Books by Robert Azzarello
Papers by Robert Azzarello
Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment, edited by Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino, 2018
Race, Gender & Class, 2015
The Southern Literary Journal, 2014
European Journal of Ecopsychology, Dec 15, 2012
The recent development of what is known as queer ecology – the bringing together of queer and eco... more The recent development of what is known as queer ecology – the bringing together of queer and ecological theories and politics – was a key point of inspiration for this special issue. In order to honour that legacy, and to bring queer ecology discussions to ecopsychology and vice versa, I invited seven contemporary thinkers to sit together at a virtual roundtable. I began the discussion by asking each of the participants to offer their own individual reflection on the nature and value of queer ecology. These scholars bring a diverse range of perspectives to the table (as appropriate for the confluence of queer and ecological perspectives). From literary theory to anticapitalist activism, from the politics of knowledge to the vitality of the material world, from everyday performativities to the enormity of ecosystems, these seven writers offer thoughtful commentary on the intertwined nature of queer, oikos and psyche.
In the second round of the roundtable, each participant offers a response inspired by the contributions of the first round. Collectively, this discussion responds to Andy Fisher’s call for a radical ecopsychology (2002) by inviting a careful consideration of the ways in which we see ourselves and the world of which we are a part and, perhaps more importantly, how we can act to undermine, overflow or otherwise release mental and cultural patterns of domination and control. In doing so, we might free up much-needed energy to, in Gavin Brown’s words, “appreciate the queer exuberance of ecosystems”.
Darwin in Atlantic Cultures: Evolutionary Visions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality, edited by Jeanette Eileen Jones and Patrick B. Sharp, 2010
Queering the Non/Human, edited by Noreen Giffney and Myra J. Hird, 2008
Book Reviews by Robert Azzarello
WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, 2024
Bangladesh is a nation of land and water. Home to one of the largest river deltas on the planet, ... more Bangladesh is a nation of land and water. Home to one of the largest river deltas on the planet, the country must contend with an ever-shifting landscape beneath its many and all-too-human problems such as poverty and overpopulation, economic precarity, and political violence. Within this difficult environmental and social situation, there lives a group of ethnic Bangladeshi known as the chauras, who make their home on the chars, or giant sandbars that appear and disappear within the country's major river systems. The chauras see themselves as living in "the remote," as they call it, not because of their literal distance from urban centers, for their fragile living quarters do form within close proximity to towns and cities, but because their lives lack the basics of governmental support in the form of electricity, schools, and other infrastructure. As unbearable beings in the double sense described in this WSQ special issue, they are seen from the outside as unbearable problems or nuisances while also existing in conditions most people would consider unbearable. In River Life and the Upspring of Nature, anthropologist Naveeda Khan presents a fascinating ethnography of these people as they bear the seemingly unbearable, and in doing so, Khan demonstrates how the environmental humanities might contend with this deep question of unbearability. The Jamuna River northwest of the capital city of Dhaka, where Khan conducted her fieldwork between 2011 and 2017, is less of a river than a river system, an expansive waterway consisting of many twists and turns and braids, creating and destroying land through accretion and erosion, and making land appear or disappear depending on water levels. Quasi-nomadic in nature, the chauras live in this liminal state between ground and groundlessness, building and unbuilding and rebuilding their villages in WSQ_Unbearable_Beings_interior_v2.indd 263 WSQ_Unbearable_Beings_interior_v2.
Twentieth-Century Literature, 2023
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2012
Because of their very nature, anthologies are difficult to write about -so many claims, so many p... more Because of their very nature, anthologies are difficult to write about -so many claims, so many perspectives, so many references to texts still unread, so many histories and projections for the future. In this sense, they mimic what actually happens in an academic field of study, the swirling together of ideas, at least for a moment, around a central post. The difficulty in charting an academic field, like that of reviewing an anthology, is all the more intensified in a book like Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire because its aim is to connect two fields of study, queer and environmental, two fields that historically have lacked much contact. Bringing together the perceptive insights of thirteen unique writers, the editors, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands, a professor of environmental studies at York University, and Bruce Erickson, an environmental historian at Nipissing University, make a solid and sustained contribution to the coalescing of two fields that has been over a decade in the making.
ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2010
Cultural Critique, 2008
Truth, according to many critics on both the political right and left, has recently come under th... more Truth, according to many critics on both the political right and left, has recently come under the attack of so-called extreme postmodern relativists. As is typical in times of conXict, those who think of themselves as under attack, or defending that which is under attack, present their opponents in abrasive, exaggerated terms. These postmodern relativists, their critics maintain, believe that truth does not exist, that reality is an individually subjective construct, that logic and rationality collude with evil, and that all knowledge is made up in our heads however we want it to be. This position, it's true, sounds very alarming.
ELN: English Language Notes, 2007
ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2004
Uploads
Books by Robert Azzarello
Papers by Robert Azzarello
In the second round of the roundtable, each participant offers a response inspired by the contributions of the first round. Collectively, this discussion responds to Andy Fisher’s call for a radical ecopsychology (2002) by inviting a careful consideration of the ways in which we see ourselves and the world of which we are a part and, perhaps more importantly, how we can act to undermine, overflow or otherwise release mental and cultural patterns of domination and control. In doing so, we might free up much-needed energy to, in Gavin Brown’s words, “appreciate the queer exuberance of ecosystems”.
Book Reviews by Robert Azzarello
In the second round of the roundtable, each participant offers a response inspired by the contributions of the first round. Collectively, this discussion responds to Andy Fisher’s call for a radical ecopsychology (2002) by inviting a careful consideration of the ways in which we see ourselves and the world of which we are a part and, perhaps more importantly, how we can act to undermine, overflow or otherwise release mental and cultural patterns of domination and control. In doing so, we might free up much-needed energy to, in Gavin Brown’s words, “appreciate the queer exuberance of ecosystems”.