Acknowledgements xvii Preface: Communities, collaborations and chaos xix The process of the book xxi
Introduction: Ecofeminism and the seeds of time 1 Ecofeminism past and present 2 Ecofeminism in/and early modern studies 11
1 Ecofeminism matters 17 Domesticated beings 18 Knowing things 22 A substance of subject-objects 26 Historical practice and present crisis 32
2 Of mouseholes and housefires: Transcorporeal domesticity 39 ‘Noysome and pestilent things’ 42 Pest control: The scratching cat and ‘the smallest monstrous mouse’ 51 (Beyond) pest control: Fleas, flies and other creeping creatures 58 Between small and great, soft and fierce: The hearth 63 After the fire 73
3 How we know any thing 77 Nothing is everything 78 Unknowability 89 ‘Howe''er you come to know it’ 98 The power of and in uncertainty 103
4 The dynamic object 105 The indifference of stone 105 Dynamism in the garden 109 (Boys as) women as plants 117 Petrarch in the produce aisle 128
Conclusion: Nature, stir: Ecofeminists in the archive 131 Healing nature 131 Living nature 140
Appendix: Excavating nature 143 Notes 147 Bibliography 171 Index 185
