Searching for the Anthropocene

"This book is a search for the elusive concept of the Anthropocene: the current geologic era defined by human impact on the planet, a concept that is embedding itself ever deeper into the humanities and across disciplines. Searching for the Anthropocene follows a journey through an eclectic range of topics, texts, places, and events to examine how we relate to, travel across, and write about our environment. We live in a time of rampant consumerism and irresponsible disregard for the natural world. Still, we strive to find authentic interactions, something to counter the feeling of looming doom in which humans are inherently implicated, often searching for these in literature and art. The debates around the Anthropocene are in one sense an effort to reveal and work through these tensions. Ranging from beech forests and beach fossils to jet engines and airport renovations, from snacks and snipers to fantasies of space travel and nightmares of cars on the streets, this book develops a wide-angle approach to environmental awareness. Blending personal narrative, cultural criticism, and ecological thought, Searching for the Anthropocene offers fresh ways to ponder literature and the hum