ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyses the theoretical and aesthetic depictions and narratives of gender and nature relations in literature, film, art, theatre, philosophy and science and technology studies, and thereby contribute to a critical theory of ecologies of gender. It shows the concepts and ideas of gender, nature, human, animal, plant and life that are historically embedded in long traditions of anthropocentric-extractivist and patriarchal ways of seeing and thinking need to be reconceptualized and reimagined in the light of crisis-afflicted nature relations. The book builds on the critical analyses, which – like the nonhuman turn in general – provide key theoretical underpinnings for the emerging field of the environmental humanities. It adopts intersectional perspectives that highlight the interrelations between multiple forms of difference, power and domination in order to develop a critical and contextualized understanding of gender and nature relations.
