NE2019 P6: The Environmental Humanities and Global Climate Change
NEXT EARTH: TEACHING CLIMATE CHANGE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
A NEARLY CARBON-NEUTRAL CONFERENCE
Panel 6: The Environmental Humanities and Global Climate Change
“A Cognitive Semiotic Cross-Cultural Climate Change Education through Three Movies: ‘Stromboli’ (1950), ‘The Little Doomsday’ (2006), and ‘Children of Men’ (2006)”
Derya Agis (PhD in Italian Languages and Literatures, Ankara University)
“Teaching and Learning Climate Change in the Humanities at Michigan Technological University”
Emma Lozon (Michigan Technological University)
“Contemporary Cli-Fi and Indigenous Futurisms”
Nicole Seymour (Associate Professor of English, California State University, Fullerton) and Briggetta Pierrot (California State University, Fullerton)
“Changing Climates, Crossing Cultures: Introducing Environmental Humanities to General Education Students in Peru”
Lowell Wyse (Broward College)
@Lowell, thank you very much for your talk. I’m intrigued by a lot of what you said, and especially by your approach of combining very factual approaches to climate change with stories and other points of entry. I wonder if you can say more about how you respond to students who react negatively to one of the approaches. How much do you let them like what they like, how much (and how) do you push them to appreciate more factual or more story-based approaches, etc.? Like a lot of people, I find it easiest to work with students who are excited, and am more often unsure how to reach students who hate some of the things I’m doing.
– Eugene Chislenko
Thanks, Eugene! This question of how much we allow and encourage negative student reactions to certain topics is a fascinating one to me, and I’d love to hear what others have to say about it.
As a literature professor, I often try to use those reactions to probe the feelings behind them and get to some deeper analysis. (“Okay, so you hated The Great Gatsby. Let’s talk about why that might be!”) For the climate journalism module, I guess I was deliberately pushing some of those buttons, especially with the Wallace-Wells piece, which I think is rhetorically smart. What I didn’t mention in the video is that when students react negatively to one piece, it can be because they strongly favor the approach of another. One student felt so strongly about the topic that it became his final paper!
But I will say that a student’s hating a piece for rhetorical reasons (too boring, too dramatic) is different from hating “what we are doing” as teachers, as in the content of the course. While this unit didn’t necessarily make all my students excited, it did engage and energize them in certain ways that were really productive.
By the way, regarding my presentation, in the Turkish movie, “The Little Apocalypse,” the mother kills a pest, a scorpion just like an insect by crushing it with a slipper. A scorpion is a terrestrial arachnid. It appears as an omen for a future earthquake; thus, it is a metaphor for an earthquake. I say that the mother kills an insect; however, she tries to kill a scorpion perhaps in her imaginary world; it may also be just an insect. The mother is suffering from a trauma as she witnessed the earthquake that took place in Istanbul in 1999. I clarify what I mentioned with this message of mine. Therefore, the scorpion alludes to a future earthquake as “something that incites to action like the sting of an insect” (definition from: Scorpion [Def. 3]. (2019). Merriam-Webster Online. In Merriam-Webster. Retrieved June 10, 2019 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scorpion). Thanks…
@Nicole Seymour (Associate Professor of English, California State University, Fullerton) and Briggetta Pierrot; thank you for your nice presentation. Concerning the Inuit character you mention, were there various words used for snow and were these metaphorical in the work you analyzed? I have just thought about this list: James, Phil. (n.d.). The Eskimos’ Hundred Words for Snow. Retrieved June 10, 2019 from http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/varia/snow.html
Hi, thanks for this question. It’s my understanding that the “100 words for snow” concept is largely a myth. Here’s a quick overview, with acknowledgement that Wikipedia can of course be questionable! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow#cite_note-webster-7. It did strike me that this character sort of extends that cliche of the Inuit/snow connection …
Another explanation is here: https://www.firstpeople.us/glossary/Eskimo-Snow-Lexemes.html.
Native words related to the weather may enrich literary works on climate change: just an idea!
Hi everyone, I’m so grateful for the rich learning opportunity this conference provides! One topic that I reference in my presentation regards ideas for classroom exercises at the intersection of climate change communication and undergraduate writing courses. I would love to hear from others about their learning activity ideas to this end!
