Charismatic life: spectacular biodiversity and biophilic life writing |
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Authors: | Cheryl Lousley |
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Affiliation: | 1. Departments of English and Interdisciplinary Studies, Lakehead University Orillia, Orillia, ON, Canadaclousley@lakeheadu.ca |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACTThe essay uses the term “charismatic life” to describe representations of nature that emphasize vitality and vibrancy. Beginning with how life is reified when nature becomes spectacle, the essay discusses how a fetishism of life was part of the early structuring logic of biodiversity science in a way that undermined crafting other ethical and political responses to loss. When biodiversity emerged as a popular science concept in the 1980s, it was described as a scientific replacement for the sentimental attachment to charismatic megafauna that previously structured conservation priorities. But this essay argues, in a historicized reading of conservation biologist E.O. Wilson’s popular science memoir Biophilia [Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press] alongside the seminal edited collection Biodiversity [Wilson, E. O. (Ed.). (1988). Biodiversity. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences], that Wilson’s sentimental biopolitics renders the world as if a collection of living souvenirs – tokens by which to remember forms of life that will have been lost. |
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Keywords: | Biodiversity E.O. Wilson biophilia spectacle charismatic megafauna mourning |
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