Indra's Net and the Midas Touch

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262297973
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis Indra's Net and the Midas Touch by : Leslie Paul Thiele

Download or read book Indra's Net and the Midas Touch written by Leslie Paul Thiele and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the impact of unintended consequences in an interdependent world and of the opportunities for creativity and community. We live today in a global web of interdependence, connected technologically, economically, politically, and socially. As a result of these expanding and deepening interdependencies, it has become impossible fully to control—or foretell—the effects of our actions. The world is rife with unintended consequences. The first law of human ecology—which declares that we can never do merely one thing—is a truth we ignore at our peril. In Indra's Net and the Midas Touch, Leslie Paul Thiele explores the impact of interdependence and unintended consequences on our pursuit of sustainability. Unfortunately, good intentions provide no antidote to the law of unintended consequences, and proffered cures often prove worse than the disease. Biofuels developed for the purpose of reducing carbon emissions, for example, have had the unintended effect of cutting off food supplies to the needy and destroying rain forests. We must fundamentally transform our patterns of thinking and behavior. Thiele offers the intellectual and moral foundations for this transformation, drawing from ecology, ethics, technology, economics, politics, psychology, physics, and metaphysics. Awareness of our interconnectedness, he writes, stimulates creativity and community; it is a profound responsibility and a blessing beyond measure.

Ending the Fossil Fuel Era

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262028808
Total Pages : 387 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Ending the Fossil Fuel Era by : Thomas Princen

Download or read book Ending the Fossil Fuel Era written by Thomas Princen and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative call for delegitimizing fossil fuels rather than accommodating them, accompanied by case studies from Ecuador to Appalachia and from Germany to Norway.Not so long ago, people North and South had little reason to believe that wealth from oil, gas, and coal brought anything but great prosperity. But the presumption of net benefits from fossil fuels is eroding as widening circles of people rich and poor experience the downside.A positive transition to a post-fossil fuel era cannot wait for global agreement, a swap-in of renewables, a miracle technology, a carbon market, or lifestyle change. This book shows that it is now possible to take the first step toward the post-fossil fuel era, by resisting the slow violence of extreme extraction and combustion, exiting the industry, and imagining a good life after fossil fuels. It shows how an environmental politics of transition might occur, arguing for going to the source rather than managing byproducts, for delegitimizing fossil fuels rather than accommodating them, for engaging a politics of deliberately choosing a post-fossil fuel world. Six case studies reveal how individuals, groups, communities, and an entire country have taken first steps out of the fossil fuel era, with experiments that range from leaving oil under the Amazon to ending mountaintop removal in Appalachia.

In an Inescapable Network of Mutuality

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Author :
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1610974344
Total Pages : 409 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis In an Inescapable Network of Mutuality by : Lewis V. Baldwin

Download or read book In an Inescapable Network of Mutuality written by Lewis V. Baldwin and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2013-08-30 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The scholarship on Martin Luther King Jr. has too often cast him in the image of the Southern black preacher and the American Gandhi, while ignoring or trivializing his global connections and significance. This groundbreaking work, written by scholars, religious leaders, and activists of different backgrounds, addresses this glaring pattern of neglect in King studies. King is treated here as both a global figure and a forerunner of much of what is currently associated with contemporary globalization theory and praxis. The contributors to this volume agree that King must be understood not only as a thinker, visionary, and social change agent in his own historical context, but also in terms of his meaning for the different generations who still appeal to him as an authority, inspiration, and model of exemplary service to humanity. The task of engaging King both in context and beyond context is fulfilled in remarkable ways in this volume, without doing essential violence to this phenomenal figure.

Eco-Teen Films

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Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040127819
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Eco-Teen Films by : Robin L. Murray

Download or read book Eco-Teen Films written by Robin L. Murray and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-09-06 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminating the impacts of environmental disasters and climate crises globally, this book examines the experiences of teens grappling with eco-disasters and issues in films of the twenty-first century. With an emphasis on teen activism, international settings and filmmakers, and marginalized perspectives, this book showcases teens on film that are struggling with present and future everyday eco-disasters amplified by climate change. By highlighting and interrogating diverse genres of teen films in which young adults encounter, address, and battle environmental issues and calamities while also struggling with adolescent development, this book acknowledges the young adult point of view missing from most critical ecocinema research and underlines connections between the more complex ‘coming-of-age’ themes found in teen films with ecocinema themes and approaches. The films examined navigate increasingly realistic conditions, even in fantastical settings, as they showcase teens’ relationships with and responses to environmental issues and eco-disasters. Emphasizing teen activism and under-represented intersectional perspectives outside Hollywood, it establishes the eco-teen film as a notable subgenre. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of film studies, ecocriticism, and environmental studies, especially those with a particular interest in ecocinema and/or ecocritical readings of films.

