A Zen-Flavored Feminist Environmental Selfhood and its Contemporary Implications

In her proposal of an ecological self different from the problematic Cartesian dualistic self, Val Plumwood acknowledges the need for contextual and alternative groundings for the future development of a new ecological selfhood. This is where the paper will contribute. This paper proposes that the Zen-flavored feminist self/nature relationship suggested in Wang Wei's landscape poetry not only offers a new and different grounding for Plumwood's ecological self, but also suggests the method through which this selfhood can be attained. The paper will conclude by demonstrating how this feminist relationship illuminates some of our contemporary environmental problems.