many resources from nature. Human beings should get rid of their self-importance and take up the responsibility of preserving natural resources so as “to maintain the integrity of the ecosphere” (87). Deep ecology is not flawless and has been criticized by some for its potentially anthropocentric streak. Deep ecologists make a sharp divide “between wilderness and anthropocentrism,” but they “fail to consider that humans are also animals” (Merchant, Radical Ecology 102). The distinction deepens the dualistic thinking concerning the human and the non-human, thus failing to put anthropocentrism behind. Deep ecology is also criticized by ecofeminism. Ariel Kay Salleh, for instance, inquires how deep “deep ecology” is and contends that “[t]he master-slave role which marks man’s relation with nature is replicated in man’s relation with woman” (340). For Salleh, deep ecologists’ critique of anthropocentrism is shallow, for they neglect phallocentrism in their supposed deep approach. Although deep ecology stresses “biological egalitarianism” among all living beings, its use of the term “Man” ignores the importance of gender differences. As Salleh comments, “The deep ecology movement, by using the generic term Man, simultaneously presupposes the difference between the sexes in an uncritical way, and yet overlooks the significance of this difference” (340)..

(20) 11. Second-wave ecocriticism began at the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, the distinction between the second and first waves is not absolute. In The Future of Environmental Criticism, Buell provides a useful divide between first-wave and second-wave ecocriticism. According to Buell, first-wave ecocritics tend to mark the distinction between culture and nature and stress the importance of the latter. However, their view of nature or the natural environment is somewhat narrowly defined. As Buell comments, “For first-wave ecocriticism, ‘environment’ effectively meant ‘natural environment’” (The Future 21). Tracing the meaning of such words as “eco” (from Greek, oikos, denoting “house”) and “critic” (from Greek, kritis, meaning “judge”), William Howarth defines an ecocritic as “a person who judges the merits and faults of writings that depict the effects of culture upon nature, with a view toward celebrating nature, berating its despoilers, and reversing their harm through political action” (69). Howarth’s definition best describes the characteristics of representative first-wave ecocritics, that is, those who evaluate the effects of culture on nature, decry how humans despoil the natural world, and propose to achieve the goal of earthcare by political action (Buell, The Future 21; Howarth 69). While responding to and questioning anthropocentrism, many of the first-wave ecocritics promote ecocentrism or biocentrism (Hiltner, “First-Wave Introduction” 2). First-wave ecocritics claim that one species, especially human beings, should not be given priority over other species; they pay more attention to the themes of nature and wilderness in nature writers like Thoreau (2). According to Buell, the main distinction between first-wave and second-wave ecocriticism is that the latter moves beyond the limited scope of nature and brings the issue of environmental justice into the conversation. He uses his works as examples. His earlier book The Environmental Imagination (1995) can be considered a typical piece of first-wave ecocriticism, in which he considers the question of whether it is.

(21) 12. possible to “model ecocentric values” through literature, such as Thoreau’s nature writing (The Future 22). Buell’s Writing for an Endangered World (2001), which characterizes the shift in his thinking from ecocentrism to environmental justice, belongs to the work of second-wave ecocriticism. In this book, he explores not only wilderness but also urban landscapes, animals, and oceans, and additionally examines the global ecosystem. While first-wave ecocriticism defines the environment as nature with a focus on nature writings that romanticize the wilderness, second-wave ecocriticism broadens the definition of the environment by including social issues. That is, from the perspective of second-wave critics, the environment is not confined to the natural environment but also includes the urban and social environment. The so-called environment is not naturally built but is “artificially constructed” (Buell, The Future 23). The line between urban and wilderness is not clear-cut; therefore, the study of urban landscapes can also be part of environmental studies. The attention to environmental justice is a significant feature of second-wave ecocriticism. Second-wave ecocritics extend their concern from nature to issues of gender, race, and class. The scope of ecocriticism thus becomes broader and more enriched. For example, Robert D. Bullard, known as the “Father of Environmental Justice,” examines the relationship between the environment and race. In his works such as Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class, and Environmental Quality, he argues that the minorities in the southern United States, particularly African Americans living in poor communities, are more exposed to air and water pollutions than other social groups are. Moreover, compared with first-wave ecocritics who deal with relatively more recently published works (those published in the past two centuries), second-wave ecocritics look at a wider range of literature because they think that literature from various periods can help us better understand our current environmental issues (Hiltner, “Second-Wave Introduction” 132-33)..

