Inhuman Nature

Gathering into lively conversation scholars in medieval, early modern and object studies, Inhuman Nature explores the activity of the things, forces, and relations that enable, sustain and operate indifferently to us. Enamored by fictions of environmental sovereignty, we too often imagine "human" to be a solitary category of being. This collection of essays maps the heterogeneous and asymmetrical ecologies within which we are enmeshed, a material world that makes the human possible but also offers difficulties and resistance. Among the topics explored are the futurity that inheres in storms and wrecks, wood that resists its burning or offers art and dwelling, hymns that implant themselves like viruses, the ontology of everyday objects, the seep and flow of substance, the resistant nature of matter, the dependence of community upon making things public, and the interstices at which nature and culture become inseparable. Tinker as you will. TABLE OF CONTENTS // Jeffrey Jerome Cohen - Introduction: Ecostitial / Steve Mentz - Shipwreck / Anne Harris - Hewn / Alan Montroso - Human / Valerie Allen - Matter / Lowell Duckert - Recreation / Alfred Kentigern Siewers - Trees / James Smith - Fluid / Ian Bogost - Inhuman

Gathering into lively conversation scholars in medieval, early modern and object studies, Inhuman Nature explores the activity of the things, forces, and relations that enable, sustain and operate indifferently to us. Enamored by fictions of environmental sovereignty, we too often imagine "human" to be a solitary category of being. This collection of essays maps the heterogeneous and asymmetrical ecologies within which we are enmeshed, a material world that makes the human possible but also offers difficulties and resistance. Among the topics explored are the futurity that inheres in storms and wrecks, wood that resists its burning or offers art and dwelling, hymns that implant themselves like viruses, the ontology of everyday objects, the seep and flow of substance, the resistant nature of matter, the dependence of community upon making things public, and the interstices at which nature and culture become inseparable. Tinker as you will. TABLE OF CONTENTS // Jeffrey Jerome Cohen - Introduction: Ecostitial / Steve Mentz - Shipwreck / Anne Harris - Hewn / Alan Montroso - Human / Valerie Allen - Matter / Lowell Duckert - Recreation / Alfred Kentigern Siewers - Trees / James Smith - Fluid / Ian Bogost - Inhuman

The relationship between social thought and earth processes is an oddly neglected part of the social sciences. This exciting book offers to make good the deficit by exploring how human activity and planetary processes impact upon each other. The book: * Provides a much needed in-depth inquiry into the volatile relationship between human life and the physical earth * Considers the social and political implications of consistently thinking of the earth as a dynamic planet * Asks what we can learn from natural catastrophes and from those who have lived through them * Offers an inter-disciplinary perspective bringing together insights from sociology, geography, philosophy and earth / life sciences. The result is a landmark work that will be of interest to readers across the social sciences and humanities as well as environmental studies and disaster studies.

The relationship between social thought and earth processes is an oddly neglected part of the social sciences. This exciting book offers to make good the deficit by exploring how human activity and planetary processes impact upon each other. The book: * Provides a much needed in-depth inquiry into the volatile relationship between human life and the physical earth * Considers the social and political implications of consistently thinking of the earth as a dynamic planet * Asks what we can learn from natural catastrophes and from those who have lived through them * Offers an inter-disciplinary perspective bringing together insights from sociology, geography, philosophy and earth / life sciences. The result is a landmark work that will be of interest to readers across the social sciences and humanities as well as environmental studies and disaster studies.