Mourning in the Anthropocene

Ecological Grief and Earthly Coexistence

by Joshua Trey Barnett

Published by: Michigan State University Press

Imprint: Michigan State University Press

Publishing Date: 2022-08-01

272 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

  • Paperback
  • 9781611864342
  • Published: August 2022

$35.95

BUY
  • EPUB
  • 9781628954722
  • Published: August 2022

$35.95

BUY
  • PDF
  • 9781609177041
  • Published: August 2022

$35.95

BUY

Other Retailers:

Description

Enormous ecological losses and profound planetary transformations mean that ours is a time to grieve beyond the human. Yet, Joshua Trey Barnett argues in this eloquent and urgent book, our capacity to grieve for more-than-human others is neither natural nor inevitable. Weaving together personal narratives, theoretical meditations, and insightful readings of cultural artifacts, he suggests that ecological grief is best understood as a rhetorical achievement. As a collection of worldmaking practices, rhetoric makes things matter, bestows value, directs attention, generates knowledge, and foments feelings. By dwelling on three rhetorical practices—naming, archiving, and making visible—Barnett shows how they prepare us to grieve past, present, and future ecological losses. Simultaneously diagnostic and prescriptive, this book reveals rhetorical practices that set our ecological grief into motion and illuminates pathways to more connected, caring earthly coexistence.

Authors

Praise