@Emma I’m very interested in this topic and speak a little about it in my presentation. I especially question how much to force climate content onto my composition students! I mention a couple of specific activities that may be relevant; the activity Eugene asked about above is directly related and would translate easily to a composition course, I think. I’ll have more to say and ask you after I view your talk!
Hi Lowell, thanks for your comment! I love your assignment to make students go on an observational walk during which they attune to their emplaced experience and I definitely want to implement your idea of having students analyze rhetorical strategies in climate journalism when I teach composition in the future. You mentioned questioning how much to bring up climate change in composition. I felt the same way at first when introducing environmental issues as topics in my classes, but I try to keep in mind that not bringing up climate change is also a choice. Like you said, many teachers avoid the subject by citing that climate change is outside the scope of their discipline. Your idea about different entry points, of exposing students to multiple perspectives rather than preaching or prescribing a singular viewpoint, resonates with me on this question of appropriateness as well. Allowing students to come to their own informed conclusions seems like a much more productive approach than trying to tell them what to think.
Thanks, Emma. Your point that not bringing up climate change is also a choice is something that I think we all need to keep hearing and remembering!
@Emma, your use of climate change as a theme for Technical Writing sounds fantastic, particularly the aspect of working with a local nonprofit to produce specific documents. I also love the idea of analyzing visual arguments related to climate change. Since I’m focusing on practical applications in general Composition courses, I’d be curious to hear you talk about which strategies and ideas you think would translate to that context specifically. And specifically, do you think the World Climate Simulation would be valuable in a Comp course, or is it mainly applicable to environmental policy/studies classes?
Thanks so much for your comment Lowell! I wonder if would be fruitful to incorporate service learning in a different way in composition. Rather than for the purpose of document design, service learning with some kind of environmental or sustainability focused group could be an opportunity for experiential learning in composition that could be generative for reflective writing projects. When I was an undergrad, at least a couple of the first year writing courses were themed around service learning, one of which was a partnership with a community garden.
Dependent of course on your priorities in composition, I think discussions of textual and visual framing in relation to argumentation are pretty accessible to first year students. Particularly if you place an emphasis on teaching multimodal composition, examples like Climate Visuals (https://climatevisuals.org/), DEAR CLIMATE (https://www.dearclimate.net/), various short videos (for instance those featuring the evangelical Christian atmosphere scientist Katherine Hayhoe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi6RkdaEqgRVKi3AzidF4ow), and other more culturally specific texts could potentially be useful in a composition context as well.
Regarding the World Climate Game, it’s probably most beneficial when you can collaborate with instructors in other disciplines so that you can get a wide range of participants, but I think you could absolutely run the game with a first year composition course if you find that it aligns with your learning objectives. Some of my colleagues offered extra credit to their composition students if they attended and wrote a reflection on the climate game when we held it on campus. The following webpage has a lot more information about how to modify for different size groups and ages if you’re interested: https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/world-climate/instructor-resources/. Thanks again for this discussion–I’m excited to implement some of the ideas that you mentioned in your talk!
@Nicole & Briggetta: Thank you for your presentation! I was really struck by juxtaposition of two images in your talk: the old trope of the vanishing Indian and the contemporary reality of the climate gentrifier (which I had not considered before). I guess I have two questions:
1. Since, as you remind us, environmental ethics pre-dates the contemporary environmental movement, it seems to me that embracing sustainability will always involve a return to or recovery of indigenous values. (We’re now “discovering” sustainability like Columbus “discovered” America!) How is this different than “playing Indian” on a global scale? Are there ways to “appropriate” these necessary values in a culturally respectful way?
2. In a similar light, is there any connection between the vanishing Indian and the more general climate future of the vanishing human?
Hi Lowell, these are great, and huge, questions! I’m not sure if I can answer them fully at this point, since I’m relatively new to Indigenous studies scholarship and thinking. But I guess my immediate reaction to your first question is to say that climate justice is about relationships–I’m pulling on Kyle Powys Whyte (Potawatomi) here; this is a good recent article https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/15/features/urgency-climate-change-advocacy-backfiring-says-citizen-potawatomi-nation?fbclid=IwAR0LZXA7zd6TXfxocTJRoKeX44UtL-Sr7hDzMXVgX5wp2UjSr3W4BhR2kS0–such that shifts have to emerge from respectful conversation and collaboration. As for your second question, that’s interesting…I’ve heard a lot of critiques of the kind of “The World without Us” apocalyptic narrative (<<– that was a book, and I think History Channel special that focused on the earth rebounding after human extinction). Such apocalypticism forgets that humans and nonhumans are, per Indigenous cosmologies, inseparable. And it's obviously nihilistic, as opposed to Indigenous concepts like "survivance" (Gerald Vizenor, Anishinaabe)–survival + resistance. So … I'll keep thinking! Thanks again.