(22) 13. Whereas first-wave ecocritics pay more attention to “the local and place” and thus examine such places as Thoreau’s Walden Pond, in which they elicit “an environmental ethics,” second-wave ecocritics, including Ursula K. Heise and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, treat “environmental problems” that connect all human beings to each other as “truly global in scale” and “urge us to reconsider issues of scale” (Hiltner, “Second-Wave Introduction” 132). Other second-wave ecocritics approach environmental issues in a more theoretical fashion, such as Bruno Latour, Timothy Morton, Dana Phillips, Kate Soper, and Robert N. Watson (132). For instance, Watson examines how the environment was represented by late Renaissance writers in his Back to Nature and discusses the term “back to nature” in a “phenomenological sense,” which refers to returning “back to ‘the things themselves’” (132). Glotfelty anticipates the future of ecocriticism: “In the future we can expect to see ecocritical scholarship becoming ever more interdisciplinary, multicultural, and international” (xxv). While making the distinction between first-wave ecocriticism and second-wave ecocriticism, Buell reminds us, “This first-second distinction should not, however, be taken as implying a tidy, distinct succession. Most currents set in motion by early ecocriticism continue to run strong, and most forms of second-wave revisionism involve building on as well as quarreling with precursors” (The Future 17). According to Slovic’s comment, Buell uses the wave as a metaphor (“apparently borrowed from the idea of first and second wave feminism”), depicting the growth of ecocriticism because “the waves do not simply end when a new wave begins” (5).6 That is to say, although different ecocritical waves or movements are characterized by different dominant concerns, the rise of a later movement does not mean the end of the previous one. Even after the emergence of second-wave or even third-wave Although using the wave as a metaphor, Buell also notes that “‘palimpsest’ would be a better metaphor than ‘wave’” (The Future 17). Scott Slovic comments that he prefers the palimpsest metaphor as well (5). 6.

(23) 14. ecocriticism, many scholars are still pondering issues commonly seen in first-wave ecocriticism, such as nature writing, wilderness, and environmental crises (Slovic 5). Glotfelty has adumbrated third-wave ecocriticism in her introduction to The Ecocriticism Reader, “Ecocriticism has been predominantly a white movement. It will become a multi-ethnic movement when stronger connections are made between the environment and issues of social justice, and when a diversity of voices are encouraged to contribute to the discussion” (xxv). Compared with first- and second-wave ecocriticism, third-wave ecocriticism places more emphasis on issues of ethnicity and social justice pertaining to the environment. The term “third-wave ecocriticism” is provided by Joni Adamson and Scott Slovic in their guest editors’ introduction to the special issue (summer 2009) “Ethnicity and Ecocriticism” for the journal MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States). Adamson and Slovic claim: Literary expression of environmental experience is as diverse as any other body of writing, of course. Yet until recently the community of ecocritics has been relatively non-diverse and also has been constrained by a perhaps overly narrow construing of “white” and “nonwhite” as the primary categories of ethnicity. Therefore, this issue will explore what seems to be a new third wave of ecocriticism, which recognizes ethnic and national particularities and yet transcends ethnic and national boundaries; this third wave explores all facets of human experience from an environmental viewpoint. (6-7) Although Adamson and Slovic mention the term “third-wave” and highlight the issue of ethnicity as the main feature of third-wave ecocriticism, they do not provide us with a specific definition of the term “third-wave.” Later, in his 2010 article “The Third Wave of Ecocriticism,” written for the first.

(24) 15. issue of the journal Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, Slovic further clarifies what third-wave ecocriticism is and claims that third-wave ecocriticism, although not labeled as the third wave until 2009, started to appear in 2000. He suggests that third-wave ecocriticism can be summarized by six main features. First, “global concepts of place” are examined with new coinages, including “eco-cosmopolitanism” and “translocality.” Second, comparative approaches are adopted to pose “questions about the possibility of post-national and post-ethnic visions of human experience of the environment” and meanwhile discuss ethnic issues “in broader, comparative contexts.” Third, the appearance of “material” ecofeminism, which evolved from earlier versions of ecofeminism, denotes a “trend toward new gendered approaches in ecocriticism.” Fourth, the concept of animality is stressed and draws attention to non-human animals and their rights. Fifth, third-wave ecocriticism displays the “critiques from within” that can never be found in first- or second-wave ecocriticism. Sixth, scholars and teachers “connect their work to social transformation,” which Slovic calls “a ‘polymorphously activist’ tendency” (7). Given the rise of ecocriticism, the concentration of ecological issues in Robinsonade may be a purposeful coincidence. In the 1960s and 1970s, discourses, criticisms, and books regarding environmentalism started to appear (e.g., Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 and Joseph W. Meeker’s The Comedy of Survival in 1972). Around the same time, some rewritings of Robinson Crusoe also paid considerable attention to environmental issues or expressed a concern with the interaction between humans and nature. For example, three of the works that I will analyze in my dissertation (The Wall, Friday, and Concrete Island) were published during this time. In brief, the trends in ecocriticism suggest that ecocriticism has over the years moved beyond its earlier focus on the natural environment toward a concern for the.

