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Hello! I’m Rebecca Jones. I lead the Book Group at GWL and I’m a PhD researcher at the University of Strathclyde. I'll be with you for the next hour, for a wee bit of an #OpenTheDoor Twitter Takeover, to talk a little about my research in #Ecofeminism and #FeministAnimalStudies
By now, you know that the theme of this year’s #OpenTheDoor festival is #Ecofeminism, the environment, and nature writing. Ecofeminism is really at the heart of my work - I suppose it's a little bit like the 'lens' that I use to look at my research. So what is it that I do?
I analyse novels that retell the myth of Prometheus in some way. I do this to show how ‘Promethean masculinity’ and the oppression of both women and animals have been connected historically. Ecofeminist animal studies provides my theoretical framework for analysing these texts.
The key text of my thesis is Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein'. Famous as a story about a reckless, over-reaching scientist who creates a (so-called) monster, its ecofeminist theme of 'nature as female', forcibly exposed by male scientists, is sometimes glossed over . . .
As is the fact that the ‘monster’ is actually a complex character, made of both human and animal parts! The novel was published in 1818, at a time when questions about animals were part of a larger Romantic movement towards radical equality and social justice philosophy.
@_CarolJAdams talks the vegetarianism of Frankenstein’s Creature in her ground-breaking work 'The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory' (originally published in 1990) saying that the novel associates "feminism, Romantic radicalism and vegetarianism"
In the book, which actually introduced the phrase 'the sexual politics of meat', Adams uses ecofeminist theory to discuss meat and masculinity, the feminisation of animals and the animalisation of women, showing how the oppressions of women, nature and animals are interrelated.
Discussing intersections like class and race is vital in #EcofeministAnimalStudies. Bénédicte Boisseron’s 'Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question' is a skilful example - an exploration of “the intersections between animal studies and black studies and their limitations”.
'Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice' is an anthology of essays edited by Lisa Kemmerer. It features articles by @breezeharper on connections between speciesism and racism, and Miyun Park on ‘otherness’ as an animal studies question. It’s an excellent collection!
The 'Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature' anthology, edited by Greta Gaard, is another great collection, which shows ecofeminism’s capacity to enact anti-oppression that includes the more-than-human, feat. essays by ecofeminist theorists like Josephine Donovan and Linda Vance.
'Entangled Empathy' by Lori Gruen is really readable - short and thought-provoking, it centres the role of empathy in our co-existence with other animals. It challenges the notion of emotion/empathy as weak, ‘feminised’ concepts which are always at odds with science and reason.
I also want to mention one of my favourite creative pieces. It’s a short essay by the phenomenal Alice Walker. It’s called 'Am I Blue?', and you can find it in her collection 'Living by the Word' . . .
'Am I Blue?' is beautiful and heartbreaking, the story of a profound, attitude-shifting emotional connection Walker made with a horse called Blue when his companion was taken away - "I had forgotten the depth of feeling one could see in horses' eyes"
Hopefully, this (small) selection shows that #Ecofeminism and #EcofeministAnimalStudies is a space both of theory and of practice. It can help us to think differently about what we see and what we do and what we read. It's something we *do*, as well as something we think with.
Animal studies is a major part of ecofeminist theory and practice, and I hope this very brief taster has intrigued you and encouraged you to find out more. I’m always thrilled to talk about my research and about ecofeminist animal studies in general - you can find me @beckmjones
