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Are trees forms? On formalism, material feminism, and historical literature
- Author(s):
- George Phillips (see profile)
- Date:
- 2020
- Group(s):
- Ecocriticism, Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century English Literature, LLC Victorian and Early-20th-Century English
- Subject(s):
- Ecocriticism, Materialism, Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941, Ecofeminism
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Material ecocriticism, Modernist studies, Virginia Woolf, Formalism
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/371x-a885
- Abstract:
- This essay draws on formalist cultural studies and material feminism to argue for a new approach in modernist studies, which I call formalist materialism, an approach that reads ecological forms alongside aesthetic forms. Such an approach may have distinct advantages. Formalist materialism illuminates a new direction for formalists by connecting forms to embodiment, ecology, and material substances. It also offers a novel path for feminist materialists by suggesting historical objects and situations where human and nonhuman agencies might be clearer. As I demonstrate in readings of Karel Čapek and Virginia Woolf, this model of reading also might help reinvigorate ways of approaching early-twentieth-century modernism in our time of ecological crisis, but without looking for signs of our concerns and epistemologies in the past. [Abstract amended from original.]
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 2 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
- Share this:
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