(25) 16. intersection between nature and so-called human affairs. Whereas earlier ecocriticism urges humans to protect the environment and fight against anthropocentrism, more recent ecocriticism tends to place emphasis on non-humans and on humans’ coexistence with nature and non-living beings. Taken as a whole, these ecocritical perspectives can not only help us examine environmental issues in Robinsonade but also make us more aware of the anthropocentric ideologies underlying the said genre and extend the scope of ecology to social aspects. Moreover, while some ecocritics are inclined to put their ecological thoughts into practice, others elevate environmental issues to a more philosophical level, such as Arne Naess’s conception of ecosophy. In what follows, I build on his proposition and create my own version of ecosophy. This ecosophy, I would like to show, will help to shed light on my reading of contemporary Robinsonades.. B. Ecosophy M Ecocriticism and ecosophy do not exclude each other; they overlap, reinforce, and complement each other. When I use the relatively down-to-earth ecocritical methods to examine environmental issues in contemporary Robinsonade, I would also like to draw on ecosophy to broach the philosophical meaning of ecological issues as presented in the new Crusoe stories. In his Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, Arne Naess famously puts forth the term “ecosophy,” literally denoting ecological wisdom.7 To provide a better understanding of ecosophy, he distinguishes three terms: ecology, ecophilosophy, and ecosophy. According to Naess, ecology refers to “the interdisciplinary scientific study of the living conditions of organisms in interaction with each other and with the 7. Guattari also proposes an ecosophy that consists of three dimensions: social ecology, mental ecology, and environmental ecology. For more details on these three ecologies, see his book The Three Ecologies..

(26) 17. surroundings, organic as well as inorganic” (Ecology 36). For him, this scientific study falls short of covering all the issues concerning organisms, especially humans, and their environment. Therefore, he poses a more urgent question: “Do all possible studies of humankind’s relations with all possible kinds of surroundings belong to ecology?” (36). In response to this question, Naess brings in ecophilosophy and ecosophy. Ecophilosophy, for him, is “a descriptive study” that connects ecology with philosophy (36). More specifically, ecophilosophy studies particular problems at the intersection between these two fields, employing ecological ideas to explain the place of humans in nature. In contrast, ecosophy is a type of philosophy that reflects “one’s own personal code of values and a view of the world which guides one’s own decisions” (36). In other words, ecosophy stresses how “to approach practical situations involving ourselves” (37). Because each situation is unique, Naess creates his Ecosophy T, with the letter T standing for Tvergastein, a mountain hut where he wrote books (Cheng 482; Rothenberg 4). At the same time, Naess encourages readers to create their own versions of ecosophy, their “own systems or guides, say, Ecosophies X, Y, or Z” (Naess, Ecology 37).8 Enlightened by this proposition, I propose here “Ecosophy M,” the ecosophy that considers the relationship between (non-)living beings and the environment. Ecosophy M adopts an eclectic and interdisciplinary approach. Ecosophy M is a dynamic concept, so it is hoped that what defines Ecosophy M here is not a statutory tenet but can be understood as a flexible concept ready to be broadened or revised (into Ecosophy M2, M3, and so forth) in accordance with changes in the environment in the future. As stated earlier, Ecosophy M refers to six major modes: Milieu, Mesh, Mutuality, Maternity, Minorities, and Mood. I shall explain each point below.. Inspired by Naess’s idea of Ecosophy T, later theorists and critics develop their own personal ecosophies. For instance, Xiangzhan Cheng dubs his ecosophy “Ecosophy C.” See Cheng 482-86. 8.

(27) 18. 1. Milieu Although many ecocritics, such as Buell, use the word “environment” in their works, the use of this word needs to be reconsidered as it more often than not connotes human-centrism. As Glotfelty states, “enviro- is anthropocentric and dualistic, implying that we humans are at the center, surrounded by everything that is not us, the environment” (xx). In contrast, the word “milieu” has a more neutral undertone. The term milieu, imported from the French, etymologically and literally means a “middle place”: mi denotes “middle” and lieu means “place.” Regarding ecology, milieu is a more effective term than environment in that it suggests the place where living beings meet. This concept of “middle” thus celebrates the ecological thinking that the ecosystem lacks a center; what should be heeded instead is the networking between the living and the non-living. I would like to theorize “milieu” by drawing on ideas of such thinkers as Jacob von Uexküll, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, as well as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; at the same time, I also attempt to extend the scope of the concept of milieu from the biological sphere to the social one. Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt (which literally means “environment” in German) is significant because it influences later thinkers, including Martin Heidegger, Deleuze, Guattari, Merleau-Ponty, and Giorgio Agamben. As Agamben observes, classical science understood the world as a single one within which living organisms existed according to the order of their hierarchy from the lowest to the highest level; however, Uexküll contends that a myriad of perceptual worlds, while excluding each other and failing to communicate with each other, are “all equally perfect and linked together” (The Open 40). In his A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, Uexküll shows multiple illustrations of how animals see their world, which is rather different from the human view, and how each living organism has its own world distinct. Uexküll’s Umwelt theory is.

