Environmental Crisis in Young Adult Fiction: A Poetics of Earth

A virtual Critical Thinking Circle session was organized for the students of Women University Multan on January 21, 2022, where the book “Environmental Crisis in Young Adult Fiction: A Poetics of Earth” by Alice Curry was discussed. The book investigates desolate young adult fiction through an ecofeminist critical lens, a rapidly growing genre that is important to both studies of youth culture and studies of contemporary environmental literature. 

The discussion explored the connections between women and nature in culture, economy, religion, politics, literature, and iconography, and addressed the parallels between the oppression of nature and the oppression of women. These parallels include but are not limited to seeing women and nature as property, seeing men as the curators of culture and women as the curators of nature, and how men dominate women and humans dominate nature. Participants elaborated as how women are seen as domestic, pious, moral, pure, gentle, kind, graceful, simple, and beautiful; making them part of separate spheres. Men and women are seen as fundamentally different in terms of their characteristics due to social conditioning and gender roles, with men being seen as hard-working, industrial, rational, assertive, independent, and proud; none of which are generally connected with nature.

The session helped the students understand new concepts like ecofeminism and environmental crisis. Dr. Sonia and Ms. Sofia moderated the session, whereby they engaged 22 students in debate.