Publisher's Synopsis
For readers of Sand Talk, Braiding Sweetgrass, and Sounds Wild and Broken
From the Center for Humans and Nature, publisher of the award-winning anthology series Kinship, comes a new anthology series on the Elementals, a five-volume collection of essays, poetry, and stories that illuminate the dynamic relationships between people and place, human and nonhuman life, mind and the material world, and the living energies that make all life possible.
For millennia, humans have sought to identify and understand the most essential aspects of nature. Of enduring fascination are the four material elements: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. All living beings owe their own existence and well-being to these everlasting movements of matter and flows of energy. Inspired by these powerful categories, the Elementals series asks: What can the vital forces of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire teach us about being human in a more-than-human world?
Elementals explores how people from various cultures across the planet have worked with these powerful forces of change and regeneration to shape landscapes and deepen personal and place-based relationships. More than 90 contributors―including Tyson Yunkaporta, Lyanda Fern Lynn Haupt, Sean Hill, David George Haskell, and Robin Wall Kimmerer―invite readers to consider the ways the elementals flow through our relations with a more-than-human world.
Contents:
- Earth, Vol. 1: Earth is living matter, place, and planet; soil, ground, and home. This volume offers earthy perspectives and elemental paths toward an ethic of interdependence, connection, and care for planet, place, and relations.
- Air, Vol. 2: Infinite and always in motion, constituent of everything, air is unutterably old, and its spirit carries with it the story of everything. This volume, in its creative exploration of this most ethereal yet indispensable of elements, provides breathing room for the imagination to thrive.
- Water, Vol. 3: As a living presence, the circulation and flow of healthy waters make life on Earth possible and defines our very existence. This volume invites us to ponder the traditions, perspectives, and aspirations linked to this vital element.
- Fire, Vol. 4: Fire remains wild, increasingly so today, but its domestication changed the course of human evolution. This volume asks what the many manifestations of fire might be imparting to us now, and how fire may be beckoning us to keep and tend to our elemental relations with care.
- An Elemental Life, Vol. 5: If the elements are kin to one other, then what does it mean to live in kinship with the elements? This volume brings the elements into confluence with one another, exploring diverse practices of what it means to live elementally.
With compelling stories and insightful reflections, Elementals reveals how people are working with, adapting to, and cocreating relational depth and ecological diversity by respectfully attending to the forces that shape our everyday worlds: Earth, Air, Water, Fire.
Proceeds from sales of Elementals benefit the nonprofit, non-partisan Center for Humans and Nature, which partners with those who creatively explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world. The Center brings together philosophers, ecologists, artists, political scientists, anthropologists, poets, and economists, among others, to think creatively about a resilient future for the whole community of life.
