TY - JOUR

T1 - To Die For

T2 - Modern Femininity and the Quest for Anti-Hegemonic Anthropomorphization

AU - Kather, Cara Julie

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024, Transnational Press London Ltd. All rights reserved.

PY - 2024/3/1

Y1 - 2024/3/1

N2 - This paper provides an analysis of how the concept of femininity is used in literary anthropormorphizations of animals and plants. I argue that this usage of femininity for anthropormorphization provides a framework from which animal and plant life are reevaluated as meaningful. However, the notion of femininity portrayed in my exemplary case study can be shown to depict a specifically white and patriarchal narration of femininity. Therefore, this paper explores possibilities for literary anthropormorphization that is feminist, decolonial and narrates animal and plant life as meaningful. My general advocacy is one for intersectional perspectives and new ways of generating meaning and worth that consider different, interwoven struggles at once and make sense of them precisely in their interwovenness. To do so I connect feminist literary criticism, decolonial theory, Afropessimism, and environmentalist perspectives. My case studies are the Song of the Dodo by David Quammen and Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath.

AB - This paper provides an analysis of how the concept of femininity is used in literary anthropormorphizations of animals and plants. I argue that this usage of femininity for anthropormorphization provides a framework from which animal and plant life are reevaluated as meaningful. However, the notion of femininity portrayed in my exemplary case study can be shown to depict a specifically white and patriarchal narration of femininity. Therefore, this paper explores possibilities for literary anthropormorphization that is feminist, decolonial and narrates animal and plant life as meaningful. My general advocacy is one for intersectional perspectives and new ways of generating meaning and worth that consider different, interwoven struggles at once and make sense of them precisely in their interwovenness. To do so I connect feminist literary criticism, decolonial theory, Afropessimism, and environmentalist perspectives. My case studies are the Song of the Dodo by David Quammen and Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath.

KW - Anthropomorphization

KW - Critical Epistemology

KW - Decolonial Feminism

KW - Ecofeminism

KW - Feminist Literary Criticism

KW - Cultural studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85187888037&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.33182/joe.v3i2.3146

DO - 10.33182/joe.v3i2.3146

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85187888037

VL - 3

SP - 169

EP - 187

JO - Journal of Ecohumanism

JF - Journal of Ecohumanism

SN - 2752-6798

IS - 2

ER -