Exposed

Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times

2016
Author:

Stacy Alaimo

A bold call to approach environmentalism from the inside out

Exposed calls for an environmental stance in which, rather than operating from an externalized perspective, we think, feel, and act as the very stuff of the world. Stacy Alaimo puts scientists, activists, artists, writers, and theorists in conversation, revealing that the state of the planet in the twenty-first century has radically transformed ethics, politics, and what it means to be human.

Accessibly written, lucidly argued, and capacious in its ambit, there is so much in this book to savor, to be inspired by, and to provoke.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, author of Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

Opening with the statement “The anthropocene is no time to set things straight,” Stacy Alaimo puts forth potent arguments for a material feminist posthumanism in the chapters that follow.

From trans-species art and queer animals to naked protesting and scientific accounts of fishy humans, Exposed argues for feminist posthumanism immersed in strange agencies and scale-shifting ethics. Including such divergent topics as landscape art, ocean ecologies, and plastic activism, Alaimo explores our environmental predicaments to better understand feminist occupations of transcorporeal subjectivity.

She puts scientists, activists, artists, writers, and theorists in conversation, revealing that the state of the planet in the twenty-first century has radically transformed ethics, politics, and what it means to be human. Ultimately, Exposed calls for an environmental stance in which, rather than operating from an externalized perspective, we think, feel, and act as the very stuff of the world.

Stacy Alaimo is professor of English and director of the environmental and sustainability studies minor at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is author of Undomesticated Ground and Bodily Natures, editor of Matter, and coeditor of Material Feminisms.

Accessibly written, lucidly argued, and capacious in its ambit, there is so much in this book to savor, to be inspired by, and to provoke.

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, author of Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman

In addition to the descriptions and analyses of imaginative activism, strange agencies of non-human entities, and the politics of place, Alaimo develops compelling theories of self, action, and being human along the way.

Jack Halberstam, University of Southern California

Despite the gravity of her subject matter, Alaimo’s examples and writing are often playful. This not only echoes the complexity and occasional contradictions of environmental politics but also makes Exposed a very enjoyable read. This book is much more than a theoretical exploration; it calls on us to rethink what it means to be human and act accordingly.

New Books Network

A must read for members of the American Rock Garden Society, as well as those living in similar areas worldwide.

Natural Areas Journal

Well-written and complexly argued.

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality

Contents

Introduction: Dwelling in the Dissolve

Part I: Posthuman Pleasures

1. This Is about Pleasure: An Ethics of Inhabiting

2. Eluding Capture: The Science, Culture, and Pleasure of “Queer” Animals

Part II. Insurgent Exposure

3. The Naked Word: Spelling, Stripping, Lusting as Environmental Protest

4. Climate Systems, Carbon-Heavy Masculinity, and Feminist Exposure

Part III. Strange Agencies in Anthropocene Seas

5. Oceanic Origins, Plastic Activism, and New Materialism at Sea

6. Your Shell on Acid: Material Immersion, Anthropocene Dissolves

Conclusion: Thinking as the Stuff of the World

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index