Category: anthropocene

New Joint Editor-in-Chief for Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman Announced

Angela Last, Lecturer at the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at the University of Leicester, has joined David Chandler and Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos as joint Editor-in-Chief of the University of Westminster Press journal, Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman.

Dr Last is an interdisciplinary scholar who started off in Fashion, where she became interested in environmental and social justice issues in relation to design. After working outside academia for several years, she subsequently completed a PhD in Geography at the Open University, UK. Her research focuses on human-environment relations, and specifically the politicisation of these relations. This research necessitates continued interdisciplinary work, whether in teaching, research or outreach, and she will bring this experience to her work for Anthropocenes. For example, Angela has been working on environmental sound art events, fashion workshops, and taught on the MA in Art & Science at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London.

Her main aim in joining the journal is to forward the idea of ‘anthropocenes’ as a multiplicity of relations that humans have with their environment, kin, cosmos, or however they frame their relation, and not simply as ‘Anthropocene’ according to the current (still relatively ambiguous) geological interpretation. She notes, ‘the current planetary emergency requires many of our relations to change, which needs urgent discussion, and for this to be as geographically wide as possible.’ While traditional academic journals have some obvious limitations in terms of reach and economics, Dr Last envisages that Anthropocenes can make creative contributions to the debate by staging interdisciplinary conversations and publishing these in a variety of formats.

Anthropocenes is a fully open access journal, with no fees to authors or readers. It launched in 2020 and has readers in over 130 countries. Articles publish as they are ready to avoid delays in making work publicly available, and the journal actively encourages multimedia and non-traditional submissions including creative writing, audio and visual work. The journal is currently open for submissions – find out more at anthropocenes.net. You can follow Angela Last’s work on her blog Mutable Matter.

Migration, mobility and aircraft, sea serpents, deep time, Covid, poetry and Notre Dame de Paris ‘entangled’ – Anthropocenes Journal 2021 contents

Seven new research articles/contributions have been published in UWP’s journal Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman. Journal authors continue to rethink in the words of the editors (about the journal) ‘abstraction, art, architecture, design, governance, ecology, law, politics and discourses of science in the context of human, inhuman and posthuman frameworks’. And this is showcased in an eclectic and uniquely interdisciplinary mix of material published in Vol 2 issue 1 which covers January 2021 to the end of July so far.

See here for the new issue contents for this year and here for 2020.

Readers have enthusiastically responded to the journal’s mix of material that mirrors and interprets the Anthropocene; that have reflected on the significance of eels, ‘sea serpents’, polar bears, invasive insects and human bodies; considered urban, mixed-use, dune, river and post-industrial landscapes; presented material as poetry, audio essays, visual essays, book reviews and creative writing on science. And of course reflected broadly on the key issues of climate change disasters, deep time, culture and the uses of architecture, data aesthetics, frontier technology, hyperobjects, Covid-19 and how to move beyond anthropocentricism.

Anthropocene Islands published to acclaim

A new book exploring the significance of Island Studies for the Anthropocene was published yesterday to advance acclaim, as described in a recent blog posting. As with all University of Westminster Press titles it is available open access.

Anthropocenes Islands: Entangled Worlds was written by Jonathan Pugh and David Chandler.

Acclaim for Anthropocene Islands

‘A must read … In this long-awaited book, [Pugh and Chandler] open up a new analytical agenda for the Anthropocene, coherently drawing out the power of thinking with islands.’ – Elena Burgos Martinez, Leiden University

‘This is an essential book. By thinking with islands, Pugh and Chandler articulate new ontologies and epistemologies to help us understand the relational entanglements of the Anthropocene. The four analytics they propose—Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation, and Storiation—offer both a critical agenda for island studies and compass points through which to navigate the haunting past, troubling present, and precarious future.’ – Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawai’i, Manoa

‘All academic books should be like this: hard to put down. Informative, careful, sometimes devasting, yet absolutely necessary – if you read one book about the Anthropocene let it be this. You will never think of islands in the same way again.’ – Kimberley Peters, University of Oldenburg

‘Makes the compelling case that islands have never been merely geocultural objects of study, but rather, generative conceptual “objects” [for understanding and engaging] the wider, planetary, relational matrix within which the conditions of the Anthropocene era were created.’ – Michelle Stephens, Rutgers University