(28) 19. ecological in that it abnegates the hierarchy between organisms of different orders and stresses a vision of multiple worlds, instead of presenting a unified world from a human perspective. The French equivalent of the German word “Umwelt” is “milieu,” a French term commonly used in natural sciences and sociology in Germany during Uexküll’s time (Brentari 63). In his early writing Leitfaden in das Studium der experimentellen Biologie der Wassertiere (1905), Uexküll also used the French word “milieu” to refer to “the part of the external world that affects animals” (qtd. in Brentari 63). Nevertheless, he later replaced the term “milieu” with the German word “Umwelt” because the former, for him, suggested that “human nature was to be transformed by a merciless, powerful environment” (Chien 59). In other words, the notion of milieu implies that living organisms including human beings are subject to their environment and lack agency or the ability to alter it. Uexküll abandoned the word “milieu” and changed to “Umwelt” to propose that human beings and animals are not merely passively fashioned by their environment but could actively form their environment (59-60). However, Uexküll’s Umwelt theory is not flawless. As Carlo Brentari points out, one of the flaws is his assumption of “perfect harmony in the relation between organism and environment” (9). This assumption overlooks the probability of “imperfection and extinction” in the natural evolutionary process, so it fails to adequately explain imperfect or exceptional cases in the organism-environment relationship (10). In “The Living and Its Milieu,” Georges Canguilhem traces the history of the term “milieu” and analyzes how it has been imported from the field of mechanics into other fields of study, such as biology and geography. The notion of milieu was introduced to biology during the latter part of the eighteenth century (Canguilhem 99). The French naturalist and biologist Lamarck (1744–1829), as Léon Brunschvicg notes,.

(29) 20. “had borrowed from Newton the model for a physical-mathematical explanation of the living by a system of connections with its environment” (Canguilhem 100). For Newton, what was called “milieu” by the eighteenth-century French mechanists was “fluid” (99). His example of ether can help explain how the concept of fluid leads to that of milieu. Newton treats ether as “fluid as the medium of action at a distance” (99). As Canguilhem further explains, “The fluid is an intermediary between two bodies; it is their milieu; and insofar as the fluid penetrates all these bodies, they are situated in the middle of it” (99). A milieu is a “medium, in between two centers” (100). Newton’s concept of fluid stresses neither the subject nor the object but something between two bodies, two forces. Lamarck uses the term in this mechanical sense. However, he always talks about milieus in the plural form. Unlike Uexküll, who supposes a harmonious organism-environment relation, Lamarck contends that circumstances would change, so living organisms should adapt themselves to different circumstances to avoid being “dropped” by their milieus (Canguilhem 104). The milieu, for Lamarck, is indifferent to organisms and thus is external to life (104). Canguilhem extends the notion of milieu from biology to geography. As he puts it, “Geography has to do with complexes—complexes of elements whose actions mutually limit each other and in which the effects of causes become causes in turn, modifying the causes that gave rise to them” (109). That is, complexes involve actions and reactions that can restrain or impel each other, as well as cause and effect that can influence each other or be reversed. One of the examples of a complex that he provides is trade winds. Trade winds dislocate surface water with a higher temperature. When the deep cold waters ascend to the ocean surface, the atmosphere turns cold. Due to low temperatures, low pressure occurs and thus produces winds. This is the cycle of trade winds that ends and begins repeatedly. Another example is “plant geography” in which we can see the same kind of complex. Different species of.

