Necro-Eco: The Ecology of Death in Jim Crace’s Being Dead

Bezan, Sarah

doi:10.1353/mos.2015.0035

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…It is little surprise, then, that death should be depicted through ecological language: thus, the corpse is covered by maggots, consumed by scavengers, and shrouded by dust; humans fade like withering plants. This article closely observes the "necro-ecological" (Bezan 2015) imagery of Job, and traces two entanglements that are found there: the entanglement of death with life, and of beings with each other.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The Ecology of Death in the Book of Job

Millar

2021

Biblical Interpret.

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Ruminations on death recur throughout Job. Equally, language of the non-human world is prevalent. This article examines the coalescence of these tropes in the implicit “necro-ecology” of the book. As though observing the decomposition of a corpse, it focusses on four Joban images, each expressing human death in non-human terms: maggots colonise the cadaver; scavengers consume it. The body disintegrates into dust; plants grow and wither there. At each stage, the article shows how death and life are entangled together, the one requiring and enabling the other. Equally, beings are entangled with each other, challenging the human pretence to self-contained individuality. The article thus fits into a broader trend in the (post)humanities to cultivate scholarship conducive to multi-species flourishing, showing how Job provides fertile compost for symbiotic inter-species alliances of living and dying together.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The Ecology of Death in the Book of Job

Millar

2021

Biblical Interpret.

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“…45 They forward a radical 'necro-ecological' agenda that revises assumptions about the nature of dead bodies and of the value of human decomposition to nature. 46 Contrary to popular repudiation of decay as a form of pollution, the human body -seen as a material, chemical, and biological component of the natural world -is integrated into an ecology of death. According to Rumble et al, Such views make the naturally buried dead 'valuable' to the living and to the planet -by fertilizing the soil, they propagate new life for the benefit of nature and enjoyment of the living.…”

Section: Biopresencementioning

confidence: 99%

Green death: sustainability and the administration of the dead

Krupar

2017

cultural geographies

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This article explores changing American death care – the handling of the dead body and its materiality beyond death – in the context of US-based power relations over administration of human remains. The article briefly surveys efforts to make the afterlife of the dead more ‘sustainable’. I argue that this expanding governance entails intensified bioremediation: the reuse and reprocessing of dead bodies/parts, intensified forms of material-biological extraction, and the conversion of afterlife to forms of biovalue beyond death. First, some disposal efforts encourage an economy of body/parts and a utilitarian ethic of ‘no remains’. Accordingly, the afterlife is not ‘the end’ but a renewable material resource and opportunity to economize the body in death and put the dead body to work. Second, a range of practices now reimagine death as an opportunity for personal legacy and redeem the dead body’s decomposition as natural/as part of the natural world. Bioremediation in this case conceptually recuperates death into life so that death is not wasted; instead, the corpse serves as a material input for nature and a vehicle for personal ‘biopresence’. The article then considers some of the paradoxes and costs of greening the dead and outlines future research directions that might advance our understanding of the ways new sustainable disposal and commemorative technologies of the dead entrench racism and impact civil, consumer, and environmental rights. How bodies affect our environments today will impact people and landscapes in years to come. Because US governance of the dead has historically entailed the differential treatment of bodies after life, the article critically reflects on ‘death equity’ issues that operate across the living and the dead. The article concludes by querying how conduct for the dead might advance social justice through a material politics of human remains.

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Hopeless Necromantics: Decomposition and Transcorporeal Love in Jim Crace’s Being Dead

Gardiner

2021

Nonhuman Agencies in the Twenty-First-Century Anglophone Novel

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Necro-Eco: The Ecology of Death in Jim Crace’s Being Dead

Cited by 6 publications

References 13 publications

The Ecology of Death in the Book of Job

The Ecology of Death in the Book of Job

Green death: sustainability and the administration of the dead

Hopeless Necromantics: Decomposition and Transcorporeal Love in Jim Crace’s Being Dead

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