| dc.description.abstract | Frank Herbert’s Dune is a polemic work ideologically aligned with a view of ecology that rejects human exceptionalism in favor of a more complicated understanding of humans as fundamentally just one of many creatures entangled in a web of interdependencies, a understanding that in this view is necessary for humans and other animal to flourish together. I will argue that in the novel we can see how Herbert links human exceptionalism and the othering of and negative associations with animals to hierarchies of power and exploitation through the language and art of the galactic nobility, while the rejection of human exceptionality, positive associations with, and identification with animals by the Fremen (and to some extent Duke Leto) are linked to a desire for ecological flourishing and a rejection of oppressive hierarchies of power, and I believe that these examples are intended to make us rethink our roles as humans on this planet. | |