An undergrad just wrote with a query about queer ecology. Always happy to help, I decided to post my response here.
One could think of queer theory as the exploration of how identity is not given, but rather performed.
Queer ecology simply sees this performance happening "below" the human level of meaning, at the level of the genome and other physical beings.
This is because, from an OOO standpoint, there is a rift between essence and appearance. This gives rise to identity as an illusion-like display that can't be pinned down to some sort of givenness.
What is called Nature just is the reduction of things to their givenness for humans. This reduction must be policed, since it is inherently spurious and unstable.
5 comments:
Hi Tim.I am working on my thesis and doing some reading on meontology, is 000 a version of this but under another name? I have the relation to buddhism's non being, even queer ecology's non identity and non place in mind. That is, if meontology is what lies outside of ontology aka giveness and fixities then 000's rift might be thought of as meontological?
By the way, I have titled your chapter 'The Rift', I will send it to you at the end of june.
Best
Karen
Your description of Nature reminds me of the compression algorithm for MP3s. Sound in its giveness for humans, non-human sound eliminated as unhearable. Sound reduced for the human ear.
Post a Comment