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Description

The Green Thread: Dialogues with the Vegetal World is an interdisciplinary collection of essays in the emerging field of Plant Studies. The volume is the first of its kind to bring together a dynamic body of scholarship that shares a critique of long-standing human perceptions of plants as lacking autonomy, agency, consciousness, and, intelligence.

The leading metaphor of the book—“the green thread”, echoing poet Dylan Thomas’ phrase “the green fuse”—carries multiple meanings. On a more apparent level, “the green thread” is what weaves together the diverse approaches of this collection: an interest in the vegetal that goes beyond single disciplines and specialist discourses, and one that not only encourages but necessitates interdisciplinary and even interspecies dialogue. On another level, “the green thread” links creative and historical productions to the materiality of the vegetal—a reality reflecting our symbiosis with oxygen-producing beings. In short, The Green Thread refers to the conversations about plants that transcend strict disciplinary boundaries as well as to the possibility of dialogue with plants.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Patrícia Vieira, Monica Gagliano and John C. Ryan

Section I. Disseminating Plants
Chapter 1. What's Planted in the Event? On the Secret Life of a Philosophical Concept, Michael Marder
Chapter 2. Seeing Green: The Re-discovery of Plants and Nature's Wisdom, Monica Gagliano
Chapter 3. Tolkien's Sonic Trees and Perfumed Herbs: Plant Intelligence in Middle-earth, John Charles Ryan
Chapter 4. What's Talking? On the Nostalgic Epistemology of Plant Communication, Stefan Rieger
Chapter 5. “Wild Memory” as an Anthropocene Heuristic: Cultivating Ethical Paradigms for Galleries, Museums, and Seed Banks, Tom Bristow

Section II. Politicizing Plants
Chapter 6. Preserving Plants in an Era of Extinction: Sentimental and Scientific Discourse in Mary Thacher Higginson's “A Dying Race”, Jennifer Schell
Chapter 7. Laws of the Jungle: The Politics of Contestation in Cinema about the Amazon, Patrícia Vieira
Chapter 8. Monstrous Flora: Dangerous Cinematic Plants of the Cold War Era, Andrew Howe
Chapter

Product details

Published Dec 24 2015
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 306
ISBN 9781498510608
Imprint Lexington Books
Illustrations 19 b/w photos;
Series Ecocritical Theory and Practice
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Patrícia Vieira

Anthology Editor

Monica Gagliano

Anthology Editor

John Charles Ryan

Contributor

Tom Bristow

Contributor

Pansy Duncan

Contributor

Andrew Howe

Contributor

Michael Marder

Contributor

Alan Read

Contributor

Stefan Rieger

Contributor

Jennifer Schell

Contributor

Hannah Stark

Contributor

Graig Uhlin

Contributor

Florian Weil

Contributor

Gioia Woods

ONLINE RESOURCES

Bloomsbury Collections

This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.

Related Titles

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