Trans-corporeality, climate change, and My Year of Meats

Abstract

Women's trans-corporeality is essential in appreciating interconnectedness in the Anthropocene, as Ruth Ozeki shows in her 1998 novel My Year of Meats. Through a detailed analysis of the novel, it becomes clear that corporeality and commodification are intertwined. By ignoring the interconnectedness of human beings, nonhuman beings, and the environment, as patriarchal society quickens climate change and environmental devastation by enabling multinational corporations free range in their pursuit of wealth. Fully industrialized culture has thrived in part by forgetting the materiality of our bodies; nevertheless, we are living in a world whose chief characteristic is interdependence and interconnectedness. Current civilization depends upon science and technologies too much, but considering all the issues we face in the Anthropocene, it is certain that what we need is not an expansion of our exercise of control but a recognition that the agencies outside of us interpenetrate our bodies: My Year of Meats demonstrates through a detailed focus on women's bodies that without such recognition, the corporeal implications for humanity (and indeed for the rest of the planet) are actually grim.