MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Philosophy

Amid the current climate crisis and the scientific consensus on its anthropogenic causes, one task left to the humanities and social sciences is to understand why we humans have failed to effectively act on addressing the issue. I intend to show how the work of Edmund Husserl and Bruno Latour is especially relevant to this topic, bringing their ideas to bear on questions of the climate crisis and the lack of faith in science seen in certain populations in America. I will argue that the crisis of the sciences which Husserl identifies in his last work highlights the Modernist roots of our situation where we separate ourselves from nature, which sheds light on our lack of action. I will augment this analysis with Latour's studies of science and climate change, as well as work done on the phenomenon of lack of faith in science in America, to help furnish a better understanding of the global predicament we are in.

Committee: Gina Zavota (Advisor); David Kaplan (Committee Member); Deborah Barnbaum (Committee Member); Matthew Coate (Committee Member) Subjects: Environmental Philosophy; Philosophy; Philosophy of Science

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2015, English

In this thesis, I will examine questions of storytelling in two works of contemporary American literature: Toni Morrison's Paradise and Karen Russell's Swamplandia! I will look not only at the power that stories hold over the individual, but also at their ability to transform or restrict a community. Both of these novels focus on isolated communities as microcosms for the politics of the larger country. How do narratives the characters tell about the past shape a community's present? Issues of identity—of race, class, gender, age, and other forms of marginality—necessarily come into play in the ways that these narratives actively shape the dynamics of belonging. How do those on the margins interact with their communities's self-narrative, the story of the group? Are they forever limited by the story their elders offer up, or are they able to create new stories for themselves? And in creating those new stories, should they (or can they) mine and revise old stories, or is it better to begin anew? My thesis suggests that these are pressing questions and that the answers depend on each individual case; however, I hope to show that paying attention to these issues of community construction through narrative forces us to confront our understanding of the work that myths do.

Committee: Thom Dancer (Advisor) Subjects: Literature