Nature as Resource, Aesthetic Experience, and Ecological Challenge

Approaching concepts of nature through a multidisciplinary lens, Nature as Resource, Aesthetic Experience, and Ecological Challenge assembles essays by scholars from the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Bringing together perspectives in philosophy, theology, literary studies, cultural ecology, art history, and the bio-sciences, the volume engages with crucial concerns regarding perceptions of nature in the Anthropocene and the increasing social and ethnic inequalities in the wake of environmental damage. The essays address aesthetic and ethical questions about nature, providing novel perspectives on representations of nature in literature and the visual and performative arts. They investigate nature as threatened by human interference and resulting issues of social (in)justice, and they explore the potential of decolonial approaches to nature. The volume treads new ground by combining expertise from a wide spectrum of research fields and cultural backgrounds, with the aim of fostering the development of new ethical principles and ways of planetary thinking. It thus adds an innovative perspective to existing discourses on ecologically sustainable forms of coexistence between human and nonhuman – or more-than-human – nature.

Author Biography

Herta Nagl-Docekal, University of Vienna, Austria; Maria Löschnigg, University of Graz, Austria.