{"id":509,"date":"2020-06-18T15:30:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T13:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life2020\/?page_id=509"},"modified":"2021-01-17T14:44:56","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T13:44:56","slug":"schulz-abstract","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/schulz-abstract\/","title":{"rendered":"LiFE 2020 Conference – Abstract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cynthia Schulz
<\/strong>Kingston University, London (UK)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Earth Speaks to All of Us\u201d: Queer Ecology in Miyazaki\u2019s Castle in the Sky<\/em><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 This paper will examine how Castle in the Sky <\/em>(1986) can be explored through the scope of Queer Ecology, rejecting dualistic notions of the \u201cnatural\u201d and the \u201cunnatural\u201d. This film is Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s first production for Studio Ghibli and anticipates the themes of anti-war and environmentalism of his later releases. Philosophically, his work has been explored regarding its Heideggerian implications by researchers such as Thomas LaMarre (2009), commending his non-anthropocentric perspective and ecological viability. Nonetheless, Castle in the Sky <\/em>(1986) still holds significance in understanding environmentalism within recent contexts, which further allows discussions on how new concepts can be applied to Miyazaki\u2019s work. With regards to Sara Ahmed\u2019s (2006) Queer Phenomenology, which claims the existence of a heteronormative line from which a subject may only escape through a queer object entering its sphere, this paper will explore how the robot functions as a queer subject falling into a heteronormative world which leads to the robot\u2019s destruction of the castle in the surface world figuratively standing for the queer trauma it experiences. Hence, I will argue that the robot functions as an active subject to examine the queer ecological virtue and the impact of its absence. Therefore, I argue that this surface world as portrayed in Castle in the Sky <\/em>(1986) acts as heteronormative and thus non-ecological after Queer Ecology due to its dualist notion, while Laputa as the flying castle serves as the embodiment of the queer ecological framework. Consequently, Laputa reveals a harmonious unity between the heteronormatively regarded \u201cnatural\u201d properties embodied by nature itself and the \u201cunnatural\u201d attributes embodied by the robots, blurring this assigned dualism. As a result, Miyazaki\u2019s work addresses not only the unity of human and nature but also gives indications about the integration of technology into an environmentalist structure, following his implied Shint\u014d principles while also providing a discourse of the boundaries of the living and non-living as defined by Timothy Morton (2010). Accordingly, this paper aims to encourage a re- engagement with Miyazaki\u2019s material to reshape how ecology can be conceived through cinema. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


Cynthia Schulz<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>is\u00a0an MA Film Studies student at Kingston University London and focuses her work primarily around environmentalism, feminism, queer theory and animation. As part of her degree, she has recently written papers on queer theory in East-Asian cinema, Heidegger\u2019s philosophy and eco-feminism. Her upcoming master\u2019s thesis will focus implicitly on Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s work, giving further significance to a Heideggerian reading of it as well as an eco-feminist implication while discussing the portrayal of environmentalism within animation. In the future, she is planning to pursue a PhD further researching ecology in film and other East-Asian media.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cynthia SchulzKingston University, London (UK) \u201cThe Earth Speaks to All of Us\u201d: Queer Ecology in Miyazaki\u2019s Castle in the Sky  This paper will examine how Castle in the Sky (1986) can be explored through the scope of Queer Ecology, rejecting dualistic notions of the \u201cnatural\u201d and the \u201cunnatural\u201d. This film is Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s first production for Studio Ghibli … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “LiFE 2020 Conference – Abstract”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/509\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.unibas.it\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}