Reading with Earth: Contributions of the New Materialism to an Ecological Feminist Hermeneutics
Ebook
Winner of the 2023 ANZATS Award for the Best Monograph by an Established Scholar
Applying a re-envisioned, ecological, feminist hermeneutics, this book builds on two important responses to twentieth- and twenty-first-century situations of ecological trauma, especially the complex contexts of climate change and cross-species relations: first, ecological feminism; second, ecological hermeneutics in the Earth Bible tradition.
By way of readings of selected biblical texts, this book suggests that an ecological feminist aesthetic, bringing present situation and biblical text into conversation through engagement with activism and literature, principally poetry, is helpful in decolonizing ethics. Such an approach is both informed by and speaks back to the new materialism in ecological criticism.
Demonstrates a decolonizing ecological feminist hermeneutics for biblical study informed by the material turn and engagements with literature.
Engagement between ecological feminism and material agency for biblical interpretation
Examines decolonizing ethics
Discusses context of ecological trauma: climate change, mining, oceans and reefs
Chapter 1:
Introduction: Feminisms, Materialisms and Reading with Earth
Section 1: The Materiality of Breath
Chapter 2:
Breath and Earth Voice: Exploring an Ecological Hermeneutics of Retrieval
Chapter 3:
Retrieving an Earth Voice: Reading Materially 'as if it's holy'
Chapter 4:
Strained Breath and Open Text: Exploring the Materiality of Breath in Relation to Reading Luke 4:16-30
Section 2: Situating Ecological Materialism
Chapter 5:
Reframing Feminist Approaches Ecologically: Matter, Freedom and the Future
Chapter 6:
Climate Change as Material Situation: Interpreting the Present Period alongside Luke 12.54-56
Chapter 7:
Rethinking Neighbour Love: Political Theology, Ecological Ethics and an Ecological Materialist Reading of Luke 10.25-37
Section 3: Shared Vulnerabilities
Chapter 8:
An Ecological Feminist Approach to Cross Species Relatedness: Compassion and Luke 10.30-37
Chapter 9:
Mountaintop Removal Mining (MTR) and Isaiah 40.4 (and Luke 3.5): Resisting the Violence of Homogenization
Chapter 10:
The Great Barrier Reef and Reading toward Activism: Transfigurations and Disfigurations
Chapter 11:
Concluding Reflection
Bibliography
Index
The extraordinary breadth in this braided conversation between the biblical text and contemporary ecological contexts is impressive. Elvey combines analysis with creativity, complexities with poetry, nuance with passion. This work challenges, inspires and exhorts us to change and to imagine the future of our world differently.
This work builds upon the ecological hermeneutic of the Earth Bible project, while drawing also from feminist theological readings, the new materialism, indigenous scholarship and activism, and poetry, all in the service of reading Luke “with the Earth.” This is a sophisticated, passionate, and timely reading. The Earth cries out, and Elvey enables us to hear these cries.
With great expertise and the fresh vision of a poet, Elvey draws disparate sources together into a searching eco-feminist conversation. This is a compelling appraisal of what it takes to face the traumas of ecological damage, colonialism and patriarchy and move towards the flourishing of all, including our more-than-human kin.
This book is a breath of fresh air. Its braided ecological feminist materialist approach breathes exhortation, encouragement and consolation to enable shifts in perception. This book energises impelling action for a future unlike the present in cooperation with Earth and the more than human in all their vibrant materiality.
Anne Elvey's work is a deeply personal, ongoing wrestle with Scripture and the nature of its demands in a deeply unjust world. It is a challenging and compassionate journey of ecological entanglement, poetic feminism, and fundamental ecological understanding, urging us to let ourselves be embraced by a more complete, just, and harmonious world.
Anne Elvey has written a very helpful guide to addressing the crisis of climate change in the context of biblical hermeneutics and feminist scholarship.
- Title: Reading with Earth: Contributions of the New Materialism to an Ecological Feminist Hermeneutics
- Author: Anne Elvey
- Publisher: T&T Clark
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780567695147, 9780567695116, 0567695115, 056769514X
- Resource ID: LLS:9780567695147
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-12T04:16:14Z