Mourning in the Anthropocene: Ecological Grief and Earthly Coexistence - Paperback

by Joshua Trey Barnett (Author)

Enormous ecological losses and profound planetary transformations mean that ours is a time to grieve beyond the human. Yet, Joshua Trey Barnett argues in this eloquent and urgent book, our capacity to grieve for more-than-human others is neither natural nor inevitable. Weaving together personal narratives, theoretical meditations, and insightful readings of cultural artifacts, he suggests that ecological grief is best understood as a rhetorical achievement. As a collection of worldmaking practices, rhetoric makes things matter, bestows value, directs attention, generates knowledge, and foments feelings. By dwelling on three rhetorical practices--naming, archiving, and making visible--Barnett shows how they prepare us to grieve past, present, and future ecological losses. Simultaneously diagnostic and prescriptive, this book reveals rhetorical practices that set our ecological grief into motion and illuminates pathways to more connected, caring earthly coexistence.

Author Biography

JOSHUA TREY BARNETT is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, where he holds a joint appointment at the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. The National Communication Association's Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division honored Barnett with its 2021 Early Career Award for outstanding scholarly contributions.