Becoming-with Nature: A Re-evaluation of the Female Body in the EcoGothic.

我的跨学科项目是从女权主义的角度对EcoGothic进行创新研究。当代哥特文学在挑战母体和怪物之间的传统联系方面取得了一些进展；我的项目更进一步。在EcoGothic中，这种怪物表现为无序的自然，必须“杀死”才能恢复父权秩序（Parker, 2020）。在性别方面，有序的自然被视为“男性”，而无序的自然被视为“女性”（罗伯茨，2008）。我的项目挑战了这些哥特式的传统，拆除了对自然的性别看法所附带的价值判断。我避开了二元思维的局限性，使用Haraway（2016）的共生概念（物种之间的生物相互联系）作为关键框架。Sheargues指出，这种二元论（文化/自然、男性/女性）已经形成了对女性、有色人种、自然、工人、动物……[所有构成为他人的]（1985）。Butler（1990）还讨论了文化/自然之间的二元、等级关系如何呈现自然和“他者”。在我的研究中，我使用共生作为一种方法，通过将这些类别视为流动和动态相互关联，我正在拆除有序/无序自然作为男性/女性的性别二元论。我的项目考虑了生态女性主义背景下的哥特式，调查了生殖女性身体和森林表现为“恐惧景观”的方式，从而扩展了当代生态哥特式研究（Parker, 2020）。2013年，史密斯和休斯的《生态哥特》是第一个通过生态批评来思考哥特的文本。2020年，《森林和生态哥特式》是第一部在生态批评哥特式的背景下研究森林的作品。这些话语围绕着对自然代理的恐惧，而非养育性的“自然母亲”是这种男性恐惧的焦点（Estok, Hillard, 2009）。我的项目挑战了不守规矩的自然与“女性”的结合，扩展了这些只识别这些联系的生态哥特式叙事。这部小说（创造性的组成部分）进一步推动了安吉拉·卡特的去神话化实践，解构了自然和女性代理的威胁。我把女性的身体描绘成一种催化剂，用来同时观察有序和无序的自然。这种集体自然观与“女性气质”一致，消除了男性和女性之间的鸿沟。我呈现的生态女性主义身份是混乱的、受控制的、男性化的、女性化的，以及介于两者之间的一切。我的小说关注的是“与”——一种建立在连通性而不是差异和分离基础上的“世界”形式（Haraway, 2016）。我的小说具有文化相关性，因为“故事构成世界，世界构成故事”（Haraway, 2016）。我们使用的语言定义了我们对自然和女性气质的概念，创造性写作能够作为激进变革的代理人，切实实现这一目标。

My interdisciplinary project is an innovative investigation of the EcoGothic from a feminist perspective. The contemporary Gothic has made some progression towards challenging the conventional connections between the maternal body and monstrosity; my project takes this further. Within the EcoGothic, this monstrosity manifests in disordered nature that must be 'slain' in order to restore patriarchal order(Parker, 2020). In gendered terms, ordered nature is seen as 'male', whilst disordered nature is 'female' (Roberts, 2008). My project challenges these gothic conventions by dismantling the value judgments attached to a gendered vision of nature. I eschew the limitations of dualistic thinking, using Haraway's (2016) notion of symbiosis (the biological interconnections between species) as a critical framework. Sheargues that such dualisms (culture/nature, male/female) have been systemic to the 'domination of women, people of colour, nature, workers, animals [...] of all constituted as others' (1985). Butler (1990) also discusses how a binary, hierarchical relationship between culture/nature renders nature an 'Other'.In using symbiosis as a methodology for my research, I am dismantling the gendered dualisms of ordered/disordered nature as being male/female by considering these categories as fluid and dynamically interconnected.My project considers the Gothic within the context of ecofeminism, investigating the way in which the reproductive female body and the forest manifest as 'landscape[s] of fear', thus expanding upon contemporary EcoGothic research (Parker, 2020). In 2013, Smith and Hughes' EcoGothic was the first text to consider the Gothic through ecocriticism. In 2020, The Forest and the EcoGothic was the first to examine the forest in the context of the ecocritical Gothic. These discourses revolve around fears of nature's agency and it is a non-nurturing 'mother nature' that is the focal point of this masculine fear (Estok, Hillard, 2009). My project challenges the alignment of unruly nature with the 'female', expanding upon these EcoGothic narratives that only identify these links.The novel (creative component) furthers the demythologising practices of Angela Carter, deconstructing the threat of nature and female agency. I portray the female body as a catalyst for viewing nature as simultaneously ordered and disordered. This collective view of nature is aligned with 'femininity' that dissolves the division between male and female. I present an ecofeminist identity that is chaotic, controlled, masculine, feminine and everything in between. My novel is focused on 'becoming-with'-a form of 'worlding' grounded in connectivity rather than in difference and separation (Haraway, 2016). My novel is culturally relevant because it 'matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories' (Haraway, 2016). The language we use defines our concepts of nature and femininity, and creative writing is capable of acting as an agent for radical change, achieving that work practically.