• Foreword by Sophie Christman Lavin

    Author(s):
    Sophie Christman (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Group(s):
    TC Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities
    Subject(s):
    Wilson, Edward O., Phobias, Nature conservation, Evolution (Biology), Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882, Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/68p0-8216
    Abstract:
    "People acquire phobias," evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson observed, to "abrupt and intractable aversions, to the objects and circumstances that threaten humanity in natural environments" (The Diversity of Life 351). This often overlooked observation, conceptualized by an evolu­tionary biologist whose canon launched the Western corpus of biodiver­sity theories, locates an important problem unique to humanity's current climate change moment-our phobia of nature. How many of us have jumped with fear at the sight of a nearby hairy spider, become alarmed by a slithering snake, or panicked at the clap of a lightning bolt? Why have we conditioned ourselves, as 21st century hominids, to dread the Earth's daily descent into darkness, avoiding night by flipping the infrastructural switch of artificial light? In mo­dernity's modern moment, how has our all-consuming fear of nature created the collective human condition that Simon C. Estok terms the trauma of "ecophobia"?
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315144689
    Publisher:
    Routledge
    Pub. Date:
    2018
    Book Title:
    The Ecophobia Hypothesis
    Author/Editor:
    Simon Estok
    Chapter:
    Foreword
    Page Range:
    ix - xvi
    ISBN:
    9780367616649
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 months ago
    License:
    Attribution
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