@Derya: Thanks for introducing me to two new films! (Children of Men is the only one I’ve seen of these three.) I’m intrigued by your analysis of cross-cultural symbols for hope and disaster. But my initial reaction is that this is something that operates on a very basic interpretive level. I think about the classic horror story beginning: “It was a dark and stormy night,” by which the environment obviously invokes fear in the reader. So how does your ecocritical-semiotic analysis move us beyond a sort of elementary analysis of literary/cinematic setting, and to what extent does it offer us a new ecocritical framework?
Hi Lowell!
Thank you for your question. Yes, I am talking about three films: the Italian one, entitled “Stromboli” appeared in 1950; the Turkish film was shot after the earthquake that took place in Istanbul in 1999; it is called “The Little Apocalypse,” and I also talk about the movie, entitled “Children of Men.”
“Stromboli” is a metaphor for danger due to the reality of volcanic-activity fears on the Italian island called Stromboli and an Italian food’s name metaphorically (see: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/32165/stromboli/). Moreover, “Istanbul” is a metaphor for multiculturalism as many civilizations have lived there, and as Istanbul connects Asia and Europe as a bridge, the environmental disasters may even threaten Asia and Europe: the movie entitled “The Little Apocalypse” warns all the nations about the importance of trees and about the possible corruption in the construction industry: tall buildings should not be built in the usual earthquake zones.
Additionally, as I say in my presentation, the Azores are metaphors, emphasizing the need for fresh air: in the movie, entitled “Children of Men,” some excluded refugees try to go there for keeping themselves away from viruses. Amerigo Vespucci’s bones were buried there: he visited the Americas several times, but in his letters, he depicts how he discriminates against the natives by declaring that they are cannibals and he just looks for precious jewels as well as products to bring to Europe by devastating the environment: see: Vespucci, Amerigo. Cronache Epistolari: Lettere 1476-1508. Compiler: Perini, Leandro. 2013. Firenze: Firenze University Press.
European nutritive resources were also brought to the Americas; according to Crosby (2013), this exchange called “the Columbian exchange” led to the extinction of many natives due to spread of diseases specific to Europe among the natives, as I argue in my presentation: see: Crosby, Alfred W. 2003. The Columbian exchange: Biological and cultural consequences of 1492. 30th anniversary edition. Westport, Connecticut; London: Praeger.
Accordingly, Fethiye, where the family from Istanbul spend their summer holiday in “The Little Apocalypse”, is also a metaphor used for the need for fresh air, since Fethiye has several beaches and forests.
Some dark and stormy nights in the beginning of some cultures’ tales may not appear in other cultures’ tales; they are culture-specific metaphors, too; the behavior of wild animals or other cultural items may be depicted in other cultures’ tales as in the educative tales of “Grandfather Korkut” of the Oghuz-Turks: see: Basgoz, M. Ilhan. 1978. Epithet in a prose epic: the book of my grandfather Korkut. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University, Asian Studies Research Institute.
However, “The Little Apocalypse” appeared as a classic horror film. Besides, Turkish cultural elements are inserted into the film, such as tombs different from those of some other cultural groups, for instance, those of Jews and Christians. Moreover, there is a pine-tree painting on one of the tombstones that alludes to the eternal need for forests; there are also colorful flower paintings on the tombstones: this is not common. The films are based on environmental metaphors that underline the need for the concept of unity in diversity for fighting against environmental disasters.
In the movies, the scenarists have chosen some environmental metaphorical events culturally for global reasons: “an Italian volcanic eruption,” “a Turkish earthquake,” and “the global extinction of the human species due to viruses.” All are based on humans’ ignorance about the environments’ needs and zoo-semiotics, introduced by Thomas Albert Sebeok: see: Sebeok, Thomas Albert. 1974. Six species of signs: some propositions and strictures: with an appendix on Zoo-semiotics. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Departement Linguistiek.
