02548nas a2200337   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002653001200043653001700055653001300072653001900085653001600104653003000120653001500150653001900165653001100184653002300195653001900218653002000237653001700257653001800274653001600292653002400308100001900332245013400351856011800485300000900603490000700612520157100619022002002190                                       d10aanimism10aAnthropocene10aCovid-1910aClimate change10aCoronavirus10aHuman-nature relationship10aLife-world10aMiyazaki Hayao10aNature10aPostmodern animism10aShinkai Makoto10aSpiritual-world10aSpirituality10aStudio Ghibli10aTenki no Ko10aWeathering with You1 aShoko Yoneyama00aRethinking Human-Nature Relationships in the Time of Coronavirus: Postmodern Animism in Films by Miyazaki Hayao \& Shinkai Makoto  uhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85096403684&partnerID=40&md5=e9c7bb84f9c83e6f9359258d4f376c09  a1-160 v183 aIssues we are confronted with in the age of the Anthropocene, such as climate change, exti ncti on, and the coronavi rus pandemic demand a fundamental rethink of human-nature relationships, but at the same time we are faced with a ‘crisis of imagination’, which is highlighted by the paucity of stories or narratives that enable us to fully engage with these issues. We have a ‘climate crisis’ as well as a ‘crisis of culture’ and both derive from the same source: epistemological limitations in the paradigm of modernity. The most problematic limitation is the fact that our social scientific knowledge has blind spots when it comes to nature and spirituality which makes it almost impossible for us to rethink human-nature relationships in a meaningful way. Miyazaki Hayao and Shinkai Makoto, however, directly illuminate these blind spots by making nature and spi ri tuali ty central features in thei r a ni ma t i o n f i l ms . Thi s o pe ns up ne w epistemological and ontological spaces in the hearts and minds of a global audience, making it possible to imagine something new. And that ‘something new’ is ‘postmodern animism’ which emerged from the fusion of a critique of modernity with the intangible cultural heritage of grassroots Japan. Postmodern animism is a philosophy that sees nature as a combination of the life-world and the spiritual-world thus enabling us to engage with climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic in a radically different way. It helps us to conceive a new paradigm that is more suitable for the Anthropocene.  a15574660 (ISSN)