Persephone's Debt: Ecopoetics, the Post-Pastoral, and the Call for New Subjectivities

Simple item page
atmire.migration.oldid5574
dc.contributor.advisorLai, Larissa, Dr.
dc.contributor.authorHarris, Erin
dc.contributor.committeememberHejinian, Lyn, Prof.
dc.contributor.committeememberHumble, Noreen, Dr.
dc.contributor.committeememberBennett, Susan, Dr.
dc.contributor.committeememberEllis, Jim, Dr.
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-09T22:14:06Z
dc.date.available2017-05-09T22:14:06Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.date.submitted2017en
dc.description.abstract“Persephone’s Debt: Ecopoetics, the Post-Pastoral, and the Call for New Subjectivities” is an interdisciplinary research-creation project. This Doctoral Thesis comprises two parts: a Creative Dissertation and a Scholarly Exegesis. The Creative Dissertation, entitled Persephone’s Abecedarium: An Alphabet Play comprises an adaptation of the ancient Homeric “Hymn to Demeter” (7th C., BCE), the first written adaptation of the oral myth on record. This manuscript deploys both traditional and experimental poetics to animate my interpretation of the “Hymn” as a model of an ecological cosmology performed through and by poetic devices such as metaphor, and as a literary work imbued with a keen proto-feminist consciousness. The Scholarly Exegesis elucidates the platforms from which I newly situate considerations of the “Hymn” within the contemporary theoretical disciplines of ecological criticism/ecopoetics, the post-pastoral, feminist poetics, and avant-gardist practice. Moreover, I discuss what I have termed “The Poetics of Childhood,” posited here as an inexhaustible reservoir or toy box for experimentalist poetic practice. I engage and respond to the call sent out by diverse contemporary scholars such as Rosi Braidotti (posthumanism), Michael Christopher (biopolitics) and Val Plumwood (critical ecological feminism) who urge that thinkers within the Humanities can contribute to critical re-conceptualizations of human subjectivity that problematize the destructive tradition of rationalist (Cartesian) subjectivity, particularly in response to ecological crisis. To dramatize the conceptual formulation of subjectivity as a condition of interconnectedness in both human and non-human spheres, the Creative Dissertation presents the early life of the protagonist Kore re-imagined through a researched lexicon of actual sounds and diction used by English-speaking, and predominantly female infants and children. I attempt to dramatize the shift from infants’ (speculative) experiences of non-differentiation or symbiosis with the mother or caregiver to their early stages of individuation within social and linguistic communities. The lexicon of infant/child speech is employed as a tactic through which to propose new language for the conceptualization of subjectivity as a condition that comprises, paradoxically, both separation and interconnectedness, or in Kore’s words, the life-long struggle to ethically contend with the “We-I.”en_US
dc.identifier.citationHarris, E. (2017). Persephone's Debt: Ecopoetics, the Post-Pastoral, and the Call for New Subjectivities (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27312en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27312
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11023/3817
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisher.facultyArts
dc.publisher.facultyGraduate Studies
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.publisher.placeCalgaryen
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subjectLiterature--Canadian (English)
dc.subject.otherAncient
dc.subject.otherClassical
dc.subject.otherPhilosophy
dc.subject.otherWomen's Studies
dc.subject.otherDevelopmental Psychology
dc.titlePersephone's Debt: Ecopoetics, the Post-Pastoral, and the Call for New Subjectivities
dc.typedoctoral thesis
thesis.degree.disciplineEnglish
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgary
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrue
Files
Collections
Open Theses and Dissertations