Cuteness In Contemporary Environmental Culture: Developing Ecopoetic Practice

遇到可爱的动物，从兔子到小猫，从猴子到刺猬，对我们大多数人来说都是日常经历。它们出现在茶巾、蛋糕和社交媒体上疯传的视频上。这只可爱的动物甚至可能是我们的宠物。可爱的简单、温和的本质意味着它不受审视，尤其是在环境危机的背景下，美学很可能显得无关紧要，如果不是不敬的话。这个项目推翻了这种想法，提出了这样一个问题：可爱是否会促使人们对环境产生关爱行为？在动物的“驯化”中存在什么样的权力动力？“不可爱”物种的命运如何？通过探索这些问题，该项目揭示了可爱在环境文化中的作用，以促进文学环境领域的创造性实践和批判性思维。通过协作创建和测试保护运动的传播材料，这种关注使有影响力的活动成为可能。我还将通过生态诗歌研讨会和以指导为奖励的国际比赛，建立年轻作家的生态诗歌社区。”生态诗歌通常讲述的是对自然的“敬畏”而不是“惊叹”的反应。“牙齿和爪子都是红色的大自然”似乎比“眼睛像鹿一样毛茸茸的大自然”更有价值、更有分量。环境问题通常与深入的知识和认真有关。因此，发现生态诗歌和更广泛的环境人文学科领域忽视了可爱，尤其是考虑到它与多愁善感和人类中心主义的联系，就不足为奇了。相比之下，新兴的可爱研究领域则致力于探索可爱的美学。然而，很少有人关注这种美学如何在以环境为重点的主题中呈现出来。该项目结合了这些创造性和批判性学科之间的点，涉及到关怀伦理、物种主义、保护和灭绝的叙述。大卫·阿滕伯勒说：“没有人会保护他们不关心的东西。”我认为，在他的格言中，可爱有着深刻的含义，因为它有能力引发观众的关怀反应。这个项目主要关注的是可爱在提高物种灭绝意识方面的作用。该项目的关键是与牛津大学自然历史博物馆、塞文河信托基金、沃里克郡野生动物信托基金以及伯明翰和黑乡村野生动物信托基金的合作。我将通过一系列合作，最大限度地发挥影响的机会，其中一个合作将影响并寻求改进自然保护传播中使用的策略。我与年轻人的合作——也就是说，我与信托基金会一起创建生态诗歌工作坊，并与青年诗人网络（young Poets Network）竞争——将培养“下一代”生态诗人，为年轻人提供支持，并为创造性实践设定新的议程。我将在生态实践、可爱研究和环境人文学科之间建立跨学科的联系，这将在创造性实践和批判性思维中形成议程，并为我作为领导者的发展形成清晰的路径。该奖学金将对我的职业生涯产生变革性的影响，使我能够接触到新兴和成熟的学者群体，目的是培养新的网络。我最近与非学术机构的合作不可避免地是短期的；这个项目与合作伙伴的合作超过14个月，将大大提高我的研究能力，并第一次让我有机会展示研究影响。我有教成人作家的经验，我的项目旨在激发年轻人的创造力，这将培养我的技能，并为我未来的工作确定一个令人兴奋的新受众。该项目的博士培训工作坊和为期一天的研讨会将使我能够在我有良好记录的领域提供智力领导。

Encountering cute animals, from bunnies to kittens, monkeys to hedgehogs, is an everyday experience for most of us. They appear on tea towels, cakes and videos gone viral on social media. The cute animal might even be our pet. The simple, benign nature of cuteness means it goes unexamined, especially in the context of the environmental crisis where the aesthetic is likely to appear irrelevant, if not irreverent. This project overturns such thinking by asking: Can cuteness prompt care-giving behaviour for environments? What power dynamics exist in the 'cutification' of animals? What fate for 'uncute' species? Exploring these questions, the project brings to light the role of cuteness in environmental culture in order to advance creative practice and critical thought in literary environmental fields. This focus enables impactful activity through collaborative creating and testing of communication material for conservation campaigns. It will also allow me to establish an ecopoetic community of young writers via ecopoetry workshops and an international competition that includes mentoring as its prize. Ecopoetry often recounts 'awe-struck' rather than 'aww-struck' reactions to nature. 'Nature, red in tooth and claw' may seem worthier, weightier subject matter than nature, doe-eyed and furry. Environmental concerns are typically associated with in-depth knowledge and seriousness. It is no surprise, then, to find ecopoetry and the broader field of the environmental humanities overlooking cuteness, especially given its associations with sentimentality and anthropocentrism. In contrast, the emerging field of cute studies has dedicated itself to exploring the aesthetic of cuteness. However, little attention has been paid to how this aesthetic presents itself in environmentally-focused subjects. Joining the dots between these creative and critical disciplines, the project engages with care ethics, speciesism, conservation and extinction narratives. David Attenborough states that 'no one will protect what they don't care about'. Cuteness is, I argue, profoundly implicated in his maxim given its capacity to trigger care-giving responses in viewers. A major concern of this project is the role of cuteness in raising awareness of species extinction. Key to the project are partnerships with the Oxford University Natural History Museum, the Severn Rivers Trust, the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust. I will maximise the opportunities for impact here through a series of collaborations, one of which will influence and seek to improve strategies used in nature conservation communication. My work with young people - namely, my creation of ecopoetry workshops with the Trusts and the competition with the Young Poets Network - will develop the 'next generation' of ecopoets, supporting young people and setting new agendas for creative practice. The interdisciplinary connections I will forge between ecopoetic practice, cute studies and the environmental humanities will shape agendas in creative practice and critical thought and form a clear pathway for my development as a leader. The Fellowship will have a transformative effect on my career by enabling me to reach selected communities of emerging and established academics with the aim of fostering new networks. My recent activities with non-academic institutions have been unavoidably short-term; this project's engagement with partners over 14 months will significantly enhance my research capabilities and, for the first time, allow me the opportunity to demonstrate research impact. Having experience in teaching adult writers, my project's aim to inspire creativity in young people will develop my skill-set and determine an exciting new audience for me to work with in the future. The project's doctoral training workshop and one-day symposium will allow me to provide intellectual leadership in areas in which I have an excellent track-record.