3. Academia, Abstraction and the Anthropocene

This chapter by Kristine Kowalchuk argues the need for humanities scholars to recognize the ecological crisis as a cultural issue arising from modernity’s story of human separation from, and superiority over, nature. The author urges humanities scholars to help lead the way in telling a different story, to enable genuine positive change and healing. As Kowalchuk shows, this story is not a new story, but rather an ancient one, of right relationship between humans and nature, and it has persisted in the margins for over four hundred years.