{"id":2422,"date":"2014-08-10T10:03:41","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T17:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-ehc-english-ucsb-edu-v01.pantheonsite.io\/?page_id=2422"},"modified":"2014-08-10T10:51:44","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T17:51:44","slug":"what-is-anthropocentricism-and-ecocentrism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/?page_id=2422","title":{"rendered":"What is anthropocentricism and ecocentrism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is anthropocentricism and ecocentrism?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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\n

In 1964, in what is in some sense the prehistory of environment criticism, Lynn White Jr. boldly suggested that \u201cChristianity is the most anthropocentric religion that the world has seen.\u201d\u00a0 In addition to containing an enormously influential ecocritical reevaluation – which has frequently been challenged as being overly simplistic – of Christianity, this statement also makes an important assumption:\u00a0 that anthropocentricism, which is an ethic that makes human interests central, is problematic.\u00a0 Following White and others, such as Aldo Leopold, many first-wave ecocritics found the notion of putting human concerns above those of other species worrisome.\u00a0 In response to anthropocentricism, they offered \u201cecocentrism\u201d (closely related to \u201cbiocentrism\u201d), which does not privilege the interests of any one species, such as human beings, over any other in the biosphere.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, many of these early ecocritics found \u201cwilderness\u201d particularly appealing (as did nature writers such as Thoreau), as these places were supposedly untouched by human concerns.\u00a0 This in part accounts for the preference that some early ecocritics had for wilderness over \u201cspoiled\u201d environments.\u00a0 However, the second wave has been more likely to accept the fact that human beings now inhabit much of the \u201cnatural\u201d environment of our planet.\u00a0 This acceptance came largely concurrently with the growth of \u201crestoration ecology,\u201d which is the belief that human beings need to take an active role in both restoring and preserving our natural habitat.\u00a0 Consequently, many ecocritics today see the anthropocentricism\/ecocentrism binary as overly simplistic, believing that the two are not always in conflict.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/p><\/div>

<\/span><\/span><\/div>
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English Overview<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Undergraduate<\/span><\/p>\n

General<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Specialization<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Honors<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Graduate<\/span><\/p>\n

General<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Colloquium<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Qualifying Exam<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

FAQs<\/span><\/p>\n

What is ecocriticism?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

What is 1st- and 2nd-wave ecocriticism?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

What is the environmental justice movement?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Which works qualify as ecocriticism?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Is ecocriticism new?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Do ecocritics only work with modern texts?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

What is anthropocentricism and ecocentrism?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Is ecocriticism\u00a0a form of activism?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

What is the future of ecocriticism?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2422","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2422"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2467,"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2422\/revisions\/2467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ehc.english.ucsb.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}