Environmental Uncovering: Excavating Our Rhetoric in the Fracking Movement and Beyond

Anthos, Valan

Environmental Uncovering: Excavating Our Rhetoric in the Fracking Movement and Beyond

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10456/41474

Author(s)

Anthos, Valan

Date Issued

April 12, 2016

Abstract

There has been a false division between nature and society set up through the history of the Western world. This binary creates the context where many modern environmental issues arise, so combatting these problems without addressing this underlying issue is detrimental. Through a close analysis of the film Gasland, I examine how the rhetoric of pieces of environmental activism often remain trapped in this binary thinking and fail to truly challenge it. Although there is no “right” relation to nature that can be restored, there are certain avenues of language that can call attention to humanity’s separation from nature and deconstruct it in some way. One of the main avenues is focusing on people’s biological dependence on natural systems and how this has been covered over in modern society.

Major

Environmental Studies

Philosophy

First Reader(s)

Carbone, Ian A.