Table of Contents
Acknowledgments: I See These People viii Introduction: Time to Wake Up 1 George A. Dunn
Part I Seeing Eywa: “I’m With Her, Jake. She’s Real!” 5
1 The Silence of Our Mother: Eywa as the Voice of Feminine Care Ethics 7 George A. Dunn and Nicolas Michaud
2 “Eywa Will Provide”: Pantheism, Christianity, and the Value of Nature 19 Jason T. Eberl
3 The Tantra of Avatar 36 Asra Q. Nomani
Part II Seeing the Na’vi: “You Will Teach Him Our Ways” 49 4 Learning to See the Na’vi 51 Stephanie Adair
5 It Doesn’t Take an Avatar: How to Empathize with a Blue-Skinned Alien 62 Andrew Terjesen
6 “I See You” through a Glass Darkly: Avatar and the Limits of Empathy 74 Massimiliano Cappuccio
Part III Seeing Nature: “Try to See the Forest through Her Eyes” 87
7 Seeing the Na’vi Way: Respecting Life and Mind in All Organisms 89 Kyle Burchett
8 They’re Not Just Goddamn Trees: Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature and the Avatar of Spirit 104 James Lawler
9 “Everything Is Backwards Now”: Avatar, Anthropocentrism, and Relational Reason 115 Jeremy David Bendik-Keymer
Part IV Seeing Our Bodies: “They’ve Got Great Muscle Tone” 125
10 The Identity of Avatars and Na’vi Wisdom 127 Kevin S. Decker
11 “I Got This”: Disability, Stigma, and Jake Sully’s Rejected Body 139 Ryan Smock
12 “See the World We Come From”: Spiritual versus Technological Transcendence in Avatar 151 Dan Dinello
Part V Seeing Our Political Communities: “Sky People Cannot See” 165
13 “We Will Fight Terror with Terror”: Avatar and Just War Theory 167 Joseph J. Foy
14 The Community and the Individual in Avatar 180 Dale Murray
15 Avatar and Colonialism 190 Nathan Eckstrand
Part VI Seeing Our Ethical Responsibilities: “Sometimes Your Entire Life Boils Down to One Insane Move” 201
16 “All That Cheddar”: Lessons in Business Ethics from the RDA Corporation 203 Matthew Brophy
17 “We Have an Indigenous Population of Humanoids Called the Na’vi”: Native American Philosophy in Avatar 215 Dennis Knepp
18 I See Animals: The Na’vi and Respect for Other Creatures 226 Wayne Yuen
Part VII Seeing the Movie: “You Are Not Gonna Believe Where I Am” 239
19 The Digital Cabinet of Curiosities: Avatar and the Phenomenology of 3D Worlds 241 Robert Furze and Pat Brereton
Notes on Contributors: Our Avatar Drivers 252
Index: My Last Video Log 258