"Everything is Breath": Critical Plant Studies' Metaphysics of Mixture

IF 0.3 3区 文学 0 LITERATURE
Elisabeth Weber
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Abstract

In her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin W. Kimmerer contrasts two creation stories that are thoroughly incompatible. One starts with an all-powerful male creator calling the world and its vegetation and animals into existence through words, and forming the first human beings from clay; the other starts with Skywoman tumbling through the air with seeds in her fist from the Tree of Life growing in Skyworld. One ends with the condemnation of woman to give birth in “very severe” pains, with the cursing of the ground ordered to “produce thorns and thistles” as punishment for man who will eat his food only after “painful toil,” and the expulsion from the garden; the other ends in gratitude for the collective caring of the animals, with the creation of “a garden for the well-being of all.” One includes an original fall from grace whose burden will be passed down from generation to generation; the other acknowledges suffering without a trace of the burden of unearned guilt. One predicts death as a return to the dust from whence mankind was created; the other imagines death as becoming plant and fruit, as becoming gift, a rejoining the spirits of all ancestors, human and others, who surround the living in everything that is. The threat of one is the inexorability of a trajectory “from dust to dust” and the latter’s association, with Plato, of something so diffuse that it doesn’t merit a concept or idea; the promise of the other is an abiding relationship with all that is, the reciprocity of giving and gratitude, and the gladly assumed responsibility for the “inspirited” land. Kimmerer comments:
“万物皆呼吸”:批判植物研究的混合形而上学
Robin W.Kimmerer在她的《编织芳草:本土智慧、科学知识和植物的教学》一书中对比了两个完全不兼容的创作故事。一个是从一个全能的男性创造者开始,通过文字呼唤世界及其植被和动物的存在,并从粘土中形成第一个人类;另一个故事开始于天空女战士在空中翻滚,她的拳头里拿着天空世界中生长的生命之树上的种子。一个以谴责妇女在“非常严重”的痛苦中分娩而告终,诅咒地上“长出荆棘和蓟”,作为对只有在“痛苦的劳动”后才会吃东西的男人的惩罚,并将其逐出花园;另一个目的是感谢对动物的集体照顾,创造了“一个让所有人都幸福的花园”。一个包括最初的失宠,他的负担将代代相传;另一方承认痛苦,丝毫没有不劳而获的内疚感。有人预言死亡是回到人类诞生的尘埃中;另一种将死亡想象成植物和水果,想象成礼物,重新加入所有祖先、人类和其他人的灵魂,他们围绕着生命的一切。其中一种的威胁是“从尘埃到尘埃”的轨迹是不可阻挡的,后者与柏拉图的联系是如此分散,以至于不值得一个概念或想法;对方的承诺是与一切的永恒关系,也就是说,给予和感激的互惠,以及对“受鼓舞”的土地欣然承担的责任。Kimmerer评论:
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来源期刊
SUB-STANCE
SUB-STANCE LITERATURE-
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
21
期刊介绍: SubStance has a long-standing reputation for publishing innovative work on literature and culture. While its main focus has been on French literature and continental theory, the journal is known for its openness to original thinking in all the discourses that interact with literature, including philosophy, natural and social sciences, and the arts. Join the discerning readers of SubStance who enjoy crossing borders and challenging limits.
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