Chapter 13 – Culture and nature

Before you read

Warm-up

Watch Welcome to the Wound, the promo video of an international conference Anthropocenes. Reworking the Wound. How does it address the problem of culture, nature and the cultural study thereof? How does it make the problem of culture and nature particularly timely? 

Preliminary questions

Discussions about culture and nature have been present in cultural studies for a very long time. How those discussions are more relevant today?

• Why should we address the problem of nature by means of cultural concepts and approaches?
• What previously discussed ideas and problems (in Chapters 1 to 12) seem applicable to the problem of nature?
• Is (and to what extent) nature a cultural phenomenon?
• Is nature an object of meaning formation?
• What notions of Anthropocene and Capitalocene (to be discussed in Chapter 13) imply about the culture—nature dynamic?

After you read: Important ideas

The concept of nature unravels a variety of cultural phenomena that have defined and reflected upon a number of cultural and environmental issues. Showing the relationship between the cultural and the environmental, Chapter 13 signals the role of signification and representation in our perception of nature and nature-related issues. Using quizzes 13.1 and 8.2 revisit your knowledge of culture and nature acquired from Chapter 13.

Quiz 13.1

Choose between true or false

1. 

The concept of nature, as we use it, is separate from culture.

True

False

None

2. 

Culture is responsible for our understanding of nature.

True

False

None

3. 

When we speak of nature we always refer to a cultural construct.

True

False

None

4. 

When we speak of trees and mountains we always speak of a thing-in-itself.

True

False

None

5. 

Nature is an ontological construct closed to polysemy.

True

False

None

6. 

Human relations with nature threaten its existence.

True

False

None

7. 

Nature is easy to define.

True

False

None

8. 

Material reality is an effect of signification.

True

False

None

9. 

Poetry contributes to the multi-accentuality of nature.

True

False

None

10. 

Wordsworth imagines nature loving people in order to make people love nature.

True

False

None

11. 

We all see nature and natural phenomena like landscapes in the same way.

True

False

None

12. 

To understand nature we must be realists.

True

False

None

13. 

The Anthropocene is a term coined in the 1880s.

True

False

None

14. 

We are all equally to blame for the environmental crisis.

True

False

None

15. 

The knowledge and alerts of the environmental decline and threats has been historically marginalized.

True

False

None

16. 

Anthropocene is often presented as the narrative of environmental blindness.

True

False

None

17. 

The environmental resistance often results from the social resistance and vice versa.

True

False

None

18. 

The grand narrative of the Anthropocene presents a complete and reliable view of the environmental resistance.

True

False

None

19. 

The collective responsibility for the environmental crisis is a trap of misrepresentation.

True

False

None

20. 

The richest 10 percent of global population are responsible for about 50 percent of green-house emissions.

True

False

None

21. 

Capitalism has a leading role in natural destruction.

True

False

None

22. 

The Capitalocene is the most accurate term to speak of the environmental crisis in terms of causes and responsibilities.

True

False

None

23. 

Capitalism uses collective blame and solutionism to escape responsibility for the environmental decline.

True

False

None

24. 

Capitalism is designed to serve the interest of many.

True

False

None

25. 

The landscape transformation in the long sixteen century was the marker of the capital’s impact on the environmental.

True

False

None

26. 

We are the victims of the belief that Capitalism is the only organizing system we can assume and live by.

True

False

None

27. 

Environmental safety rests on an individual change.

True

False

None

28. 

Contemporary fiction hardly mentions that nature is dying.

True

False

None

29. 

Contemporary films on climate crisis represent only an implicit warning.

True

False

None

30. 

Many dystopian representation of the future of the planet, carry within themselves some utopian moments and inspiring messages.

True

False

None

Time’s up

Quiz 13.2

Match the answer to the statements (choose one)

1. 

Nature is

a simple notion

an other-worldly phenomenon

a multi-accentual sign

None

2. 

Natural phenomena

exist only as cultural constructs

“exist outside of how they are constructed culturally”

exist only in our imagination

None

3. 

Wordsworth considered nature to be

an educational force

a recreational force

a spiritual force

None

4. 

When we speak of nature, we address

he literary depictions of natural phenomena

the spirituality of nature and its material forces

the materiality of the natural world and the cultural constructedness of this world.

None

5. 

Anthropocene is said to have been coined by

Eugene Stoermer

Raymond Williams

William Wordsworth

None

6. 

Negative human impact on the planet means

the impact of individual people

the impact of humans and other species

the systemically generated impact

None

7. 

“An average American . . . consumes thirty-two times more resources and energy than _______________ "

some plant and animal species

an average Kenyan

an average European

None

8. 

The grand narrative of the Anthropocene places humanity into two categories:

the helpless environment literates and solution-seeking capitalists

the uninformed mass of the world population who have become a unaware geological agent, and a small elite of scientist who reveal the environmental devastation

the dystopian nay-sayers and utopian enthusiasts

None

9. 

Who wrote: the Anthropocene reinforces what capital wants to believe of itself: that human “nature”, not capital, has precipitated today’s planetary instability.

Karl Marx

Justin McBrien

Raymond Williams

None

10. 

Who wrote: What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contradiction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion.

Melanie Klein

Karl Marx

Raymond Williams

None

11. 

According to John Storey, to blame us for the environmental crisis is

apolitical and ahistorical

accurate and timely

acceptable and logical

None

12. 

Who wrote: All creatures have been made into property, the fish in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth.

Karl Marx

Thomas Munster

Raymond Williams

None

13. 

Who wrote: Nature is perhaps the most complex word in the language. The idea of nature contains an extraordinary amount of human history.

Karl Marx

Raymond Williams

Thomas Munster

None

14. 

Cli-Fi is

is a genre that addresses climate crisis

is a methodology to theorize climate crisis

is a direct effect of climate change

None

15. 

Who said: Even if Courage learns nothing else at least the audience can, in my view, learn something by observing her.

Bertolt Brecht

William Wordsworth

Raymond Williams

None

Time’s up

Important Terms

Chapter 13 uses a number of important terms. Revisit their meanings using definition flashcards. Pause on the TERM whilst you think of the meaning, before flipping to DEFINITION (the explanation of the term).

<Insert flashcards here>

Complementary materials

Listen to Kim Stanley Robinson speaking on climate fiction and his book The Ministry for the Future [link]. What specific environmental issues does it touch upon? Which of the types of cli-fi described in Chapter 13 does his book represent?

Further considerations

Go back to Brecht’s statement quoted in Chapter 13: “Even if Courage learns nothing else at least the audience can, in my view, learn something by observing her”. How would you relate it to the role of cli-fi? Also, look at the different variations of cli-fi distinguishing genres about environmental change [link]. What do those variations imply about the importance of climate crisis and its related concerns?