DeepSummary
The podcast episode features an interview between Avery Weinman and Dr. Joshua Trey Barnett about his book "Mourning in the Anthropocene: Ecological Grief and Earthly Coexistence." The book explores the concept of ecological grief and how it can motivate people to care for and conserve the more-than-human world. Dr. Barnett discusses the key ideas of rhetoric, the Anthropocene, and ecological grief, and explains how rhetorical practices such as naming, archiving, and making visible can cultivate ecological grief.
Dr. Barnett provides examples from his personal experiences and the book to illustrate how ecological grief can foster a sense of responsibility and inspire actions to protect the environment. He also addresses the connection between ecological destruction and the dispossession of indigenous peoples, emphasizing the importance of understanding the cultural dimensions of environmental losses.
Towards the end of the interview, Dr. Barnett reflects on the responses he has received from readers of his book and shares his observations on the interplay between grief and care in conservation efforts, particularly in the case of the eastern hemlock and the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Ecological grief is a feeling that can motivate care and conservation efforts for the more-than-human world.
- Rhetorical practices like naming, archiving, and making visible can cultivate ecological grief and help people notice and mourn ecological losses.
- Ecological grief operates across different temporalities, encompassing both retrospective grief for past losses and anticipatory grief for potential future losses.
- The concept of "grievability" suggests that the potential grief over a future loss can inspire actions to prevent that loss in the present.
- The book highlights the connection between ecological destruction and the dispossession of indigenous cultures, emphasizing the importance of understanding the cultural dimensions of environmental losses.
- Reader responses to the book illustrate the interplay between grief and care, as ecological grief can inspire both personal reflection and collective conservation efforts.
- The case of the eastern hemlock and the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid provides a concrete example of how grief and care can entangle, inspiring communities to take action to protect a species.
- The author expresses hope that ecological grief and care can inspire efforts, even in small ways, to transform our relationship with the Earth and promote more harmonious coexistence.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Part of the argument of the book is that we really should be grieving those losses, but we don't always have the cultural resources at our disposal to notice, much less to mourn.“ by Joshua Trey Barnett
- “And the logic of grievability is something like, if this other were to be lost, I would grieve their loss. And because I would grieve their loss, I will do what I can in the present to stave off their loss.“ by Joshua Trey Barnett
- “And so throughout the book, I try to pull on a variety of examples from native american groups, both past and present, to try to think through the ways in which the environmental and ecological losses are deeply entangled with those cultural losses.“ by Joshua Trey Barnett
- “And so, even as it's complicated, it does give me some hope that in small but significant ways, we can indeed change what it means to dwell on earth.“ by Joshua Trey Barnett
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Episode Information
New Books in Environmental Studies
Marshall Poe
4/16/24