Ambient Rhetoric

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Author :
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822978695
Total Pages : 362 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Ambient Rhetoric by : Thomas J. Rickert

Download or read book Ambient Rhetoric written by Thomas J. Rickert and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2013-05-10 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ambient Rhetoric, Thomas Rickert seeks to dissolve the boundaries of the rhetorical tradition and its basic dichotomy of subject and object. With the advent of new technologies, new media, and the dispersion of human agency through external information sources, rhetoric can no longer remain tied to the autonomy of human will and cognition as the sole determinants in the discursive act. Rickert develops the concept of ambience in order to engage all of the elements that comprise the ecologies in which we exist. Culling from Martin Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology in Being and Time, Rickert finds the basis for ambience in Heidegger's assertion that humans do not exist in a vacuum; there is a constant and fluid relation to the material, informational, and emotional spaces in which they dwell. Hence, humans are not the exclusive actors in the rhetorical equation; agency can be found in innumerable things, objects, and spaces. As Rickert asserts, it is only after we become attuned to these influences that rhetoric can make a first step toward sufficiency. Rickert also recalls the foundational Greek philosophical concepts of kairos (time), chora (space/place), and periechon (surroundings) and cites their repurposing by modern and postmodern thinkers as "informational scaffolding" for how we reason, feel, and act. He discusses contemporary theory in cognitive science, rhetoric, and object-oriented philosophy to expand his argument for the essentiality of ambience to the field of rhetoric. Rickert then examines works of ambient music that incorporate natural and artificial sound, spaces, and technologies, finding them to be exemplary of a more fully resonant and experiential media. In his preface, Rickert compares ambience to the fermenting of wine—how its distinctive flavor can be traced to innumerable factors, including sun, soil, water, region, and grape variety. The environment and company with whom it's consumed further enhance the taste experience. And so it should be with rhetoric—to be considered among all of its influences. As Rickert demonstrates, the larger world that we inhabit (and that inhabits us) must be fully embraced if we are to advance as beings and rhetors within it.

The Metaphysics of Technology

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134757352
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (347 download)

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Book Synopsis The Metaphysics of Technology by : David Skrbina

Download or read book The Metaphysics of Technology written by David Skrbina and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-25 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is technology? Why does it have such power in our lives? Why does it seemingly progress of its own accord, and without regard to social or environmental well-being? The quest for the essence of technology is an old one, with roots in the pre-Socratic philosophy of ancient Greece. It was then that certain thinkers first joined the ideas of technê and logos into a single worldview. The Greeks saw it as a kind of world-force, present in both the works of men and in nature itself. It was the very creative power of the cosmos. In the 20th century, German thinkers like Dessauer, Juenger, and Heidegger sought the metaphysical basis of technology, with varying success. French theologian Jacques Ellul argued persuasively that technology was an autonomous force of nature that determined all aspects of human existence, but he neglected the metaphysical underpinnings. Recent writers in the philosophy of technology have generally eschewed metaphysics altogether, preferring to concentrate on constructivist models or pragmatic analyses. In the present work, Skrbina returns to a classic metaphysical approach, seeking not so much an essence of technology but rather a deep and penetrating analysis of the entire technological phenomenon. Drawing on the Greeks, he argues for a teleological metaphysics in which increasing order in the universe is itself defined as a technological process. On this reading, all of reality constitutes a technical sphere, a "pantechnikon," of universal scope. This work — the first-ever book-length treatment of the topic — breaks new ground by providing an in-depth and critical study of the metaphysics of technology, as well as drawing out the practical consequences. Technology poses significant risks to humanity and the planet, risks that can be mitigated through a detailed philosophical analysis.

Education, Sustainability and the Ecological Social Imaginary

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319744429
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (197 download)

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Book Synopsis Education, Sustainability and the Ecological Social Imaginary by : Jeff Buckles

Download or read book Education, Sustainability and the Ecological Social Imaginary written by Jeff Buckles and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-23 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the evidence for global change, and suggests that the Earth is going through a profound transformation, caused in large part by human action. Land, oceans, polar regions and the atmosphere are all being deeply affected by the human population's lifestyle: what should the educational response be to these various aspects of global change? To answer this, the values of an ecological response are developed, leading to the notion of an 'Ecological Social Imaginary', which looks at how humans can change their way of living to one that is more in harmony with the planet that they live on and depend upon. To enable this, an ecological form of education, Connective Education, is proposed. This focuses on how the human and natural world can be connected for the benefit of humankind and all living and non-living entities, joining head, hand, heart and spirit to the web of life. It is argued that through Connective Education, a particular type of person is formed: one who is able to take their place in the human and natural world, and in this way truly connect with their planet. The book will be essential reading for those working in the fields of Education and Environmental Studies.

