Abstract
This critical note addresses two key features of eco-theology with regard to future prospect: that literary analysis is an important mode of eco-theological work and that an important function of eco-theology is to expand readers’ spheres of concern to include even the most remote of global environmental issues. Working from Tweed’s contention in Crossing and Dwelling that a central function of religion is the process of making homes, the note emphasizes the home as the primary sphere of concern and the need for eco-theological work to extend the concern naturally associated with the private home to the broadest possible sphere: the whole earth as conceived as human home. As pertaining to literary-analytical resources for this eco-theological endeavor, the note highlights the importance of Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space. Bachelard’s work offers a compelling exploration of the psychological connection between the most intimate spheres of concern (the private home) and the most extended ones (the broader world). Broader eco-theological engagement with his work will employ resources both for understanding relations between the relative scales of human ecology and for expanding spheres of concern, particularly in extending that concern often reserved for the most intimate ecological sphere to the most expansive.
Highlights
Working from Tweed’s contention in Crossing and Dwelling that a central function of religion is the process of making homes, the note emphasizes the home as the primary sphere of concern and the need for eco-theological work to extend the concern naturally associated with the private home to the broadest possible sphere: the whole earth as conceived as human home
It would seem that a persistent eco-theological concern regarding the extension of spheres of concern necessarily implicates the human understanding of “home”, which should be clear to anyone who considers the etymology of the word “ecology”
As many scholars have insisted upon the importance of literary analysis as a resource for eco-theology, Bachelard’s theory is relevant for such work since it is relevant to interpreting any work of writing in light of its locus of production
Summary
A further recurring theme suggested by much eco-theological work is that literature plays a significant role in shaping eco-theological convictions. This theme is paired with an attendant insistence that literary analysis plays an important role in theorizing ecotheology. If one considers religious texts to be “literature”, this is an obvious conceit. A further recurring theme suggested by much eco-theological work is that literature plays a significant role in shaping eco-theological convictions.7 This theme is paired with an attendant insistence that literary analysis plays an important role in theorizing ecotheology.. Suzanne Keen’s Empathy and the Novel (Keen 2007) is certainly among the texts which suggest a significant role for literature in moral formation, the development of empathy, and the extension of spheres of concern Taken together, these persistent eco-theological interests (literary analysis as an important resource for theorizing eco-theology and the necessity of the extension of spheres of concern to the widest possible scope) point to the potentially significant and, as yet untapped, value of Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space for eco-theology
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