Today is World Penguin Day— not that we need a reason to celebrate these amazing little creatures, but it’s great to have a designated day on which everyone thinks about these birds and how they’re faring in such a rapidly changing world. So, how exactly are the penguins doing? According to the International Union for Conservation of …
The winter issue of Minding Nature (published by our contributor The Center for Humans and Nature out now and well worth reading (free download here). This issue features essays about democratic ecological citizenship, reflections on birdsong, sword ferns, and the cultural wisdom of animals, artistic responses to the Anthropocene, and some beautiful poetry scattered throughout.
This is our third year of recapping the best books we’ve read over the past year. Here are the 2017 and 2016 lists. We’re so glad that the number of both readers and reviewers of EcoLit Books have grown enough to now have an annual tradition of celebrating our favorite books of the year. And …
Here’s an exciting new call for submissions from the UiO (University of Oslo) Department of Sociology and Human Geography: Attention writers and humanities researchers: this is a call for narratives that bring us closer to the potentiality of the present and activate “the politics of the possible” in our changing climate. Twelve stories will be …
As a conservation biologist I see ecovillages as an example for all of us. We need to reduce our impact on the Earth, and these communities are doing that well. This book looked like it would provide good examples to show my students how they could reduce their impact as well. However, I would have …
When we started EcoLit Books five years ago, this was the type of book I had in mind. A novel that places nature in its proper place in relation to people. That is, above us — in this case, both figuratively and literally. In The Overstory, Richard Powers has crafted an epic novel that stretches hundreds …
The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce is an important and timely book that examines the human relationship with — or, more accurately, examines the many ways in which humans use — animals and how this relationship needs to evolve. This book asks readers to rethink …
It’s been nearly 40 years since the first Earth Day, and unfortunately we’ve recently taken a lot more steps backward than forward. Still, we humans have taken a lot of great steps forward since the 1970s. There’s a lot to celebrate about our planet, and so many ways to help it survive and thrive. We …
I’ve long been a fan of Antennae, a literary/artistic journal created and curated by Giovanni Aloi. So I was thrilled to see that the University of Minnesota Press is partnering with Giovanni and Caroline Piccard on a new book series titled Art after Nature. Here’s their vision for the series: Art after Nature maps new aesthetic territories defined …
It’s that time of year again, a time to reflect on the books that have left their mark on us. Books that will, over time and with luck, leave their mark on society as well. I polled our contributors to see what books they’ll remember best from 2017. And here we have it — a selection …
