Frugality

     Our sense of the inevitability of capitalism is so strong that, as Frederic Jameson has put it, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” And in fact, we do just... [ view full abstract ]

     Our sense of the inevitability of capitalism is so strong that, as Frederic Jameson has put it, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” And in fact, we do just that—hence the ever-increasing public appetite for apocalyptic film, fiction, and other media. Apocalyptic fictions mark in part our increasingly desperate sense that capitalism makes solving our environmental crisis hopeless, and apocalypse certain.

     To break this impasse, other ways of living must be made possible. We must open up new lifeways if we are to imagine, and then bring into being new, more ecological futures. Yet other worlds have to be not just possible, but also appealing—replete with pleasure—if they are to disrupt our sense of the inevitability of our current economic and ecological arrangements.

     With this background in mind, the keyword that I propose for the C19 Environmental Humanities seminar is “frugality.” My paper will play with the root “frux,” or fruit, to claim joyful, anti-consumerist frugality as an important twenty-first century environmental principle with a long literary and cultural history. In particular, I will argue for embracing and teaching the homegrown tradition of satisfied anti-consumerism found in works ranging from Emily Dickinson’s poetic portraits of freedom and satisfaction through voluntary simplicity; to Henry David Thoreau’s celebration of simple living in Walden; to the many pre-1900 domesticity and dietary reform writers who valorized a refusal to consume market goods, edible commodities, and more.