Dark Ecology in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera

This article examines the notions of dark ecology, the Capitalocene, and hyperobjects to delve into a re-reading of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera that interrogates how those literary works provide valuable ecological awareness for the present era. Additionally, the article explores how Gabo’s works present a global ecological vision that enables the reader to observe a destroyed imaginary world where humanity dies after an ecocatastrophe produced by excessive human interference in the natural world. The novels analyzed are not narratives of an idealized primordial past or a catharsis that immerses us in the natural world to clean our minds from guilty environmental reality; instead, the narratives portray tenets of dark ecology, which attempt to provide a vivid portrayal of an environmental dilemma. The novels can be read through the lens of dark ecology as evidencing closeness to the earth; in them the omnipresent theme of solitude enables the reader to be in tune with nature more than as a mere presentation of an idealized interconnection with the environment. Before delving into the analysis of the novels, the essay provides a review of recent criticism and a brief examination of new developments in ecocritical theory.

The Light of the Leaf: A Theological Critique of Timothy Morton’s ‘Dark Ecology’

The plant has recently emerged as a battleground of conflicting ecocriticisms. ‘Dark Ecology’ is, in the works of Timothy Morton, an ecocritical hermeneutic, in which the world can be subtracted into the parts of objects, of the plant, and of any leaf that exceeds the totality of abstract ‘Nature’. In dividing the whole into the parts, and combining the parts into an imminently subtracted whole, he has recommended a negative dialectic of virtual objects that can be collected into a ‘hyperobject’. This dialectic can, however, be argued to dissolve any whole into parts, and render the hyperobject internally fissured. We can, from the ‘darkness’ of this fissure, begin to read Nature according to the ‘via plantare’, that is, a mystical way of desiring an other as plant so as to know and love the visible light of the invisible God. ‘Vegetal difference’, the difference of the plant from the animal, should, I argue, be read for theology as a finite reflection of the divine difference of the Holy Trinity in a Trinitarian Ontology, in which the originary difference of the Son from the Father is related through the Holy Spirit, and given again in accelerating gratuity—like the light of the leaf that shines forth from any flower.

Growing in the dark: algorithmic books and possibilities for the contemporary manuscript

This essay documents a generative bookwork of mine called Growing in the Dark. It responds to the challenges of current thought including object-oriented ontology (Levi Bryant and Ian Bogost), the dark ecology of Timothy Morton, and the vibrant materialism of Jane Bennett. It also asks how the contemporary artist's book might be studied as a set of procedures, and then "grown" from that code.

Growing in the dark: algorithmic books and possibilities for the contemporary manuscript

This essay documents a generative bookwork of mine called Growing in the Dark. It responds to the challenges of current thought including object-oriented ontology (Levi Bryant and Ian Bogost), the dark ecology of Timothy Morton, and the vibrant materialism of Jane Bennett. It also asks how the contemporary artist's book might be studied as a set of procedures, and then "grown" from that code.

Kleverig drama : Nieuwe ecokritische perspectieven in de poëzie van Dominique De Groen

This article investigates new perspectives on ecocriticism through the works of the Flemish poet Dominique De Groen. Taking Timothy Morton’s notion of ‘dark ecology’ as a starting point, it argues that De Groen’s poetry represents a form of anthropocenic writing that exceeds the scope of traditional ecocriticism. Read through the lens of the Anthropocene as both a geological era and an episteme, her writing can shed light on the entanglement between the human subject and its environment that is central to the conceptualisation of the Anthropocene as discourse. It is argued that the discursive dimension of the Anthropocene can be a valuable way to not only broaden our understanding of ecocritical literature, but also to include literary texts focusing on questions of labour, industrialisation, and capitalism in the anthropocenic debate.SamenvattingDit artikel verkent nieuwe perspectieven op de ecokritiek aan de hand van het werk van de Vlaamse dichter Dominique De Groen. Met Timothy Mortons notie van de donkere ecologie als uitgangspunt wordt er betoogd dat De Groens poëzie een vorm van antropocenisch schrijven vertegenwoordigt die buiten het bestek van de traditionele ecokritiek valt. Gelezen door de lens van het idee dat de term 'antropoceen' zowel een geologisch tijdperk als een épistémè aanduidt, kan haar werk een nieuw licht werpen op de verwevenheid van het menselijke subject en zijn milieu, een idee dat een grote rol speelt bij de conceptualisering van het antropoceen als discours. Dit artikel maakt inzichtelijk dat het in ogenschouw nemen van de discursieve dimensie van het antropoceen waardevol kan zijn, niet alleen om ons begrip van ecokritische literatuur te verbreden, maar ook om literaire teksten die kwesties van arbeid, industrialisering en kapitalisme thematiseren in het antropoceendebat te betrekken.

Tainted Away

Global climate change and its effects on the planet attract attention by policymakers as well as scholars. Global ecological crises are gradually being examined both in cultural and scientific terms all over the world as a concept as the relationship between nature and people is examined further. Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki stands out with his critical approach to the relationship between humans and nature. Miyazaki's animated films such as Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind provide us with a different perspective on Mother Earth and the relationship between nature and people in connection to “past,” “present,” and “future.” In this chapter, Miyazaki's three films are examined through three approaches in ecocriticism—deep ecology, ecofeminism, and dark ecology—to show how Miyazaki maintains a unifying, and a not discriminatory, narrative in our perception of nature by finding balancing solutions to dichotomies such as nature-man, human-nonhuman, man-woman, technology-nature.

Close: Nearing the Future by Means of Symbiogenesis and Hyperobjectivity

"Close: Nearing the Future by Means of Symbiogenesis and Hyperobjectivity. At the beginning of the 21st century we find a call for philosophers to join a new alliance: with artists and architects rather than linguists or physicists. In order to see the ecosystem, we need to switch concepts, look away from “nature” and move towards ambiance and hyperobjects. Along with this rehabilitation of Aristotle (by speculative realism and, more specifically, object-oriented ontology) comes a call for a fresh start as post-humanistic symbionts. These are proposals for alternatives to the catastrophic end of the short-lived drama of the Anthropocene. All this aids the here introduction of near-future hyperobjectivity. Keywords: ambiance, Anthropocene, symbiogenesis, OOO / object-oriented ontology / flat ontology, nature, ecosophy, deep ecology, dark ecology, time and near future "