Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love
by Lida Maxwell
33 Members (3.33)
On This Page
Description
How Silent Spring stands as a monument to a unique, loving relationship between Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, and how such love underpins a new environmental politics After the success of her first bestseller, The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson settled in Southport, Maine. The married couple Dorothy and Stanley Freeman had a cottage nearby, and the trio quickly became friends. Their extensive and evocative correspondence shows that Dorothy and Rachel did something more: they fell in love. show more In this moving new book, Lida Maxwell explores their letters to reveal how Carson's masterpiece, Silent Spring, grew from the love these women shared for their wild surroundings and, vitally and increasingly, for each other. Carson had already demonstrated a profound environmental awareness by the time she purchased her home in Maine; Maxwell proposes that it took her love for Dorothy to open up a more powerful space for critique. As their love unsettled their heteronormative ideas of bourgeois life, it enabled Carson to develop an increasingly critical view of capitalism and its effects on nonhuman nature and human lives alike, and it was this evolution that made the advocacy of Silent Spring possible. In Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love, Silent Spring's exposé of the dangerous and loveless exhaustion of nature for capitalism's ends is set in bold relief against the lovers' correspondence, in which we see the path toward a more loving use of nature and a transformative political desire that, Maxwell argues, should inform our approach to contemporary environmental crises. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Sexuality & Gender
160 works; 3 members
Science: Earth
109 works; 1 member
The Best LGBTQ Nonfiction
103 works; 40 members
Author Information
5 Works 101 Members
Lida Maxwell is Associate Professor of Political Science and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Boston University.
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2025
- People/Characters
- Rachel Carson; Dorothy Freeman
- Important places
- Southport Island, Maine, USA
- Dedication
- For Jennifer
- First words
- Rachel Carson grew up in rural Pennsylvania, but she always dreamed of the sea.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)We might not be able to completely conceive yet what this better future will look like; but with Carson and Freeman's help, we can begin to let our wonder lead us toward it.
- Blurbers
- Imbler, Sabrina; Nijhuis, Michelle; Yeager, Liza; Disch, Lisa; Anker, Elisabeth
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 33
- Popularity
- 856,075
- Rating
- (3.33)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
