Overview

"""One of the penalties of an ecological education,"" wrote Aldo Leopold, ""is that one lives alone in a world of wounds."" As climate change and other environmental degradations become more evident, experts predict that an increasing number of people will suffer emotional and psychological distress as a result. Many are feeling these effects already. In the pages of Solastalgia, they will find a source of companionship, inspiration, and advice. The concept of solastalgia comes from the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, who describes it as ""the homesickness we feel while still at home."" It’s the pain and longing we feel as we realize the world immediately around us is changing, with our love for that world serving as a catalyst for action on its behalf. This powerful anthology brings together thirty-four writers—educators, journalists, poets, and scientists—to share their emotions in the face of environmental crisis. They share their solastalgia, their beloved places, their vulnerability, their stories, their vision of what we can create."

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9780813948843

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Reviews

A striking, resonant collection. I can't think of another anthology of environmental writing that focuses so explicitly and directly on emotional responses to what's happening--to specific, tangible aspects of what's typically called 'the Anthropocene.' Solastalgia succeeds tremendously in richly presenting these varied responses. Taken collectively, the essays are strangely comforting in the sense of community and shared angst and vision they imply. --Scott Slovic, University of Idaho, Co-editor of Numbers and Nerves: Information, Emotion, and Meaning in a World of Data A timely and exciting book full of beautiful, incisive writing, Solastalgia promises to make a substantial addition to the growing body of environmental humanities works on emotional responses to ecological change. As writers continue to engage the pressing issues of global climate change and biodiversity loss, creative nonfiction is uniquely suited to this task of investigating new and emergent emotions. --Kyle Badow, Northland College, Co-editor of Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment The essays gathered in this collection provide intimate looks at beloved places--the birds and hills, the skies and first snowfalls--even as the places shift and change. It's brave to write into the vastness of our climate crisis and still understand the role of celebration. These authors offer the full complexity of what it means to love a place while it's being forever shifted. They provide witness and beauty and a way forward, despite despair. --Toni Jensen, author of Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land With a soul that follows the science, Solastalgia shows us why fully embracing our grief and anger for the earth's wounds that humans have wrought is a necessary lifeline for becoming whole again in a broken world. --Britt Wray, Stanford University, author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis

Author Information

Paul Bogard is Associate Professor of English at Hamline University and the author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light.

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