Materiality of Air

Image coming soon

Extent: 194 pages

Publisher: University of Exeter Press

Subjects: Earth & Life Sciences , Medieval Studies

Language: English

Paperback (Cancelled)

ISBN: 9781580445429

6.1 x 9.17 inches

Price: $50.00

Out of stock

Exploring air, airborne phenomena, and elemental representation, this
book dissects the materiality of air, which comes to the fore ever more
vigorously given the ongoing environmental and health crises.
Understanding air’s materiality is essential to outlining clear
solutions to the current challenges and to generating new meanings of
what constitutes an environmentally safe and healthy future. The dual
nature of air makes it a rich field for metaphor and a potent subject to
think with: as space that contains and engages with other elements,
particles, and beings; and as matter that moves, envelopes, and
penetrates objects, spaces, and time.

Each chapter offers new perspectives on air’s material qualities,
treating air as a literal and figurative element that provides an
important lens on climate change, toxicity, pollution, capitalism,
violence, and transmission, among other issues. The volume also
highlights future directions for engaging with the all-important medium
of air.

This edited collection responds to the growing scientific and
scholarly explorations of elements and the elemental, as well as the
complex environmental, sociopolitical, economic, and cultural issues
that emerge through these elements. Bringing together experts from the
environmental humanities, health humanities, cultural studies, literary
studies, art, and history, the chapters consider the intricate
relationships between humans, more-than-humans, and the environment more
broadly.



Introduction: Elemental, Material, and Representational Air Tatiana Konrad

1. Breathing Violence: Airborne Plastics, Materiality, and Anthropogenic Harm Savannah Schaufler

2. Firewood: Carbon-Neutral Fuel, or Threat to Human Health? Gordon M. Sayre

3. Survival of the Most Collaborative: Climate Justice as a Logics for Flows of Air Sheena Wilson

4. A Microbiological Menace: Killer Spores and Toxic Pollen in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction Natalie Dederichs

5. Estranging Air in Ted Chiang’s “Exhalation” Brent Ryan Bellamy

6. Thinking over the Airwaves: Immediate Connection in Geoff Ryman’s Air and Tade Thompson’s The Wormwood Trilogy Arthur Rose

7. A Deep, Slow, Strenuous Breath: Art in the Shadows of Capitalist World-Ecologies Raphaelle Occhietti

8. Creative Writing: On Air Davina Quinlivan