ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ways in which queer ecocriticism can act as a productive disturbance in both queer theory and environmental studies. Although there is a large philosophical gap between most queer and most environmental approaches to 'the natural' created as a result of their very different discursive histories, there are also some important connections between queer theory and environmental studies. At first glance, queer theory and environmental studies seem entirely oppositional. Like the 'unnatural predator' itself, a 'queer environmental theory' appears to be a contradiction in terms. One is interested either in queer issues or in environmental issues, rarely both, and very rarely simultaneously. In one way or another, though, both queer theorists and environmentalists articulate a profound interest in 'the natural'. The chapter presents a set of close readings of Bram Stoker's Dracula, a text that specifically and dramatically points to various discursive histories of the natural.
