Solidarity with the Other Beings on the Planet: Alice Walker, Ecofeminism, and Animals in Literature

194 Pages·2020·2.771 MB·English

by  Pamela B. June

Solidarity with the Other Beings
on the Planet
Critical Insurgencies
A Book Series of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association
Series Editors: Jodi A. Byrd and Michelle M. Wright
Critical Insurgencies features activists and scholars, as well as
artists and other media makers, who forge new theoretical and
political practices that unsettle the nation- state, neoliberalism,
carcerality, settler colonialism, Western hegemony, legacies of
slavery, colonial racial formations, gender binaries, and ableism,
and challenge all forms of oppression and state violence
through generative future imaginings.
About CESA The Critical Ethnic Studies Association organizes
projects and programs that engage ethnic studies while reimagining
its futures. Grounded in multiple activist formations within and
outside institutional spaces, CESA aims to develop an approach to
intellectual and political projects animated by the spirit of decolo-
nial, antiracist, antisexist, and other global liberationist movements.
These movements enabled the creation of ethnic studies and con-
tinue to inform its political and intellectual projects.
www.criticalethnicstudies.org
Solidarity with the Other
Beings on the Planet
Alice Walker, Ecofeminism,
and Animals in Literature
Pamela B. June
Northwestern University Press
Evanston, Illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2020 by Northwestern University Press.
Published 2020. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: June, Pamela B., author.
Title: Solidarity with the other beings on the planet : Alice Walker,
ecofeminism, and animals in literature / Pamela B. June.
Other titles: Critical insurgencies.
Description: Evanston : Northwestern University Press, 2020. | 
Series: Critical insurgencies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019022954 | ISBN 9780810141681 (paperback) | 
ISBN 9780810141698 (cloth) | ISBN 9780810141704 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Walker, Alice, 1944– —C riticism and
interpretation. | Ecofeminism in literature. | Animal welfare in literature.
Classification: LCC PS3573.A425 Z736 2020 | DDC 813.54— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022954
Dedicated to
Tybee and Lucy, my furry, four- legged feline friends,
who keep me company while I write;
to Stella, my best writing companion,
who passed from this world while this book was in progress;
and to
the memory of the billions upon billions
who are being slaughtered while I write.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Connecting Food, Animals, and Literature 3
Chapter 1. Alice Walker and Veg*nism 29
Chapter 2. Trans- corporeality and the Language of Oppression 51
Chapter 3. Food as Power, Food as Redemption 71
Chapter 4. “She Does Not Think of Herself as Steak” 95
Chapter 5. Rewriting Creation Stories 117
Conclusion and New Directions 141
Notes 147
Bibliography 169
Index 181
Acknowledgments
My sincerest gratitude goes to Alice Walker, who managed to offer some
precious time from her always busy schedule to talk with me regard-
ing an issue about which we both care intensely. Alice, your work has
inspired me since I was young, and I feel indescribably fortunate to have
met with you. I am firmly convinced that if everyone were as thoughtful,
compassionate, and purpose- driven as you, the world would be a better
place. My appreciation for the gift of visiting with you is beyond my abil-
ity to express.
Thank you to Gianna Mosser for your immensely helpful feedback and
enthusiasm, to Kim Socha, Christine Pristash, Ayesha Hardison, and
Jason Lulos for reading early chapters, to Veronica Watson for advice
and inspiration, and to Steven W. Whitlinger, whose loving advice
encouraged me to take on this project. Mom and Dad, thank you for your
support and for your endless joy in my work. Thank you to my dear stu-
dents, whose boundless wisdom and passion make teaching a joy for me
every day. Thank you to my departed grandmother, Josephine June Rod-
gers, whose memory inspires and humbles me. Finally, Audrey Grace,
I am grateful for your companionship as I completed this work, and I hope
you find peace and joy in your brand new world.
ix
Solidarity with the Other Beings
on the Planet
Introduction
Connecting Food, Animals,
and Literature
We must begin to develop the consciousness that everything has equal
rights because existence itself is equal. In other words, we are all here:
trees, people, snakes, alike.
— Alice Walker, “Everything Is a Human Being”
“I almost laughed (I felt too sad to cry) to think there are people who
do not know that animals suffer. People like me who have forgotten, and
daily forget, all that animals try to tell us.” So writes Alice Walker in her
classic essay, “Am I Blue?” (1986). Blue’s narrative, an allegory for slavery
and oppression of various kinds, details the pain and suffering of a horse
when humans take away his beloved partner. Witnessing his obvious dis-
tress, the narrator meditates on the “human” suffering she recognizes in
Blue’s eyes, and she contemplates that animals “are forced to become for
us merely ‘images’ of what they once so beautifully expressed.” In sharing
this animal’s grief, Walker concludes the essay by noting that anyone con-
cerned about social justice cannot logically partake in eating animals: “As
we talked of freedom and justice one day for all, we sat down to steaks.
I am eating misery, I thought, as I took the first bite. And spit it out.”1
Because Walker has always had a large readership, the poignancy of this
call to action threatened the dominant, meat-e ating culture to the point
of banning the essay.2 While this censorship may seem a bit alarmist, even
absurd, it emphasizes just how deeply engrained is the practice of eating
animal flesh. Consuming animals, from the prevailing cultural perspec-
tive, is not simply a choice or pastime, but an integral element of life in
the United States— something to be defended and upheld.
3