Overview

Covering almost 8 percent of the earth's terrain, lichens are living beings which are familiar to everyone, known to no one. They are one of those organisms that seem to offer nothing to hold our gaze. But the more time we spend with lichens, the more they reveal their beauty, their mysteries and their strange power of attraction. Part-algae and part-fungus, lichens call into question our customary ways of classifying forms of life, and allow us to conceive of an ecology that is no longer based on distinctions between nature and culture, urban and rural, competition and cooperation. The result of several years of investigation carried out on several different continents, this remarkable book offers an original, radical, and, like its subject matter, symbiotic reflection on this common but mostly invisible form of life, blending cultures and disciplines, drawing on biology, ecology, philosophy, literature, poetry, even graphic art. What if lichens were at the heart of some of the most pressing and topical questions of our day? Does the fact that they can live everywhere, even in very harsh environments, that they persist when almost all other traces of life have disappeared, mean that, despite their fragility, lichens are a force of resistance? After reading this book you will never see lichens, or the world, in the same way again.

Full Product Details

Author:   Vincent Zonca ,  Emanuele Coccia ,  Jody Gladding
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Imprint:   Polity Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 20.80cm
Weight:   0.408kg
ISBN:  

9781509553440

ISBN 10:   1509553444
Pages:   250
Publication Date:   25 November 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

"Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii Preface by Emanuele Coccia xiv Part 1 First Contacts 1 Origins 1 Winters 2 Weeds 3 A Scientific Challenge: Remaining or Rising in the Ranks 12 Customs and Beliefs 22 Lichen Erotics 34 Part 2 To Describe, Name, Represent 45 A Challenge to Representation 45 Music = Mushroom 72 The Far East, Mosses, and Wabi-Sabi 77 Part 3 Ecopoetics: Life Force and Resistance 91 Ruderal 91 Rousseauist Walks 92 Sentinel Species 108 ""Lichens of sunlight and mucus of azure"" 112 ""Sbarbarian"" Glowworm 116 Ecological Forewarnings 124 Fragility, Resistance 132 Contemporary ""Poethics"" 134 ""Insurrection of the Humble"" 156 Micro-habitats 166 Part 4 Toward a Symbiotic Way of Thought 173 The Politics of Lichen: at the Origins of Symbiosis 175 Chimeras, Vampires, and Other Common Monsters 192 A ""Third Place"" 197 Cohabitation 210 Envoi: Sporules 215 Notes 220 Index of Names 255 Index of Lichens 260"

Reviews

Vincent Zonca has compiled a veritable pot-pourri of sympoietic intimacies. These crinkled expressions of desire and despair creep, slowly and unobtrusively, across every page, even as they breathe the air. Never has a work of literature more closely resembled its subject matter, inspiring wonder in equal measure. Welcome to the world of lichens! Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen

Author Information

Vincent Zonca is a researcher and writer who is currently living in Canada.

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