Techno-Thoreau. Aesthetics, Ecology and the Capitalocene

• Published in: Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 194 - 199
• Main Author: Moldovan, Călina-Maria
• Format: Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Cluj-Napoca Faculty of Letters, UBB 01.07.2020
• Subjects: Aesthetics; Anthropocentrism; Authorship; Capitalism; Climate change; DeLillo, Don; Ecocriticism; Ecology; Epic literature; Fiction; Folklore; Ideology; Leopold, Aldo (1886-1948); Literary characters; Literary devices; Narrative techniques; Nature; Pesticides; Romantic period; Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862); Topic and comment; Writers
• ISSN: 2457-8827

The human impact on both the ecosystems and the geology of Earth has not only become a much-discussed topic in recent academic research but also a powerful and dominant theme in fiction, cinematography, and many other art forms. [...]a new interdisciplinary field of study emerged in the last few years: environmental aesthetics. Lombard offers here an example from Thoreaus autobiography, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, in which the American author describes the sound made by the telegraph as the first lyre or shell heard on the seashore, that vibrating cord high in the air over the shores of earth This comparison integrates man-made, technological artefacts into the natural world, as Thoreau develops an aesthetic that does not dodge early forms of human technology such as the "railroad" or the "telegraph." [...]this "well-being" we as human beings seek reinforces both the causes and the effects of the Capitalocene, claims Lombard, and, maybe even more importantly, destabilizes the relationship we have with other nonhuman beings. [...]this becomes even more dangerous, as this form of toxicity is invisible to the eye, and, therefore, hard to detect and locate.