Agrotopias: Abby Goode and the Imagined Elsewheres of American Sustainability Rhetoric

Our conversation with Professor Goode explores her recent book Agrotopias: An American Literary History of Sustainability. Two recent phrases form the impetus of her book: "We Can't Solve the Climate Crisis Unless Black Lives Matter" and "Climate Change Is also a Racial Justice Problem". Goode traces these back to the enigmatic Thomas Jefferson to illuminate and enmesh the supposedly protoecological American past with its racist and eugenic histories by analyzing agrotopias. She defines agrotopias as "seemingly ideal worlds of agrarian stability and productive labor" (3).

 

Below are the three texts Goode offers as examples of alternatives to Agrotopian thinking:

 

1. Earth Democracy - Vandana Shiva
2. Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer
3. Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World - Wangari Maathai (As part of the Green Belt Movement)

 

For more on Abby Goode:

 

https://abbygoode.wordpress.com/

 

 

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Episode recorded February 5, 2024.

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0