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I created this figure above to show who's who in the really potent theories on anxiety/fear in the late 20th-to-early 21st centuries. These are well known, other than Ettinger. I have studied Ettinger since 2009 and have found really important improvements in her work beyond the big guys theories. For a really good Solstreif-Pirker 2023.pdf on all of their views in summary go to C. Solstreif-Pirker (2023). For one of my dialogues on "biology of fear" and "biology of love" a year or more ago with Dr. Narvaez, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8xISZRzxLk&t=373s

Solstreif-Pirker opens his Abstract with: "Building on the definition of contemporary modernity as an 'ecology of fear', this article articulates a counter-hegemonic concept of modernity that is not oriented toward a future end [being-towards-death] but toward the intensities of the [relation, being-towards-birthing] present moment...". (p. 561). 

I'm happy to have further detailed study and conversations on this article and its implications to Fear Studies, and to a Fearlessness Paradigm. 

The following link, will guide you to my recent Dr. A. V., Varughese Memorial Lecture (2020) in Kerala, India

To listen to my lecture you best start the video at the 21:20 mark 

My talk is about ecocriticism as a newly emerging field in the last few decades, that involves literary criticism and ecology. I focus on a particular way I interpret this field and how it can better be holistic-integral in integrating the work on fear, fearism, and fearlessness. Fear as a vector in ecocriticism, and literary criticism, ought to take into account a term I coined in the talk, called Egocriticism. It is the combination of Ecocriticism and Egocriticism that I believe will be the better way to go in the future for truly critical analysis that really cuts through. The last 1/2 of the video is made up of questions from the audience and me answering them. 

-enjoy, 

M. 

p.s. If you want my edited version, with me talking about my lecture in commentary, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVpArm2cwPw 

ECOLOGY OF FEAR - Experiments with Predator-Prey Relations

[this is related material to my earlier blog on "Ecology of Fear" and "birding"]

Here is a short article summary in a prestigious journal, The Scientist, -- another e.g., of subtle insidious effects that could have larger impacts than we have imagined before--at least, I am only beginning to imagine how Fear can work in ecological systems--never mind the metaphoric meaning of this research to cultural studies. Here is the short results: 

Looking at the interplay between living organisms and the soil chemistry that in turn supports life, researchers have found that stressed insects die with less nitrogen in their bodies, providing fewer nutrients to the soil and slowing the rate of plant-matter decomposition.  The study, published last week (June 14) in Science, suggests that insect interactions and diversity can have a dramatic impact on the soil fertility, and consequently, on ecosystem health.

“We were interested in bridging two subfields of ecology—organism ecology and biogeochemistry—in a way to make predictions about how food web structure can affect nutrient cycling,” first author Dror Hawlena of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem told Nature.

The researchers housed one set of grasshoppers together with predatory spiders, which had their mouth-anatomy glued shut so that the experimental grasshoppers would not actually be eaten, while another set was housed with no spiders. When the grasshoppers died, the researchers added their decomposing bodies to soil along with leaf litter.  After 3 months, the plant matter in the soil seeded with afraid grasshoppers had decomposed 200 percent less than the plant matter in soil treated with unafraid grasshoppers.

“The traditional view is that plants and microbes are the main players linking the biotic and the abiotic world, but here we have shown that predators can actually regulate microbes by affecting the chemical composition of their own prey,” Hawlena told Nature. 

Extract from http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32228/title/The-Ecology-of-Fear/