Algae ecologies: multiple scales, temporalities and modes of address in contemporary Anthropocene poetry.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My critical and creative thesis will research the relationship between poetic form and algae to investigatehow an ecology that embraces multiple scales, temporalities and modes of address can help rethinkpoetry in the Anthropocene (Farrier 2019; Bristow 2015; Solnick 2017; Griffiths 2017). Algae (forms ofphytoplankton) live in both freshwater and marine environments, their microscopic scale belies theirbroader connection to planetary health and climate change. Responsible for the oxygenation of theEarth's atmosphere 2.35million years ago (Blaustein 2016), they absorb more CO2 today than forestsand contribute to the production of the world's oxygen (Schirrmeister 2015). Researching algae ecologiesnecessitates a shift in how the human is traditionally conceived in the humanities as the mark andmeasure of all things (Braidotti 2013).In response to this decentering of the human subject, my research is motivated by Farrier's (2019)assertion that 'the Anthropocene puts pressure on claims of lyric poetry to be governed by a singular andtherefore stable (if mobile) perspective'. Focusing on the work of Jorie Graham (2008), Jen Hadfield(2014) and Sarah Hymas (2020), my thesis draws on ecocriticism (Solnick 2017; Farrier 2019; Clark2015) and feminist technoscience (Haraway 2003; Barad 2007; Braidotti 2013) to expand lyric address(Blasing 2007; Perloff 1990) by pushing the limits of the central beholder in poetic form. Importantly, mythesis will include analysis of Elizabeth Jane Burnett (2017) and Natalie Diaz's (2020) work and how theybring feminist anti-colonial perspectives to the subject of water ecologies.My approach responds to Solnick's (2017) claim that the 'Anthropocene requires poetry and thehumanities to find new ways of thinking about unfamiliar spatial and temporal scales, about how weapproach the metaphors and discourses of the sciences'. I will critically, creatively and conceptuallyengage with marine biology and freshwater ecology through fieldwork with scientists incorporatinginterdisciplinary perspectives into my research. Integral to this will be a practice-based investigation intohow algae are visualised within science. Combining literary analysis and creative writing with visual artmethods of digital photography, the thesis will provide a creative-critical engagement with microscopicimaging and visual data (Dvorak & Parikka 2021; Cubitt 2014; Zylinska 2017).