The sea, the sea (Θάλαττα! θάλαττα! Although Rachel Carson is known primarily for her revolutionary monograph, Silent Spring (1962), often credited with stimulating the early environmental movement, she also produced three volumes of nature writing about the sea before this: Under the Sea-Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), and The Edge of the Sea… Continue Reading Rachel Carson’s dark anthropocentrism
Tag: nature
Intelligence is always animal intelligence: on Eugene Linden’s Deep Past (2019)
The basic idea informing the plot of Eugene Linden’s paleontological thriller Deep Past (2019) is neatly summarized in this snatch of dialogue: “Ten thousand years ago humans were just as intelligent as we are today, but our material culture was almost non-existent. Evolution produced human intelligence in the blink of an eye; our material culture… Continue Reading Intelligence is always animal intelligence: on Eugene Linden’s Deep Past (2019)
The roots of creative darkness
(A shorter version of this post can be found at the DePaul University Institute for Nature and Culture‘s website, Environmental Critique. Thanks to Dr. Christine Skolnik for the invitation to contribute.) Introduction At first glance, the three figures under discussion – Algernon Blackwood, Marion Milner, and Friedrich Schelling – seem to form a rather unlikely… Continue Reading The roots of creative darkness