What does ecocriticism criticize?: the human, the non-human, and the environmental subject

Abstract

Ecocriticism is part of a complex field of philosophical, psychoanalytic, and anthropological debates, arousing a growing interest in the field of literary studies, especially in the last decade. Bearing this in mind, the present study aim to highlight the theoretical assumptions of ecocriticism, with emphasis on the theme of the subject and the human figure in modern times. From this perspective, we initially sought to demonstrate how the philosophy of modern metaphysics has contributed to the production of the human face, through a process of otherization of nature, which should be considered as an object subject to domination. For this reason, ecocriticism establishes a counterpoint to the way in which different discursivities would have acted in the shaping of the human face, which involves everything from the human sciences to literature itself. To carry out this response, ecocritical studies have mobilized a conceptual instrument that dialogue with approximations and distances, the postulates developed by the critique of the subject in the 20^th century. Thus, this article starts from the idea that such studies, together with fictional production itself, have sought to think about alternative possibilities of subjectivation. The perspective of an environmental subject, therefore, starts from questioning the ontological abysses between the human and the non-human, to conceive an integration among the animal, vegetable, and mineral realms.