LINKS: The New Eco-Feminism & The Politics of Food Film Series

LINKS: The New Eco-Feminism & The Politics of Food Film Series

http://www.duke.edu/womstud/ecofeminsm.html

A New Eco-Feminism?

As many may know, a discourse emerged in the mid-1970's that aimed to investigate the connection between feminism and earth and animals. These women called themselves Eco-Feminists and generated many ideas about the nature of women, the plight of animals, and the need for conservation. Due to a whole host of theoretical and practical conflicts, this project was never seriously embraced by academic feminists. Duke Women's Studies New Eco-feminism project hopes to revisit these questions, and develop theories and methodologies that will resonate within academic feminism today. We learned from E2T that there is a great need for further study of conservation, land use, and animal advocacy, not just from the perspective of science but from the humanities and interpretive sciences as well. We believe that contemporary feminist theory has much to offer such an engagement. Despite the fact that our eco-feminist foremothers may have been entrenched in essentialist ideology in their formulations, we believe their questions were the right ones. What can feminist thinking offer in response to the many global crises we face today including massive development, deforestation, animal torture, extinction, habitat loss, pollution, and global warming? A lot, we think. Won't you join us in forging a new approach to earth and animals and an updated agenda for a New Eco-feminism?

For more information contact Kathy Rudy (krudy@duke.edu ) or Ranjana Khanna (rkhanna@duke.edu ).


THE POLITICS OF FOOD FILM SERIES - Sponsored by the Women's Studies Program and the Film/Video/Digital Program. Presented as part of the Screen/Society film exhibition program.