(30) 21. plants restrain each other while simultaneously maintaining a balanced state for others; these varied plants form a group that constitutes its milieu. For Canguilhem, this model can also be applied to humans. As he argues, humans can provide varied solutions to a specific problem brought by the milieu and react to stimulation caused by the milieu in diverse ways (109). While Canguilhem discusses the milieu in a more scientific sense by tracing its history from mechanics and physics to biology, geography, and cosmology, his student Foucault uses the notion of milieu in a more sociological sense. More specifically, Foucault’s concept of milieu is concerned with how power circulates in society. Regarding the question of what the milieu is, Foucault writes, “It is what is needed to account for action at a distance of one body on another” (20-21). Milieu is “the medium of an action and the element in which it circulates,” so “the problem of circulation and causality” is a significant issue in the conception of milieu (21). In other words, the milieu is not static but circulatory. Moreover, the milieu includes not only nature, such as mountains and rivers, but also artificial things, such as houses. Therefore, the milieu presents the intersection between the natural and the artificial, and it can be embodied in the form of a town, where “‘naturalness’ of the human species [appears] within an artificial milieu” (22). Power intervenes in the natural and artificial milieu; that is, power creates the milieu of the town, and power techniques are deployed through the milieu. Deleuze and Guattari also use the term in their works, yet in a more geophilosophical sense. In their philosophy, the word milieu, as Brian Massumi notes, includes its three meanings in French, that is, “surroundings,” “medium,” and “middle” (xvii). “The middle” is important in Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of milieu. As they write, “The middle is by no means an average; on the contrary, it is where things pick up speed” (A Thousand Plateaus 25). In a sense, the milieu is the middle, a movement.

(31) 22. in the process of action; therefore, it has no center, no boundary, no linearity. The milieu serves as a medium of flows, and thus appears to be heterogeneous, chaotic, open, unpredictable, and unstable. Deleuze and Guattari depict the milieu as connected with the body. As they note, “Every milieu is vibratory, in other words, a block of space-time constituted by the periodic repetition of the component. Thus the living thing has an exterior milieu of materials, an interior milieu of composing elements and composed substances, an intermediary milieu of membranes . . .” (313). A living being’s body has external and internal milieus; it is a rhizomatic body. Deleuze and Guattari use “grass” as an example to explain their theory of the body. Unlike a tree, which has hierarchies and centers, grass spreads horizontally, lacking origins, centers, boundaries, or any points of reference. Grass is a rhizomatic body that is of continually forming milieus. The above-mentioned thinkers offer different facets of the term “milieu.” The term does not only refer to the natural environment in a biological sense but also acts as an ecological way of thinking to examine the interaction between beings and their environments in a social context.. 2. Mesh In The Ecological Thought (2010), Timothy Morton, one of the most important ecological critics of recent times, proposes the concept of “the ecological thought,” a thought that “imagines interconnectedness,” which he calls “the mesh” (15). This thought helps us to consider the relationship between milieus and living beings. The notion of the mesh suggests that a being cannot exist by itself but always needs to entangle itself with other beings and milieus. As Morton indicates, the mesh, appearing in different fields, such as biology and engineering, can refer to “the holes in a network and threading between them,”.

(32) 23. and the term’s antecedents include “mask” and “mass,” which suggest “density and deception” (Ecological Thought 28). Morton borrows from biology and cytology to explain the porous trait of the mesh. As he states, “Some parasites and symbionts are so intimate you can’t tell where one starts and its habitat stops, all the way down to the DNA level. There is no way of knowing which bits of our DNA are actually ‘ours’ and which are plasmid insertions” (35). Specifically, in a parasitic or symbiotic relationship, two different beings are intertwined with each other and connected on the level of DNA; they thus become hardly distinguished from each other. The term “mesh” stresses interconnectedness and interdependence, which is the essence of Morton’s ecological thought. For Morton, “everything is interconnected” (28). Morton notices that Darwin mentioned in passing the mesh in his theory of natural selection as his theory also concerns the interconnectedness of species. As Darwin states in his On the Origin of Species, “It is a truly wonderful fact . . . that all animals and all plants throughout all time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to group . . .” (122-23). However, Morton points out that although Darwin mentions interrelatedness, his theory is different from what Morton intends to develop.9 Whereas Darwin’s theory is like the structure of a tree that suggests a starting point, Morton’s concept of the mesh, “far from linear,” has no such point that can be traced back (29). As Morton states, “Each point of the mesh is both the center and edge of a system of points, so there is no absolute center or edge” (29). Succinctly put, the mesh refutes linearity and centeredness, thus canceling the hierarchy among beings. Morton imagines a porous mesh, with everything interconnecting with each Morton does not completely refute Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Instead, he observes the flavor of the mesh in Darwin’s argument at the end of the chapter on natural selection: “the great Tree of Life . . . covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications” (Darwin 124; emphasis added). Darwin’s mention of ramifications, for Morton, echoes his notion of the mesh. At this point, “Darwin brings ecological interconnectedness and thinking together” (Morton, Ecological Thought 29). 9.

