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On the Ground: Terrestrial Theopoetics and Planetary Politics

Online ISBN:
9781531507718
Print ISBN:
9781531505554
Publisher:
Fordham University Press
Book

On the Ground: Terrestrial Theopoetics and Planetary Politics

O'neil Van Horn
O'neil Van Horn
Xavier University
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Published online:
23 May 2024
Published in print:
5 December 2023
Online ISBN:
9781531507718
Print ISBN:
9781531505554
Publisher:
Fordham University Press

Abstract

Drawing interdisciplinarily on soil science, theopoetics, feminist ethics, poststructuralism, process philosophy, and more, On the Ground explores how one might respond to anthropogenic climate change in such a way as to account for the paradoxical tensions between planetarity and particularity, connectivity and contextuality, entanglement and exclusion. That is, this book experiments with the idea of ground—when ground is read as the metonymic materialization of earth-ground, of soil—as a way of conceiving of the effects of climate change as collective and yet located, as communal and yet differential. The earthen “ground” proposed in this project is offered as a response to the following queries: In the face of global climate catastrophe, how might one theorize this calamitous experience as shared and yet particular, as interconnected and yet contextual? Might there be a way to conceptualize transversal interconnections of experience without erasing the critical constitutive differences, particularly of social and ecological location, therein? What might the consequences of this theorization be when applied to pluralistic, anti-racist planetary politics amid the Anthropocene? In short, the book addresses the queries: What philosophical and theological concepts can soil create? How might soil inspire and help reimagine forms of planetary politics in the midst of climate change? The goal of On the Ground is thus to offer a robust theoretical symbol to catalyze intersectional responses to climate change.

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