Climate and Culture

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108422500
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Climate and Culture by : Giuseppe Feola

Download or read book Climate and Culture written by Giuseppe Feola and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses how culture both facilitates and inhibits our ability to address, live with, and make sense of climate change.

Monstrous Nature

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Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 0803294905
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis Monstrous Nature by : Robin L. Murray

Download or read book Monstrous Nature written by Robin L. Murray and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Godzilla, a traditional natural monster and representation of cinema's subgenre of natural attack, also provides a cautionary symbol of the dangerous consequences of mistreating the natural world--monstrous nature on the attack. Horror films such as Godzilla invite an exploration of the complexities of a monstrous nature that humanity both creates and embodies. Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann demonstrate how the horror film and its offshoots can often be understood in relation to a monstrous nature that has evolved either deliberately or by accident and that generates fear in humanity as both character and audience. This connection between fear and the natural world opens up possibilities for ecocritical readings often missing from research on monstrous nature, the environment, and the horror film. Organized in relation to four recurring environmental themes in films that construct nature as a monster--anthropomorphism, human ecology, evolution, and gendered landscapes--the authors apply ecocritical perspectives to reveal the multiple ways nature is constructed as monstrous or in which the natural world itself constructs monsters. This interdisciplinary approach to film studies fuses cultural, theological, and scientific critiques to explore when and why nature becomes monstrous.

Ideals and Ideologies

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317347692
Total Pages : 492 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Ideals and Ideologies by : Terence Ball

Download or read book Ideals and Ideologies written by Terence Ball and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-01-08 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader, 9/e, is a comprehensive compilation of original readings representing all of the major 'isms'.It offers students a generous sampling of key thinkers in different ideological traditions and places them in their historical and political contexts. Used on its own or with Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal, the title accounts for the different ways people use ideology and conveys the ongoing importance of ideas in politics.

Ecocinema in the City

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351398245
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis Ecocinema in the City by : Robin L. Murray

Download or read book Ecocinema in the City written by Robin L. Murray and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ecocinema in the City, Murray and Heumann argue that urban ecocinema both reveals and critiques visions of urban environmentalism. The book emphasizes the increasingly transformative power of nature in urban settings, explored in both documentaries and fictional films such as Children Underground, White Dog, Hatari! and Lives Worth Living. The first two sections—"Evolutionary Myths Under the City" and "Urban Eco-trauma"—take more traditional ecocinema approaches and emphasize the city as a dangerous constructed space. The last two sections—"Urban Nature and Interdependence" and "The Sustainable City"—however, bring to life the vibrant relationships between human and nonhuman nature. Ecocinema in the City provides a space to explore these relationships, revealing how ecocinema shows that both human and nonhuman nature can interact sustainably and thrive.

Motivating Change: Sustainable Design and Behaviour in the Built Environment

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135043841
Total Pages : 553 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis Motivating Change: Sustainable Design and Behaviour in the Built Environment by : Robert Crocker

Download or read book Motivating Change: Sustainable Design and Behaviour in the Built Environment written by Robert Crocker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-24 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today’s most pressing challenges require behaviour change at many levels, from the city to the individual. This book focuses on the collective influences that can be seen to shape change. Exploring the underlying dimensions of behaviour change in terms of consumption, media, social innovation and urban systems, the essays in this book are from many disciplines, including architecture, urban design, industrial design and engineering, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, waste management and public policy. Aimed especially at designers and architects, Motivating Change explores the diversity of current approaches to change, and the multiple ways in which behaviour can be understood as an enactment of values and beliefs, standards and habitual practices in daily life, and more broadly in the urban environment.

Sustainability: The Basics

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000332403
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Sustainability: The Basics by : Peter Jacques

Download or read book Sustainability: The Basics written by Peter Jacques and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainability is a pressing concern for people and governments around the world, but it is also an essentially contested concept that requires an understanding of the stakes, trade-offs, and complex politics at play. Sustainability: The Basics offers an accessible and interdisciplinary introduction to the concept, and discusses key questions such as: What are the core principles of sustainability? What are the key ethical considerations for questions of sustainability? How do we measure sustainability? What are the critical obstacles to achieving global sustainability? What happens when societies fail to observe principles of sustainability? Fully updated in its second edition, Sustainability: The Basics now includes coverage of the Sustainable Development Goals, a global range of case studies and explores the complex social dynamics of Earth system changes that affect our critical life supports. The second edition also proposes a new, "sustainable humanism" that animates much of our work to make a better, more humane world. As the world reels from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, this book is an ideal starting point for anyone who wants to know more about what we need to do to sustain civilization, humanity, and the world we live in.