‘What if we were to start not with the great drama of the world’s falling apart, but with a myriad of smaller stories of its coming together? … a unique journey into the Anthropocene. Critical, generous and compelling’. – Nigel Clark, Lancaster University

‘Replete with “aha!” and “huh!” moments, this book offers insights for all of us … who may not have recognised … the value of “thinking with” islands more purposively.’ – Lauren Rickards, RMIT University

‘ … a must-read … elucidates novel understandings of islands not only as patches of intensified Anthropocene proliferation, but as sites to examine the intricate relationships between life, matter, and meaning in a changing world.’ – Adam Searle, University of Cambridge

‘Anthropocene Islands establishes Pugh and Chandler as two critical and agenda-setting thinkers within island scholarship … [It] cogently argues that islands have become emblematic figures of the Anthropocene and are moreover influencing the manner in which Anthropocene thinking is developing. … a timely and essential contribution …’ – Adam Grydehøj, Editor-in-Chief, Island Studies Journal

The University of Westminster Press is the publisher of the journal Anthropocenes: Human, Inhuman, Posthuman

Anthropocene Islands – forthcoming title

Anthropocene Islands – forthcoming title

UWP are pleased to announce they are to publish a new book exploring the ‘Entangled Worlds’ of Anthropocene Islands by Jonathan Pugh and David Chandler. UWP is the publisher of the journal, Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman.

ANTHROPOCENE ISLANDS: ENTANGLED WORLDS
The island has become a key figure of the Anthropocene – an epoch in which human entanglements with nature come increasingly to the fore. For a long time islands were romanticised or marginalised, seen as lacking modernity’s capacities for progress, vulnerable to the effects of catastrophic climate change and the afterlives of empire and coloniality. Today, however, the island is increasingly important for both policy-oriented and critical imaginaries that seek, more positively, to draw upon the island’s liminal and disruptive capacities, especially the relational entanglements and sensitivities its peoples and modes of life are said to exhibit.

Anthropocene Islands: Entangled Worlds explores the significant and widespread shift to working with islands for the generation of new or alternative approaches to knowledge, critique and policy practices. It explains how contemporary Anthropocene thinking takes a particular interest in islands as ‘entangled worlds’, which break down the human/nature divide of modernity and enable the generation of new or alternative approaches to ways of being (ontology) and knowing (epistemology). The book draws out core analytics which have risen to prominence (Resilience, Patchworks, Correlation and Storiation) as contemporary policy makers, scholars, critical theorists, artists, poets and activists work with islands to move beyond the constraints of modern approaches. In doing so, it argues that with engaging islands has become increasingly important for the generation of some of the core frameworks of contemporary thinking and concludes with a new critical agenda for the Anthropocene.

CONTENTS
Preface
1: There Are Only Islands After the End of the World
2: Resilience: The Power of Interactive Life
3: Patchworks: The Ontology of the World
4: Correlation: Registers of Change
5: Storiation: Holding the World
6: Conclusion: A Critical Agenda for the Anthropocene
References |Index | 196 pp

JONATHAN PUGH is Reader in Island Studies, University of Newcastle, UK. He is the author of over 70 publications developing relational thinking with islands and, more recently, the figure of the island in the Anthropocene. He leads the ‘Anthropocene Islands’ initiative Anthropocene Islands: https://www.anthropoceneislands.online.

DAVID CHANDLER is Professor of International Relations, University of Westminster. He edits the journal Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman. His recent books include Becoming Indigenous: Governing Imaginaries in the Anthropocene (2019) and Ontopolitics in the Anthropocene: An Introduction to Mapping, Sensing and Hacking (2018).

Island Studies| Anthropocene Studies | Human Geography | Environmental Philosophy

FORTHCOMING 9 JUNE 2021
Format paperback 978-1-914386-00-8 229 x 152mm UK £17.99. US $22.95. EUR €20
Format ebook E-book, PDF free from http://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books PDF 978-1-914386-01-5 ePub 978-1-914386-02-2 Kindle 978-1-914386-03-9
DOI: 10.16997/book52 (active on publication)

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