(33) 24. other, be it human or non-human, living or non-living, alive or dead. As he notes, “All life forms are the mesh, and so are all dead ones, as are their habitats, which are also made up of living and nonliving beings” (Ecological Thought 29). One of the examples that he provides is the mountain that can accommodate shells, fossilized bacteria, and animals. The mesh includes all beings and their habitat as well. Living beings are affected by their environments, and vice versa. One living being may function as another’s environment; for example, in the case of bees and flowers, the latter serve as the former’s environment while both evolve together. Morton’s use of the expression “the mesh,” different from the traditional view of ecology that focuses on the living, expands our view to consider our relationship not only with the living but with the non-living and the dead. The idea of the mesh echoes what Morton calls “thinking big—as big as possible,” an expression that he believes is “the best environmental thinking” (Ecological Thought 20). When Morton urges us to think big, he means that we human beings should think beyond our competence and imagination and be aware of our limitations and insufficiency. Morton suggests that “thinking big doesn’t mean that we put everything in a big box” but “means that the box melts into nothing in our hands” (31). The more we understand the dangers that environmental crises bring about, “the more we find ourselves lacking a reference point” (31). That is, by thinking big, by thinking of our connection with everything and every being around us, we humans can realize that our knowledge of reality is limited and that we are merely part of the ecosystem rather than the center of it. Morton explicates the ecological thought by the metaphor of the mesh rather than Nature because Nature for him has been constructed by human beings as “an ideal image” (Ecological Thought 5). Nature has turned into a “private property” of human beings, something that can be “exhibited in a specially constructed art gallery”.

(34) 25. (5, 6). This is the reason why Morton proposes “ecology without nature.” Moreover, the logic of Nature presupposes something “holistic” and harmonious, and that human beings can understand Nature through their knowledge and reason (35). Nevertheless, for Morton, such a holistic view is merely an illusion that at best serves as humans’ desire to control the environment. As Morton reminds us, “We discover that our more detailed understanding of how things connect with each other results in a loss of a sense of reality. . . . On the micro and macro levels, things are less complete, less integrated, less independent, than we believed” (36).. 3. Mutuality Mutuality suggests change and exchange. In its adjective form, the word “mutual” etymologically is derived from the Latin word mutuus, which means “reciprocal, done in exchange”; the word’s Proto-Indo-European root mei means “to change, go, move” (Harper). A mutual relationship between two sides is achieved through exchange. Morton’s concept of the mesh with its focus on interconnectedness also suggests a kind of mutual relationship. As mentioned earlier, Morton illustrates interrelationships with the example of the symbiotic and parasitic relationships between organisms in which they exchange DNA. In this mutual relationship, the host and the parasite become too blurred to be distinguishable from each other. Ecosophy M explores the question of how the relationship between (non-)organisms is built and connects to one another. In this regard, Jacques Derrida’s concept of hospitality that explores a mutual relationship between host and guest in an ethical light can be considered in tandem with Ecosophy M. Derrida’s discussion of the complex interplay between host and guest is related to his background. The period following World War II witnessed significant waves of.

(35) 26. migration across national borders. In the 1990s, in Europe, particularly in France, debates over immigration were heated because the new anti-immigration laws, such as the 1993 Pasqua laws,10 were created amid controversy (Rosello 1). Exclusionism rose during this period and the issue of immigrants became one of the nation’s urgent concerns. Derrida was “extremely sensitive to the exclusionism and prejudice that marks the arrogance of Western imperialism” (Cornell 55). In response to this, Derrida considered hospitality in an ethical sense. Hospitality is an aporetic term as the subject of hospitality in effect refers to both host and guest, as suggested in the French word hôte: the hôte means the one who gives hospitality (the host) as well as the one who receives it (the guest) (Anidjar 356). In his works, Derrida also troubles the divide between host and guest and stresses the border crossing between the two. Derrida develops his philosophy of hospitality via Immanuel Kant’s notion of universal hospitality, which underpins the concept of cosmopolitanism.11 Succinctly, Kant’s cosmopolitanism suggests that hospitality should be a universal law for everyone to follow because no one has the right to drive another away since all humans live on the same planet. Although Kant’s notion of universal hospitality presents a picture of a shared community in which any visitor is welcome, Derrida points out that Kant’s hospitality principle has two limitations: “When . . . Kant was formulating the law of cosmopolitanism, he does not restrict it ‘to the conditions of universal hospitality’ only. He places on it two limits which doubtless situate a place The Pasqua laws were named after Charles Pasqua, “the right-wing minister of the interior” who promoted and defended a series of anti-immigration laws (Rosello 179n1). 11 For Kant, “hospitality (hospitableness) means the right of an alien not to be treated as an enemy upon his arrival in another’s country. If it can be done without destroying him, he can be turned away; but as long as he behaves peaceably he cannot be treated as an enemy” (118). Kant stresses the fact that we humans share the same globe and live on the same “earth’s surface,” so we have no right to turn away visitors, those who are willing to live peacefully with us (118). As he says, “since the earth is a globe, they cannot scatter themselves infinitely, but must, finally, tolerate living in close proximity, because originally no one had a greater right to any region of the earth than anyone else” (118). Kant also proposes “the idea of cosmopolitan right”—that is, “an amendment to the unwritten code of national and international rights, necessary to the public rights of men in general. Only such amendment allows us to flatter ourselves with the thought that we are making continual progress towards perpetual peace” (119). 10.

