Alexis Shotwell

Can nature be defiled by humans? Rachel Carson and her followers have provided massive dossiers that it can. This book argues, however, that seeing nature as "pure" can be used by the dominant, oppressive social forces to strike against diversity. Come again? Well, for example, take scientific evidence that environmental toxins can turn frogs into homosexuals (no joke). This and other such data could encourage evangelicals to call Mother Nature as a star witness in their lawsuits against gender and sexual-preference diversity! Can we find a way to balance the empirical claims of environmentalism against our ideals of social/sexual diversity? Perhaps not without tortured arguments, as this book appears to illustrate.… (lisätietoja)

The desire for purity - especially philosophical/ethical/political purity, is something I've found myself often pondering since the presidential campaign on 2016. So when I saw this book at the library, I knew I had to check it out immediately. This book, while not exactly what I was expecting, contained many "this is exactly what I needed to be reading right now" synchronicity moments.

Rather than spending much time pontificating over purity in abstract, this book uses purity as a lens to examine a series of specific cases: moving from past (a truth and reconciliation commission on Indian Residential schools in Canada, and ACT UP campaign to change the CDC's definition of AIDS) to present (the way many activists frame the harm of endocrine disruptors on frogs, dietary ethical issues), to future (disability and gender transformation, activism as speculative fiction). While I found all these specific cases interesting, there were definitely times that I wish Shotwell would have expanded more on some of the themes she used in examining them - the idea of "healthism" in particular.

But, I mean, seriously? That chapter on activism as speculative fiction? How could that not be more perfect for me to read right now?

Interesting, deeply challenging, definitely thought provoking.

Highly recommended.… (lisätietoja)