“You’re like a vegetarian in leather shoes”: Cognitive Disconnect and Ecogrief in Stacey Gregg’s Override
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2023-11472Keywords:
Anthropocene, Ecogrief, Override, Stacey Gregg, Nature/Culture dichotomyAbstract
In this article, we analyse how Northern Irish playwright Stacey Gregg’s Override (2013) can be read through the lens of the Anthropocene, a term from the geological sciences that has been appropriated by the humanities to question issues of human exceptionalism. Firstly, we examine the ways in which the play, by means of Vi and Mark’s failed attempt to escape technological misuse, challenges the nature/culture dichotomy, which is central to the instrumentalisation of nature for human domination Secondly, we consider how ecogrief comes with the loss of social and humanistic elements that were once grounding and grounded, but are now unstable and murky, such as the idea of what entails a human being. Ultimately, we contend that that derives from the cognitive disconnect resulting from not being able to understand one’s role in the development of an ongoing catastrophe.
References
Alaimo, Stacy. (2016). “Nature”. The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, edited by Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 530-550.
Baudrillard, Jean. (2004 [1981]). Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: Michigan University Press.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. (2009). “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry, 35 (2): 197-222. https://doi.org/10.1086/596640.
“IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers” (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis – Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by V. Masson-Delmotte et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3-32. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf.
Gregg, Stacey. (2013). Override. London: Nick Hern Books.
Haraway, Donna J. (2015). “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin”. Environmental Humanities, 6 (1): 159-165. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615934.
______ (2016a). “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist -Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. Manifestly Haraway, edited by Donna Haraway. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press. 3-90. ProQuest ebrary.
______ (2016b). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.
______ (2016c). “Staying with the Trouble: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene.” Anthropocene or Capitalocene: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, edited by Jason W. Moore. Oakland: PM Press, 34-76.
Russ, Joanna. (1995 [1973]). To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sontag, Susan. (2018 [1961]). Notes on ‘Camp’. New York: Penguin Books.
Zalasiewicz, Jan, et al. (2014). “When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal”, Quaternary International, xxx: 1-8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045
Zalasiewicz, Jan. The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Melina Pereira Savi, Alinne Balduino P. Fernandes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