(36) 27. of reflection and perhaps of transformation or of progress” (On Cosmopolitanism 20). The first limitation is that Kant does not include hospitality as “a right of residence” (that “must be made the object of a particular treaty between states”) but restricts it to “the right of visitation” (21). That is, the right of residence is based on the treaties between states, so visitors have no right to ask for permanent residence, and thus may be kicked out by the state where there is no treaty. The second limitation is that “Kant assigns to it conditions which make it dependent on state sovereignty, especially when it is a question of the right of residence” (22). Because Kant’s notion of hospitality depends on a state’s law and sovereignty, for Derrida, it is a conditional hospitality. Critiquing and revising Kant’s concept of universal hospitality, Derrida proposes “unconditional hospitality” (Derrida and Dufourmantelle 25). Unconditional hospitality marks an absolutely open attitude toward the Other, including foreigners, immigrants, and outsiders. As Derrida notes: Let us say yes to who or what turns up, before any determination, before any anticipation, before any identification, whether or not it has to do with a foreigner, an immigrant, an invited guest, or an unexpected visitor, whether or not the new arrival is the citizen of another country, a human, animal, or divine creature, a living or dead thing, male or female. (Derrida and Dufourmantelle 77) Therefore, given the practice of unconditional hospitality, we should accept all visitors without taking their identities into consideration or creating hierarchical groupings on the basis of law. When Derrida urges us to welcome any visitors, he also complicates the relation between host and guest and reminds us that hospitality is not entirely a solution to political and ethical problems, for it also entails dilemmas and risks. As Derrida states, hospitality might also involve “hostility” (Derrida and Dufourmantelle.

(37) 28. 45). If a visitor is welcomed as a guest, then the friendly reception is hospitality; if a visitor is treated as an enemy, then the behavior denotes hostility. In another situation, if the visitor, welcomed as a guest, seeks to assume the role of a host, “the inviting host” then turns into a “hostage” (125). Thus, the relationship between host and guest is not always stable and reciprocal. The Other to which Derrida proposes to be open in the context of hospitality refers to visitors, foreigners, immigrants, outsiders, and even non-humans. Later, Morton would expand the definition of the Other in Derrida’s discussion and discover an ecological version of hospitality. Morton argues that we human beings should be open not only to animals but also to what he terms the “strange stranger” (Ecological Thought 14). Strange strangers are in a sense an absolute Other, a whatever being that we can never predict or realize. We cannot even expect that the strange stranger is someone or something. Strange strangers are the beings that “are liable to change before our eyes” even when we encounter them, and “our view of them is also labile” (40). These beings are so “intrinsically strange” that we “can never absolutely figure them out”; even if we could, we would merely conceive of them in our own imagination and understanding rather than apprehend them in reality (41). Morton notes that what is strange about this figure is that the strange stranger “might be living with us right now” and “might, indeed, be us” (42). Therefore, the demarcation between us and them (strange strangers) is not straightforward. The blurred distinction between the two also echoes Morton’s notion of the mesh in the sense that all beings are interconnected with each other.. 4. Maternity Incorporating maternity into Ecosophy M is not to replace patriarchy with matriarchy or reverse their supposed hierarchy, but rather to apply maternity as a.

