Translate 
Abstract
ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of the Anthropocene, beauty might seem a marginal concern. Yet as the American writer and activist Terry Tempest Williams asserts, in a world of war, anthropogenic change, and environmental destruction, beauty is essential not only for environmental advocacy but also for human flourishing and well-being. Referring to Williams’s body of work, this paper links beauty to hope. Hope and beauty share a connection in that they both galvanize, inspire, and uplift. Contrary to critical understandings of entanglement in the Anthropocene, Williams reminds one of the hope and beauty that persist in a complex, troubled, and altered world. Despite crisis and fracture, beauty is found in relationships between individuals and phenomena. Drawing upon Elaine Scarry’s writings on beauty, the paper demonstrates the ethical and ecological dimensions of beauty in Williams’s work: its power to humble and quiet anthropocentric pride and to extend one’s recognition to non-human beings and objects. Consequently, although critics in the environmental humanities continue to be called to interrogate conceptions of human subjectivity to shift away from humanist criticism and concerns, writers such as Williams remind one that beauty entangles one in the world even as it empowers the self. Regardless of the pressures of the Anthropocene, Williams defends the salience of finding and creating beauty. Her works also demonstrate that it is hard to envision hope and possibility in the Anthropocene without access to beauty.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call