ABSTRACT
Ecophobia, like any other human behavior (including biophilia), is written into our genes. One of the issues that material feminisms and its offshoot, material ecocriticisms have investigated and stressed is the notion that non human things—biotic and nonbiotic—have agency. Theorizing ecocriticism without discussing ecophobia is as illogical as articulating feminist theory without discussing sexism. And it is worth repeating that ecophobia (no less than sexism) is a subtle, ubiquitous, and marketable condition. Material ecocriticisms (like their parent "material feminisms") demand attention to materials, of which genes are one. Largely missing from feminist readings, Darwin is also largely absent, with a few exceptions, in the developing field of material ecocriticism. Ecocritical theories in general and material ecocriticism more specifically clearly do not fit into the overarching belief structure Carroll describes. Indeed, to conduct material ecocriticism without acknowledging and theorizing about the materiality and agency of genes would be like doing oceanography without acknowledging and theorizing about water.
