Immanence provides news and views at the intersections of ecology, culture, politics, media, and philosophy. Its focus is the theory and practice of how humans make sense of, and respond to, the eco-political and eco-cultural challenges of our time.
In fusing the “eco-” of ecology with “politics” and “culture,” Immanence grounds itself in the assumption that politics and culture in the twenty-first century can hardly avoid ecology, and that effectively dealing with the world’s deepening ecological challenges — global climate change among them — requires methods and strategies that draw on and creatively reinvent our cultural and political practices.
Immanence is maintained and mostly written by Adrian Ivakhiv, J. S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University (and until recently Professor of Environmental Thought and Culture at the University of Vermont).
The Primer page and the Faves page provide two ways of exploring the blog; the “Categories,” found at the top of the right-hand side-bar (and described on the Explore page), provide another.
You can subscribe to Immanence for free from the home page (find “Subscribe” in the sidebar) or through a feed reader like Feedly, Inoreader, or Newsblur. And you can follow it on Facebook and Twitter. Guest submission proposals are welcome.
The longer story
Immanence began in 2009 as an online space for ecocultural theory. The blog was originally conceived to serve as a forum for thinking in and around the Environmental Thought and Culture Graduate Concentration at the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont. While its focus has evolved over the years, its general goal remains to be a useful resource for scholars and for the interested public.
An earlier iteration of the blog defined its two main focus areas as these:
(1) To communicate about issues arising at the intersections of ecological, political, and cultural thought and practice, especially at the interdisciplinary junctures forming in and around the fields of ecocriticism, green cultural studies, political ecology, environmental communication, ecophilosophy, and related areas (biosemiotics, geophilosophy, social nature, poststructuralist, decolonial, and liberation ecologies, zoontologies, multispecies studies, urbanatures, animist liberation theologies — invent your own neologisms) — in other words, in the broad domain frequently referred to as the environmental humanities; and
(2) To contribute to the development of a synthetic and “non-dualist” understanding of nature/culture, mind/body, spirit/matter, structure/agency, and worldly relations in general. Dualisms aren’t inherently bad, but these ones have become stultifying; they contribute to the log-jam in which environmental thinking has been caught for too long. To this end, the blog has pursued philosophies of process, ontologies of immanence and becoming, and epistemologies of participation, relation, and dialogue – that is, ways of understanding and acting that take ideas and practices, bodies and minds, subjects and objects, perceptions and representations, agency and structure, to be fundamentally inseparable, creative, and always in motion.
For more on these topics, see the posts on immanence, immanent naturalism, geophilosophy, green cultural studies, and the various posts listed on the Primer page, including the introduction to process-relational theory.
Hey Ivan,
This is an excellent list- everything from participatory epistemology to biosemiotics-definitely kindred to our work. I am curious though, being so new to blogging, how is it that you found our site? I’d be interested in linking up with other sites such as yours and getting some connective differentiation going.
cheers,
Adam
Slowly but surely the hive-mind makes it’s links. In this way the internet a substrate for the growing awareness of humanity. These words from I read here from one human tendril reaching out to another ” I’d be interested in linking up with other sites such as yours and getting some connective differentiation going.” What could be more encouraging then to witness the cross pollination of ideas. One step closer to continuum awareness and all with this primordial forest backdrop. Bobby-z artist and curious human being. bobby-z.com
best brain training games. These days, you have to work or to pass the time.
Excellent site – except I can’t seem to find a way to get email updates of new posts? Seems strange. Bookmarking for now and hopefully will remember where I put it…
Thanks for letting me know that that function had disappeared. I’ve added a “subscribe2” widget, on the right. Hope it works for you.
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Hello Adrian!
I have been following your blog for sometime with keen and critical interest. As a campaigner against corporate-caused-climate change, I had found your posts interesting.
But to day with a little disappointment i am writing to you.
As one from the global south, I find your posts, on the recent war happening in Ukraine, not different from the NATO version, sprinkled with a few phrases as ‘historic innocence’…
I am sure you know NATO is ‘bad’…..come and see what they did (with Turkey) to Kurds….there are other instances too…
I am no supporter of Putin/Russia…
I stand for NO-WAR only.
Ukraine is not an independent-sovereign democracy as you have said. Its a western myth. The presence of Bidens and Soros in Ukraine make it clear.
Rulers of Russia and Ukraine are two sides of the same coin and they will engage in destructive wars without hesitation.
I hope you will find a different reason to help the victims of war
Best wishes.
D.Manjit
Thanks for your comment, Debarpita. I agree that perspectives from the global South are important on these kinds of issues, and I appreciate hearing yours.
But before assuming that “the presence of Bidens and Soros” eliminates the possibility of democracy, independence, or sovereignty in Ukraine, I would invite you to visit Ukraine to see for yourself whether or not these things can be found there. I am sure you would see more commonalities between Ukrainians and (Rojavan) Kurds today than differences. (As for those Kurds, you seem to be blaming NATO for what Turkey and Syria, backed by Russia, have done to them. The US has not been a very good ally, but at least it has not fought against them.)
It is easy to view postcolonial and post-imperial countries and peoples through the lens of empire (which is how your perspective on Ukraine appears to me). It is more demanding, but also more honest and much more helpful, to listen to voices of those peoples/countries themselves.
Reading Ivakhiv’s Claiming Sacred Ground and am trying to know more about his work.
I find the concepts here inspiring.