The Environmental Sublime: Nature as Other

Abstract

The sublime is an ancient concept, one that constantly poses questions about humanity's relationship to nature. My thesis charts the development of the sublime from Kant's eighteenth-century theory in the Critique of the Power of Judgment to its presence within the field of contemporary environmental aesthetics in the form of the “environmental sublime.” Developments in the natural sciences have led to changes in the ways that people perceive and respond to the natural world. Biology tells us that human beings are but one species among others on earth. Technological leaps in the field of geology have confirmed the relatively short span of human life on earth in comparison with other forms of life and the age of the earth itself. Life in the age of the Anthropocene means that humans, nature, and technology have become entangled in such a way as to blur their distinctions: humans and nature are irrevocably fused. Yet experiences of the overwhelming complexity or power of the natural world still have the capacity to instil awe and wonder into the hearts of human observers. People are drawn to the types of difficult experiences designated as sublime because they represent gaps in human knowledge. The contemporary environmental sublime is a concept that allows people to think about nature as other, or separate from the human being, despite the homogenising demands of the Anthropocene. This thesis will argue that changes in the ways that people situate themselves in the natural world have caused a shift in the sublime from an anthropocentric conception of nature, seen in Kant's theory, towards a perspective that appreciates the intrinsic value of nature outside human experience. In this way, my research examines how the sublime can be harnessed in the pursuit of an environmental ethic that seeks to protect nature for its own sake.