(38) 29. perspective through which to examine how women are subdued under patriarchal ideologies and mechanisms in the historical and social process. Maternity here is not used to restrictively describe the qualities of pregnant women but is meant to refer broadly to women in general. Women have long been treated as closely connected with nature because of their reproductive activities, and nature is frequently presented as a female figure. The female nature has two general images. One image is figured as a nurturing mother, like Mother Earth, a merciful female that offers what humans need to maintain “an ordered, planned universe,” whereas the other image reveals “wild and uncontrollable nature that could render violence, storms, droughts, and general chaos” (Merchant, Death 2). The former image, nature as a nurturing mother, started to disappear when the Scientific Revolution advanced “to mechanize and to rationalize the world view”; the latter image, nature as chaos, evokes “an important modern idea, that of power over nature” (2). When nature is conceived of as chaotic and disorderly, this imagination validates the necessity to control nature. As Western culture turns more and more technologized and mechanized, nature is exploited and overwhelmed by the mechanical and technological world that men dominate (2). Once nature as female is overcome by male-centered technology, the ecological crisis arises. Therefore, the issue of ecology becomes a concern of feminists. As the leading American social ecofeminist Ynestra King puts it, “The ecological crisis is related to the systems of hatred of all that is natural and female by the White, male, Western formulators of philosophy, technology, and death inventions” (106). King regards ecofeminism as “the ‘third wave of the women’s movement’ . . . [that is as important as] the first-wave nineteenth-century women’s movement and the second-wave women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s” (qtd. in Sturgeon.

(39) 30. 23).12 According to Noël Sturgeon, “ecofeminism is a movement that makes connections between environmentalisms and feminisms; more precisely, it articulates the theory that the ideologies that authorize injustices based on gender, race, and class are related to the ideologies that sanction the exploitation and degradation of the environment” (23). Ecofeminism has a close relationship with deep ecology. “Ecofeminism,” as defined by Rosemary Radford Ruether, “represents the union of the radical ecology movement, or what has been called ‘deep ecology,’ and feminism” (13). Deep ecology and ecofeminism have many concerns in common as both “are critical of atomism, dualism, hierarchalism, rigid autonomy, and abstract rationality” (Zimmerman 142). Although both aim to break down the hierarchical system, some feminists contend that “deep ecology has been formulated almost entirely by men” and thus “is characterized by unintended patriarchal prejudices” (142).13 In other words, although deep ecology takes issue with the ecological problems caused by anthropocentrism, it is not sensitive enough to the patriarchal structure that lies at the root of anthropocentrism. Like deep ecologists, ecofeminists disapprove of anthropocentrism; what is more, they strongly disapprove of man-centeredness because “patriarchalism leads to the destruction of the Earth” (142). Ecofeminism is an umbrella term that allows a variety of ecofeminisms and one may contradict another. When it comes to the relationship between women and nature, this issue is a contentious dispute among ecofeminists. Whereas cultural/radical ecofeminists affirm the power of nature and believe that women should strengthen. King reiterated the idea of ecofeminism as a “third-wave” in public speeches; this idea is “echoed” by the Australian philosopher and ecofeminist Val Plumwood (Sturgeon 200n1). In her Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, Plumwood says, “The programme of a critical ecological feminism orientated to the critique of dualism is a highly integrative one . . ., and gives it a claim to be a third wave or stage of feminism moving beyond the conventional divisions in feminist theory” (39). The idea is also endorsed by Noël Sturgeon in her Ecofeminist Natures (23). 13 For more details on ecofeminist critiques of deep ecology, see Zimmerman 146-53. 12.

(40) 31. their relationship with nature so as to counterattack the patriarchal system, social ecofeminists refuse to endorse the connection between women and nature on the grounds that this move deepens the stereotypes of nature and women as well as the demarcation between genders. Cultural/radical ecofeminists support the idea that “‘female culture’ is concerned with the body, the flesh, the material, natural processes, emotions and subjective feelings and private life,” whereas “‘male culture’ emphasizes the mind, intellect, reason, culture, objectivity, economics and public life” (Pepper 107). Aiming to set nature free from the oppressive “male ethos,” cultural/radical ecofeminists celebrate myths and rituals that valorize the female body and female power (107). For instance, the Gaia hypothesis is frequently brought up. Gaia, the Greek name for the Earth, is figured as Mother Earth (Eisler 26; Rose 154). The Gaia hypothesis is “a scientific update of the belief system of Goddess-worshipping prehistoric societies” in which the world is treated as “the great Mother, a living entity who in both her temporal and spiritual manifestations creates and nurtures all forms of life” (Eisler 26). People in these societies believe that women’s menstrual cycles correspond with the stages of the moon and the changes of the seasons; therefore, the female body is closely connected with the Earth (Pietilä 236). Simply put, the Gaia hypothesis proposes an open, dynamic system in which the living and non-living beings coexist and maintain order to accommodate all life. By exploring and emphasizing the connection between women and nature, cultural/radical ecofeminists contend that female power can be utilized to dismantle patriarchy. In contrast, social ecofeminists “seek to deemphasize the nature-woman connection” and argue that if women fail to “minimize” the nature-woman connection that is “socially constructed and ideologically reinforced,” then women are still inferior to men and nature is still inferior to culture (Tong 263). That is, the.