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Resource type: Book Chapter Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: AskNunes2021 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "Nausicaä", Body, Ecology, Japan, Manga, Miyazaki. Hayao Creators: Ask Nunes, Ferstl Publisher: de Gruyter (Berlin u. Boston) Collection: Dialogues between Media |
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Abstract |
This article considers ecology and heroism. Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind depicts Nausicaä, the ecological heroine of the Anthropocene. Through concepts developed in new materialism, such as vital materialism and trans-corporeality, it is possible to investigate the agency of the non-human and how it can redefine our ideas of morality and consequently heroism. Nausicaä’s material self, her body and its direct interaction with matter, the forest, and insects, redefines her moral code. The material and the moral are merged, and it is by acknowledging this material agency that she acts, or lets the Earth act through her. By valuing the purity of the insects and the forest over her own human impurity, she surrenders to whatever fate the planet has for them. Nausicaä suggests that the role of the heroine is renegotiated in Anthropocene fiction because her own free will is replaced by the will of the planet. She becomes the vessel of planetary agency and condemns humanity to extinction in favour of planetary flourishing.
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