1st Edition
Transecology Transgender Perspectives on Environment and Nature
There is a growing recognition of the importance of transgender perspectives about the environment. Unlike more established approaches in the environmental humanities and queer studies, transecology is a nascent inquiry whose significance and scope are only just being articulated. Drawing upon the fields of gender studies and ecological studies, contributors to this volume engage major concepts widely used in both fields as they explore the role of identity, exclusion, connection, intimacy, and emplacement to understand our relationship to nature and environment.
The theorists and ideas examined across multiple chapters include Stacy Alaimo’s notion of "trans-corporeality" as a "contact zone" between humans and the environment, Timothy Morton’s concept of "mesh" to explore the interconnectedness of all beings, Susan Stryker’s notion of trans identity as "ontologically inescapable," Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson’s history of the development of queer rural spaces, Judith Butler’s analysis of gender as "performative"—with those who are not "properly gendered" being seen as "abjects"—and Julia Serano’s contrasting rejection of gender as performance.
Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on Environment and Nature will be of great interest to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in transgender studies, gender studies, ecocriticism, and environmental humanities.
Foreword
Susan Stryker, PhD, University of Arizona, USA
Preface
Greta Gaard, PhD, University of Wisconsin – River Falls, USA
Introduction. "Transecology: (Re)Claiming the Natural, Belonging, Intimacy, and Impurity"
Anna Bedford, PhD, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, USA
Chapter 1. ‘The Bog is in Me’: Transecology and The Danish Girl
Elizabeth Parker, PhD, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Chapter 2. Coming Out, Camping Out: Theorizing Gender and Nature through Transparent
Katherine Thorsteinson, PhD, St. Thomas University, Canada and Hee-Jung Serenity Joo, PhD, University of Manitoba, Canada
Chapter 3. Posthuman Ecological Intimacy, Waste, and the Trans Body in Nånting måste gå sönder (2014)
Wibke Straube, PhD, Karlstad University, Sweden
Chapter 4. A Journey Through Eco-apocalypse and Gender Transformations: New Perspectives on Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve
Julia Kuznetski, PhD, Tallinn University, Estonia
Chapter 5. Chinese Literature, Ecofeminism, and Transgender Studies
Peter I-min Huang, PhD, Tamkang University, Taiwan
Chapter 6. Gendercrossing at the Frontier: Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s Transgender Memoirs in the Alborz Mountains
Mat Fournier, PhD, Ithaca College, USA
Chapter 7. Transplacement: Nature and Place in Carter Sickels’s ‘Saving’ and ‘Bittersweet’
Katie Hogan, PhD, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA
Chapter 8. Sexuate Ecologies and the Landmarking of Transgender Cultural Heritage
Nicole Anae, PhD, Central Queensland University, Australia
Chapter 9. Transgender: An Expanded View of the Ecological Self
Gail Grossman Freyne, LLB, PhD, The Family Therapy & Counselling Centre, Australia
Chapter 10. ‘Good Animals’: The Past, Present, and Futures of Trans Ecology
Nicole Seymour, PhD, California State University, Fullerton, USA
Afterword.
"You’d Be Home: Meditations on Transecologies"
Finn Enke, PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
Biography
Douglas A. Vakoch is President of METI, dedicated to Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence and sustaining civilization on multigenerational timescales. As Director of Green Psychotherapy, PC, he helps alleviate environmental distress through ecotherapy. Six of his earlier books explore ecofeminism and ecopsychology.