Strongly Stated and Loosely Held: Examining Stewart Brand's Role in the Ecomodernist Project

Authors

Liam J. Baker, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

First Advisor

Dr. Sean Trundle

Second Advisor

Dr. Regina Werum

Date of this Version

Spring 5-13-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Citation

Environmental Studies Undergraduate Student Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2024

Abstract

With the ecomodernist environmental perspective emerging in the wake of the 2015 publication of An Ecomodernist Manifesto, many researchers have sought to critique the ecomodernists and their theories of separating humanity from nature, intensifying agriculture, expanding energy production, and relying on technology to resolve the environmental challenges of the 21st century. In this paper, I add to these critiques by examining the history of Stewart Brand, one of the coauthors of An Ecomodernist Manifesto, to highlight connections between his personal environmental perspective, his material impacts, and the ecomodernist project as a whole. By analyzing the discourse produced by and about Stewart Brand and the ecomodernists through a process of critical reading and comparison, I identify how Stewart Brand developed influence and credibility as an environmentalist while espousing an environmental perspective analogous to ecomodernism well before his association with contemporary ecomodernists. This analysis demonstrates foremost that Stewart Brand’s history can be traced through his associations with network forums – physical, digital, or rhetorical spaces within which disparate and even oppositional communities and their ideologies can be unified through the creation of new social networks, culture, and rhetoric. Because of this, I argue that the ecomodernist project can be better understood as a network forum seeking to expand its influence within environmentalism by merging the language and rhetoric of environmental movements with a post-environmental ideology.