Animals can foresee environmental disasters, and humans do not try to communicate with them: there are birds flying hastily and octopuses by the sea in “Stromboli”; but we see just a scorpion that may be poisonous in “The Little Apocalypse.” All of them allude to the approaching evil disasters. Different dream dictionaries may help us understand the cultural significance of certain animals based on the prejudices of human beings.
The historical nature of the movie, entitled “Stromboli” is a warning for the future generations: a Lithuanian refugee after a horrible World War should not have been discriminated racially in Stromboli and she should not have been beaten by her dominant husband. As well, blacks should not have been discriminated in the past: in the movie, entitled “Children of Men,” a black woman gives birth to a black female child; this fact saves many other human racial groups from extinction. Besides, the soil is as brown as this woman: therefore, we see nature as a mother as supposed by White (1967): see: White, Lynn. 1967. The historical roots of our ecologic crisis. Science, New Series (Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science) 155 (3767) (March 10, 1967): 1203-1207.
Humans keep on living as nature provides them with beneficial nutritive products and water. Although the metaphors may seem elementary at first, they are based on cultural beliefs; these can be either universal or culture specific. As I am proposing an education theory, children above 10 years old, adolescents, or adults who may watch these movies comparing the metaphors and the concept of diversity in them can conceive that humans are equal all around the world regardless of their gender, creed, and nationality: nobody likes the dust created by volcanoes or earthquakes, as both lead to the destruction of people’s homes; people must learn about zoo-semiotics, as animals can warn humans about the environment’s needs through their body language: they may be hiding in a certain place, or they may run and escape, when they feel that the earth is trembling, etc.
As cognitive semiotics is about some mental processes related to visual and auditory perception, attention, and emotions, metaphors are analyzed in such studies. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) are pioneers in conceptual metaphors based on cultures: see: Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
I argue that children or others watching these movies or others should think about the common conceptual metaphors in them in terms of Lakoff’s and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory. These are present in visual images rather than words in the movies.
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 4), “ARGUMENT IS WAR,” for instance:
“ARGUMENT IS WAR
“Your claims are indefensihle.
He attacked every weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
I’ve never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.
He shot down all of my arguments.”
There is also the ecolinguistic theory suggested by Arran Stibbe (2015) who argues that “metaphors are a type of framing which can be particularly powerful and vivid since they use a specific, concrete and clearly distinct frame to think about an area of life, for example CLIMATE CHANGE IS A TIME BOMB, CLIMATE CHANGE IS A ROLLERCOASTER, or CLIMATE CHANGE IS AN ANGRY BEAST.”
See:
Stibbe, Arran. 2015. Ecolinguistics: Language, ecology and the stories we live by. New York, NY : Routledge.
As well, metaphors appear as framings here: three movies make one understand that “NATURE IS A MOTHER,” “NATURE IS A WOMAN,” “NATURE IS A SHELTER,” “NATURE IS PROTECTION,” and “WHEN NATURE IS THREATENED BADLY LIKE A BEATEN WOMAN, NATURE CAN BECOME A BOMB.”
However, I have chosen “Cognitive Semiotics” as suggested by Brandt (2011) as my theory, since movies were full of visual metaphors rather than the linguistic ones.
See:
Brandt, Per Aage. 2011. “What is cognitive semiotics? A new paradigm in the study of meaning,” Signata 2: 49-60.
The three complementary movies put in a chronological order teach us, via similar metaphors, which are “iconic signs” according to Brandt (2011), that the concept of unity in diversity has been a must for combating against environmental disasters for centuries, humanitarian assistance is significant, and bullying, discrimination, and both physical and emotional abuse should never be allowed, as humans must work together regardless of their gender, creed, or nationality.
Regarding my teaching method, a list related to the environmental events in the three movies can be created and pictures of these events should be presented to the students, and the reasons why these events took place should be discussed historically, and then a frame should be constructed on the preventive measures humans must take. A poster, a picture book, a graphic novel, a calendar, and magnets should be created on the movies watched and their metaphorical messages.
For example:
LIST:
“Stromboli”: event: volcanic eruption; humans: gossipers and runaway folks ignorant about zoo-semiotics and the needs of the environment; metaphors: fire, dust, volcano, birds, etc.
