Embracing the subjunctive voice: An analytic for ecologically uncertain times

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I assess viral videos depicting environmental crises and species loss, theorizing the “eco-subjunctive voice” as a rhetorically productive perspective for engaging extinction imagery. Building on Barbie Zelizer's notion of the “subjunctive voice” in images, I explore how viral videos of a polar bear and a sea turtle in jeopardy unite despair and hopefulness, strategically deploy “about-to-die” moments, and make the “hyperobjects” of climate catastrophe more intelligible. Additionally, an eco-subjunctive reading of each video demonstrates the limits of the synecdochic logic commonly employed in ecological discourse. The eco-subjunctive voice is an analytic useful for academics, activists, and audiences. Its capacious character and ability to accommodate contingency and complexity make the eco-subjunctive voice a powerful rhetorical resource in the effort to combat ecological disaster.