Media, Sustainability and Everyday Life

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137534699
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (375 download)

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Book Synopsis Media, Sustainability and Everyday Life by : Geoffrey Craig

Download or read book Media, Sustainability and Everyday Life written by Geoffrey Craig and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses representations of sustainable everyday life across advertising, eco-reality television, newspapers, magazines and social media. It foregrounds the discursive and networked basis of sustainability and demonstrates how such media representations connect the home and local community to broader political, social and economic contexts. The book shows how green lifestyle media negotiate issues of sustainability in varying ways, reproducing the logic of existing consumer society while also sometimes providing projections of a more environmentally friendly existence. In this way, the book argues that everyday lifestyles are not an irredeemable problem for environmentalism but an important site of environmental politics.

The Virtues of Sustainability

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190919817
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

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Book Synopsis The Virtues of Sustainability by : Jason Kawall

Download or read book The Virtues of Sustainability written by Jason Kawall and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With a growing recognition of the potentially catastrophic impacts of human actions on current and future generations, people around the world are urgently seeking new, sustainable ways of life for themselves and their communities. What do these calls for a sustainable future mean for our current values and ways of life, and what kind of people will we need to become? Approaches to ethical living that emphasize good character and virtue are recently resurgent, and especially well-suited to addressing the challenges we face in pursuing sustainability. From rethinking excessive consumption, to appropriately respecting nature, to being resilient in the face of environmental injustice, our characters will be frequently tested. The virtues of sustainability - character traits enabling us to lead sustainable, flourishing lives - will be critical to our success. This volume, divided into three sections, brings together newly-commissioned essays by leading scholars from multiple disciplines - from philosophy and political science, to religious studies and psychology. The essays in the first section focus on key factors and structures that support the cultivation of the virtues of sustainability, while those in the second focus in particular on virtues embraced by various non-Western communities and cultures, and the worldviews that underlie them. Finally, the essays in the third section each address further particular virtues of sustainability, including cooperativeness, patience, conscientiousness, and creativity and open-mindedness. Together, these essays provide readers with a rich understanding of the importance and diversity of the virtues of sustainability, and practical guidance towards their cultivation and effective application"--

Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030202879
Total Pages : 481 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (32 download)

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Book Synopsis Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems by : Robert J. Sternberg

Download or read book Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems written by Robert J. Sternberg and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-03 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents perspectives from world experts in the field of wisdom studies to propose how wisdom can provide the foundation upon which solutions to social and global problems can be grounded. The authors argue that where society has come to rely on leaders with skills relating to knowledge and intelligence; instead we should focus on wisdom-based acumen for our leaders in government, business, and the military. In this book the authors offer evidence-based definitions of wisdom and apply these to world problems they believe could potentially be solved using wise solutions. Among the case studies confronted are terrorism and war, poverty and economic disparity, climate change, increasing antibiotic resistance and political corruption. Focusing on the cognitive, social and emotional processes involved in everyday decision-making, this book presents a compelling argument for the application of wise problem-solving to complex world issues that will appeal in particular to those in leadership, teaching and policy roles, and open new pathways in the fields of wisdom-studies, psychology, sociology and political theory.

Storied Deserts

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040044689
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Storied Deserts by : Celina Osuna

Download or read book Storied Deserts written by Celina Osuna and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-28 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Storied Deserts makes a crucial and critical intervention in the field of environmental humanities by showcasing an emerging body of research on desert places from around the world. Deserts, despite dominant stereotypes of wasteland and barrenness, are culturally and ecologically abundant places. This edited volume sets out to reimagine the world’s desert places and the very concept of "the desert" itself, taking a boldly interdisciplinary and multicultural approach. Authors engage in literary ecocriticism and ecopoetics, film and visual studies, critical theory, personal and transdisciplinary reflection, creative practices, and historical scholarship. Through their diverse range of perspectives, contributors show how arid lands have been and can be understood as sites of narrative production, places where signs and imaginaries are born from the materialities of space and entanglement. In this way, this volume highlights how the storied matter of the Earth’s deserts informs lived realities, environmental histories, cinematic and literary imaginaries, political conflicts, and even intellectual categories such as "the human" and "the elemental". Ultimately, this book shows that reimagining desert places can help us to grapple with the epochal challenges of the Anthropocene. It is an important and engaging collection for scholars and students across disciplines that helps establish the value of desert humanities.