RHOSE 27 | “Ethic of Care: transgenerational praxis.”
The Australian writer Charlotte Wood is the author of several novels and books of non-fiction such as The Submerged Cathedral (2004), Animal People (2011), The Natural Way of Things (2016), The Weekend (2020), The Luminous Solution (2021) and Stone Yard Devotional (2023) among other works, for which she has won many distinguished prizes.
The Weekend belongs to the genre of Reifungsroman, the novel of growth and a (re)establishment of meaningful relationships in later life. It is a story of vulnerability, mourning and freedom that is not prior to responsibility for others but is manifested relationally. The Weekend tells the story of a lifelong friendship between four women. Jude, Wendy and Adel travel to celebrate Christmas in the Australian village of Bittoes in order to declutter Sylvie’s house before it is put up for sale after she has died of cancer. By doing so, they need to face the stories that have held them together in a “state of mutiny rather than stasis, a period of constant striving against the world, but also against oneself.” (Collins The Guardian, 2020)
Stone Yard Devotional tells the story of a woman who leaves her established yet failed life to enter a religious community of nuns on the inhospitable planes of Monaro in Australia, where she explores the idea of being in relation to and for others as the most fundamental experience of being alive. While using varied narrative techniques of introspection and re-storying the narrator’s reminiscing of the past is concerned with the notions of care, vulnerability and receptivity towards others.
This seminar will examine the ethos of care that The Weekend and Stone Yard Devotional inspired by the work of Emmanuel Lévinas and Judith Butler. We will look at the genre of Reifungsroman and the philosophical concepts of responsibility towards oneself and others, of experience of grief, reverence and self-care. Furthermore, we will analyze the incorporation of the motif of animal vs human life and their relationship to the environment seen as, paraphrasing Kathleen Woodward, a model of natural continuity. As will be argued, healing and regeneration are only possible in ethical relations that are inseparable, simultaneous and based on care.
Keywords: care literature, responsibility, ageing studies, women’s literature, Australian literature
