Abstract
Starting with a discussion of goddesses presenting “her stories” of water and land, my presentation delves more deeply into ideas of natural femininity that often lost in present ways of writing “his-story. It is devoted to showing how can turn distant knowledge of a faraway past into touching individual memories for us who hear the spirits speaking through our bodies, our sexualities, trees, plants, animals, land, and water—this is in stark contrast to the homogenizing and brutal knowledge that sees nature as a mere ‘natural resources’ and the threat of ‘natural disaster’. My description of oikophilia will connect our reckless pursuit of individual gratification that jeopardizes our mother Earth and aid in un-learning oppressive myths toward women’s roles in natural preservation, and thus exposing the fundamental problem that all people need a philosophy of conservation.
Speaker
Dewi Candraningrum is Editor-in-Chief of Jurnal Perempuan and The Indonesian Feminist Journal and the editor of and a contributor to Body Memories: Goddesses of Nusantara, Rings of Fire and Narratives of Myth (YJP/PPSG UKSW, 2014). She earned her Masters from Monash University, Australia and her Doctoral degree from Universitaet Muenster, Germany. She is also member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Indonesian Studies, based at Monash. Currently, she is teaching courses on Women and Literature in Muhammadiyah University in Surakarta and is a guest lecturer in Gender Studies at UGM and UI. Her works and research activities are mainly in the areas of gender, Islam and literature.