Publishers Weekly
09/23/2019
Taylor (Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology), a Northwestern religious studies professor, examines, in sometimes granular detail, how popular culture tells stories about environmental issues. In so doing, Taylor casts light on “ecopiety,” which she uses to encompass “contemporary practices of environmental... virtue, through daily, voluntary works of duty and obligation,” such as buying green products or taking shorter showers. She looks at how ecopiety can provide a false sense of achievement to consumers or even lead to counterproductive results, as, for example, when airlines advertise their commitment to offsetting carbon emissions, thus potentially encouraging consumers to book even more flights. While those insights will be familiar to some, Taylor’s deep dive into the environmental messages encoded into media is eye-opening. The 50 Shades of Grey series, she notes, signals billionaire antihero Christian Grey is redeemable by showing his environmentally sound handling of his businesses. Elsewhere, she explores how “a number of environmentalists... have invoked vegetarian vampires”—the Twilight series’ undead heroes, who find ethical alternatives to human blood—“as models of moral restraint” for human consumers. By showing the deeper-than-acknowledged impact of pop culture on people’s beliefs about environmental issues, Taylor’s thoughtful treatise offers hope that effective storytelling can play a role in meaningfully addressing catastrophic climate change. (Nov.)
Christian Century
"Sarah McFarland Taylor wades into the messy space of felt eco-practice with wry humor and thorough clarity. … The power of this book rests in the compelling and innovative sources McFarland Taylor explores to understand how individualistic forms of ecopiety are storied to us. … each chapter uncovers the media and messaging that make subtle, sometimes imperceptible interventions in our ecological ethics and the fundamental ways we understand our living."
Nova Religio
"The most notable contribution of Ecopiety to the study of religion is its sustained exploration of the intersection of religion, popular culture, and ecology—an area of enormous importance on which there has been far too little research."
Environmental Values 31.3 - Gabriel Vasquez-Peterson
"Ecopiety is a worthwhile book for anyone who is interested in the role of media and narrative in contemporary environmental discourse…Even activists and policymakers who wish to employ media for green ends stand to benefit from Ecopiety."
Geographical Magazine
"The powerful argument that repeatedly surfaces throughout Sarah McFarland Taylor's book – that while acts of ecopiety are often nice and microscopically positive, they are essentially meaningless when faced with the global scale problem they seek to combat [...] is robust, well researched, and close to irrefutable."
Sarah Banet-Weiser
"This book could not come at a more urgent time; as the costs of human life and consumerism become clearer in the environmental crises of the planet, MacFarland-Taylor offers us a brilliant, compelling analysis of how discourses of virtue are used to re-direct the global climate crisis from a collective politics to the choices of individual consumers. The book explores green consumer marketing in the frame of ecopiety by examining a variety of practices, from cars to reality television to mediated popular cultural narratives about vampires to green burials, and in the process offers not only a trenchant critique but also possible alternatives to individualist consumption as a way to virtuously “save the planet.”"
Religion Journal - David Chidester
"The cases considered are extraordinary: erotic fiction interweaving ecopiety and consumopiety, automotive purity and trucker pollution, carbon sin-tracking apps, celebrities performing green, vampires turning vegetarian, corpses as media for living on naturally, tattoos identifying humans with endangered species, green hip-hop advancing social inclusion, and more. … Admirably, against the odds, Sarah McFarland Taylor does not contribute to eco-pessimism but advances what I would call an interpretive ethics of story, performance, and play as means for shaping the future. ... for the study of religion this theoretically informed, meticulously detailed, and surprising exploration of religious circulations through media, markets, and moral incongruities is transformative."
Interpretation
"An astute analysis of certain features of contemporary American culture, Ecopiety addresses an important question: what should we do to make the world a more sustainable place for all? ... An interesting and timely book."
Henry Jenkins
"Wow! It is rare that one has the chance to preview a work which displays this level of intellectual virtuosity. Taylors work occupies an important intersection between religious studies and media/cultural studies. . . . An amazing book, which is going to generate lots of interest."
Brontide Journal
"A wake-up call for all those who want to be good stewards of our planet but don’t necessarily know what they should be doing. Untangles the web of conflicting narratives, pulls back the curtain on our psyche, and shows us the roots of corporate manipulation in media."
The Fifth Estate
"[Ecopiety] dives into what it means to be a consumer at the heart of two conflicting narratives – buying stuff is good for the economy, and consuming resources is bad for the environment. ... will have you thinking differently about how environmental behaviour is presented in pop culture and the media."
Jeffrey Mahan
"Demonstrates the power of myths of individual moral and social power while teasing out the way resistance and counter readings of dominant narratives are possible in the interactive media world made possible by digital communications.... An important argument that adds to our understanding of environmental issues and lifestyle politics."
Fifth Estate
"[Ecopiety] dives into what it means to be a consumer at the heart of two conflicting narratives – buying stuff is good for the economy, and consuming resources is bad for the environment. ... will have you thinking differently about how environmental behaviour is presented in pop culture and the media."
Eric Mazur
"Brings a freshness to the rather stale debate over & environmentalism versus consumerism.... Very readable, engaging, and at times quite humorous."
From the Publisher
Wow! It is rare that one has the chance to preview a work which displays this level of intellectual virtuosity. Taylor’s work occupies an important intersection between religious studies and media/cultural studies. . . . An amazing book, which is going to generate lots of interest.”-Henry Jenkins,Author of Convergence Culture
"Brings a freshness to the rather stale debate over ‘environmentalism versus consumerism.’... Very readable, engaging, and at times quite humorous."-Eric Mazur,Co-editor of Routledge Companion to Religion & Popular Culture
“Demonstrates the power of myths of individual moral and social power while teasing out the way resistance and counter readings of dominant narratives are possible in the interactive media world made possible by digital communications.... An important argument that adds to our understanding of environmental issues and lifestyle politics."-Jeffrey Mahan,Iliff School of Theology
