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Chapter 15 - Rocks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2021

By
Paul A. Harris
Edited by
Jeffrey Cohen  and
Stephanie Foote
Jeffrey Cohen
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Stephanie Foote
Affiliation:
West Virginia University
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Summary

This chapter proposes a lithic environmental humanities that explores entanglements where rocks and humans mesh as mutually affective agencies and materialities, and humans are seen as "walking, talking minerals." Situating rocks as a cornerstone of contemporary geohumanities, the chapter engages a range of disciplinary perspectives, from the role of rocks in nature writing and poetry that contest a "whitening of deep time" to an "animaterialist" ecophilosophy’s view of stone as lively matter, from an emerging theory of mineral evolution to a speculative archaeological and neuro-aesthetic view of rock as the originating medium of human symbolic expression. Emphasizing touch and haptic thinking, the chapter combines materialist and mystical relations to rocks, and concludes by presenting a contemporary turn on the ancient art of viewing stone appreciation, conceived as a contemplative practice with rocks.

Keywords

Anthropocenegeohumanitiesdeep timeLife/Nonlifepareidoliapaleoartanimaterialismgeopoetrygeoethicsviewing stones
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Environmental Humanities , pp. 199 - 213
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Farrier, David. Anthropocene Poetics: Deep Time, Sacrifice Zones, and Extinction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gidal, Eric. Ossianic Uncomformities: Bardic Poetry in the Industrial Age. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Gillis, Christine. Writing on Stone: Scenes from a Maine Island Life. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2008.Google Scholar
Harvey, Jake, et al. Stone: A Legacy and Inspiration for Art. London: Black Dog Publications, 2011.Google Scholar
Karman, James, ed., Stones of the Sur; poetry by Robinson Jeffers; photographs by Morley Baer. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Osborne, Roger. The Floating Egg: Episodes in the Making of Geology. London: Jonathan Cape, 1998.Google Scholar
Prothero, Donald R. The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks: Tales of Important Geological Puzzles and the People Who Solved Them. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quasha, George. Axial Stones: An Art of Precarious Balance. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2006.Google Scholar
Smithson, Robert. The Collected Writings, ed. Flam, Jack. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Zalasiewicz, Jan. The Planet in a Pebble. Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar

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  • Rocks
  • Edited by Jeffrey Cohen, Arizona State University, Stephanie Foote, West Virginia University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Environmental Humanities
  • Online publication: 12 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009039369.016
Available formats
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  • Rocks
  • Edited by Jeffrey Cohen, Arizona State University, Stephanie Foote, West Virginia University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Environmental Humanities
  • Online publication: 12 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009039369.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Rocks
  • Edited by Jeffrey Cohen, Arizona State University, Stephanie Foote, West Virginia University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Environmental Humanities
  • Online publication: 12 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009039369.016
Available formats
×