Reasons for the eruption: lack of trees; existence of a volcano, etc.
Preventive measures: activism, courses of zoo-semiotics, scientific methods to extinguish an active volcano, etc.
“The Little Apocalypse”: event: earthquake; humans: some are corrupted in the construction business, a good mother, hopeful youth, some are ignorant about zoo-semiotics and the needs of the environment; metaphors: dust, scorpion, huge buildings, huge waves, hugeness, tombs, etc.
Reasons for the earthquake: lack of trees; climate change, etc.
Preventive measures: activism, courses of zoo-semiotics, free public environmental education, etc.
“Children of Men”: event: extinction of the human species; humans: warriors, virus diffusers, extinct creatures, ignorant beings about the needs of the environment; metaphors: an egg, blackness, forests, the Azores, etc.
Reasons for the extinction: viruses, unhealthy conditions, and dirty air.
Preventive measures: activism, environmental education, etc.
Thanks everyone for your presentations in this panel. Emma, just a comment: I hadn’t heard about the World Climate Game before, so thanks for bringing it to my attention!
Besides, the films, entitled “Stromboli” and “The Little Apocalypse” start with sunny scenes, not dark scenes. There are also sunny scenes before the murder of Julian in the movie entitled “Children of Men.” My study intends to decipher the meanings of specific objects used in the films from a visual anthropological and literary point of view.
In addition, “Stromboli” and “The Little Apocalypse” can be regarded as historical-dystopian-fictional works, since Stromboli has been subject to volcanic eruptions and Istanbul witnessed an earthquake in 1999. In general, novels about depression, hopelessness, or the dead start with a winter scene as in the novel entitled “Snow” written by Orhan Pamuk, or the novel entitled “Veronika decides to die” written by Paulo Coelho. In the novel by Orhan Pamuk, young women who commit suicide are mentioned hopelessly; in the novel by Paulo Coelho, Veronika decides to commit suicide, when it snows outside, but she loves life in the end, etc. However, the movies that I analyze are unusual: although they are about disasters, they have sunny places’ views.
Some novels about the dead and death may involve the snow as a metaphor.
Correction: In addition, “Stromboli” and “The Little Apocalypse” can be regarded as historical-dystopian-fictional works, since Stromboli has been subject to volcanic eruptions and Istanbul witnessed an earthquake in 1999. In general, novels about depression, hopelessness, or the dead and death start with a winter scene as in the novel entitled “Snow” written by Orhan Pamuk, or the novel entitled “Veronika decides to die” written by Paulo Coelho. In the novel by Orhan Pamuk, young women who commit suicide are mentioned hopelessly; in the novel by Paulo Coelho, Veronika decides to commit suicide, when it snows outside, but she loves life in the end, etc. However, the movies that I analyze are unusual: although they are about disasters, they have sunny places’ views.
Therefore, culture plays a crucial role in the formation of metaphors. Metaphors’ definitions are chosen by the authors. They are not global. They are culture-specific. In sum, the three movies teach us that “CLIMATE CHANGE IS A TIME BOMB” as proposed by Arran Stibbe (2015). The environment has metaphorical messages on when the earth’s time is up and a disaster will occur. Scenarists put their culture into work for choosing which metaphorical messages of the environment they should use culturally. Similar cultural metaphors may be used by different cultural groups to reach a common agreement on climate change.
There are lots of works analyzing climate and weather metaphors alongside mine, for instance: 1) on policy-report analyses: Shaw, Christopher, and Brigitte Nerlich. “Metaphor as a Mechanism of Global Climate Change Governance: A Study of International Policies, 1992–2012.” Ecological Economics 109 (2015): 34-40. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.11.001, and 2) on literary texts: Ford, Thomas H. 2018. Wordsworth and the poetics of air: atmospheric Romanticism in a time of climate change. Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press.
Thanks…
Another interesting study is this: Flusberg, Stephen J., Teenie Matlock, and Paul H. Thibodeau. “Metaphors for the War (or Race) against Climate Change.” Environmental Communication 11, no. 6 (2017): 769-83. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1289111.
Thank you…
Moreover, the snow is not a bad metaphorical sign in every literary work: the audience, the culture, and the scope of the author plays a crucial role in choosing why to mention this, for example, Hobbie, Holly. 2007. Let it snow. New York: Little Brown and Company.