Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis
In his text Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (1974) describes the fictional city of Baucis, a land suspended in the clouds, in which humans maintain a purposeful and mysterious physical detachment from the earth. Calvino’s imagining of Baucis visualises a conceptualisation of humans as divorced from...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Michaelis School of Fine Art
2015
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613770786799616 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Gauld, Quanta |
| author2 | MacKenny, Virginia |
| author_browse | Gauld, Quanta MacKenny, Virginia |
| author_facet | MacKenny, Virginia Gauld, Quanta |
| author_sort | Gauld, Quanta |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | In his text Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (1974) describes the fictional city of Baucis, a land suspended in the clouds, in which humans maintain a purposeful and mysterious physical detachment from the earth. Calvino’s imagining of Baucis visualises a conceptualisation of humans as divorced from nature1; a lingering residue of the post-Enlightenment obsession with reason and progress that casts nature as separate from and inferior to humans. In the context of the current ecological crisis, in which the perpetual abuse of human and natural resources threatens the sustainability of the planet and all earthly life, reconsideration of the relationship between humans and the non-human natural world becomes profoundly relevant. An overview of contemporary environmental theory, undertaken in the first section of this text, suggests that the widespread understanding of nature as an inferior realm that lacks the full degree of human rationality or culture, is giving way to conceptualisations of the relationship between humans and nature that highlight the interdependence and interrelatedness of all living organisms and systems. Sustainability scholar Stacy Alaimo ( 2010: 15-16) states: At this point in time, with global climate change proceeding even more rapidly than was projected, we hardly have the luxury of imagining any expanse of land or sea as beyond the reach of humanly-induced harm. Matters of environmental concern and wonder are always “here,” as well as “there,” simultaneously local and global, personal and political, practical and philosophical. This concept of the interrelatedness of global economic, technological, social, cultural and ecological systems, is significant in conceptualising the role that humans play in ecological degradation and exploitation. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13696 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:41:26.166Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Michaelis School of Fine Art |
| publisherStr | Michaelis School of Fine Art |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13696 Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis Gauld, Quanta MacKenny, Virginia Van der Schijff, Johann Fine Art In his text Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (1974) describes the fictional city of Baucis, a land suspended in the clouds, in which humans maintain a purposeful and mysterious physical detachment from the earth. Calvino’s imagining of Baucis visualises a conceptualisation of humans as divorced from nature1; a lingering residue of the post-Enlightenment obsession with reason and progress that casts nature as separate from and inferior to humans. In the context of the current ecological crisis, in which the perpetual abuse of human and natural resources threatens the sustainability of the planet and all earthly life, reconsideration of the relationship between humans and the non-human natural world becomes profoundly relevant. An overview of contemporary environmental theory, undertaken in the first section of this text, suggests that the widespread understanding of nature as an inferior realm that lacks the full degree of human rationality or culture, is giving way to conceptualisations of the relationship between humans and nature that highlight the interdependence and interrelatedness of all living organisms and systems. Sustainability scholar Stacy Alaimo ( 2010: 15-16) states: At this point in time, with global climate change proceeding even more rapidly than was projected, we hardly have the luxury of imagining any expanse of land or sea as beyond the reach of humanly-induced harm. Matters of environmental concern and wonder are always “here,” as well as “there,” simultaneously local and global, personal and political, practical and philosophical. This concept of the interrelatedness of global economic, technological, social, cultural and ecological systems, is significant in conceptualising the role that humans play in ecological degradation and exploitation. 2015-08-10T06:55:17Z 2015-08-10T06:55:17Z 2015 Master Thesis Masters MFA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13696 eng application/pdf Michaelis School of Fine Art Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Fine Art Gauld, Quanta Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis |
| title_full | Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis |
| title_fullStr | Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis |
| title_full_unstemmed | Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis |
| title_short | Desperate whispers : empathy in the context of an ecological crisis |
| title_sort | desperate whispers empathy in the context of an ecological crisis |
| topic | Fine Art |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13696 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT gauldquanta desperatewhispersempathyinthecontextofanecologicalcrisis |