"One of the penalties of an ecological education," wrote Aldo Leopold, "is that one lives alone in a world of wounds." As climate change and other environmental degradations become more evident, experts predict that an increasing number of people will suffer emotional and psychological distress as a result. Many are feeling these effects already. In the pages of Solastalgia, they will find a source of companionship, inspiration, and advice.
The concept of solastalgia comes from the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, who describes it as "the homesickness we feel while still at home." It's the pain and longing we feel as we realize the world immediately around us is changing, with our love for that world serving as a catalyst for action on its behalf.
This powerful anthology brings together thirty-four writers--educators, journalists, poets, and scientists--to share their emotions in the face of environmental crisis. They share their solastalgia, their beloved places, their vulnerability, their stories, their vision of what we can create.
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9780813948843
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication Date: 02-14-2023
Pages: 188
Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 18 Years
About the Author
Paul Bogard is Associate Professor of English at Hamline University and the author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light.
What People are Saying
What People are Saying About This
Scott Slovic
A striking, resonant collection. I can’t think of another anthology of environmental writing that focuses so explicitly and directly on emotional responses to what’s happening—to specific, tangible aspects of what’s typically called 'the Anthropocene.’ Solastalgia succeeds tremendously in richly presenting these varied responses. Taken collectively, the essays are strangely comforting in the sense of community and shared angst and vision they imply.
Kyle Badow
A timely and exciting book full of beautiful, incisive writing, Solastalgia promises to make a substantial addition to the growing body of environmental humanities works on emotional responses to ecological change. As writers continue to engage the pressing issues of global climate change and biodiversity loss, creative nonfiction is uniquely suited to this task of investigating new and emergent emotions.
Toni Jensen
The essays gathered in this collection provide intimate looks at beloved places—the birds and hills, the skies and first snowfalls—even as the places shift and change. It’s brave to write into the vastness of our climate crisis and still understand the role of celebration. These authors offer the full complexity of what it means to love a place while it’s being forever shifted. They provide witness and beauty and a way forward, despite despair.
Britt Wray
With a soul that follows the science, Solastalgia shows us why fully embracing our grief and anger for the earth’s wounds that humans have wrought is a necessary lifeline for becoming whole again in a broken world.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Foreword: From Moping to Solastalgia Acknowledgments Introduction What If She Had Lived? On Elegy Two Hearts, Two Minds Grief and Fire Other Rookeries A Shared Lament Elegy at the Edge of Infinity Blue Whistler of the North The Strangest Sea Memory as Survival What you Studyin': An Environmental Statement A Return to Feeling Rage, Rage Against the Dying Why I Write for Birds The Practice of Anger in a Warming World The Dying Elm A New Word to Describe New Feelings Affirming Abundance Soliphilia in Beaverland Wild Lessons from Poisoned Water Sing Back The Impring Theory of Childhood Eyes of the World Choosing a Different Future How Do You Feel Today? One Path to Solastalgia Step-by-Step Instructions How to Love a Burning World This Will Be On Time Why Turn Inward Just as the Planet Needs Us Most? Smoke, Cracked Corn, and a Helicopter Rescue Fireflies Contributors