Infowhelm - Environmental Art and Literature in an Age of Data

Heather Houser explores the ways contemporary art manages environmental knowledge in the age of climate crisis and informational overload. She argues that the infowhelm-a state of abundant yet contested scientific information-is an unexpectedly resonant resource for environmental artists seeking to go beyond communicating stories about crises.

List of contents

Introduction: Environmental Art in the Infowhelm
Part I. Cultural Climate Knowledge
Preface
1. Making Data Experiential
2. Coming-of- Mind in Climate Narratives
Part II. The New Natural History
Preface
3. Classifictions
4. Visualizing Loss for a “Fragmented Survival”
Part III. Aerial Environmentalisms
Preface
5. Environmental Aftermaths from the Sky
6. The Afterlives of Information in Speculative Fiction
Epilogue: Can Thinking Make It So?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index

About the author

Heather Houser is associate professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also codirects the Planet Texas 2050 project focused on climate resilience. She is the author of Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environment and Affect (Columbia, 2014) and an associate editor at Contemporary Literature.

Summary

Heather Houser explores the ways contemporary art manages environmental knowledge in the age of climate crisis and informational overload. She argues that the infowhelm—a state of abundant yet contested scientific information—is an unexpectedly resonant resource for environmental artists seeking to go beyond communicating stories about crises.

Additional text

An ambitious and dazzling scholarly work . . . Infowhelm pushes environmental humanities scholarship forward by leaps and bounds.

Product details

• Authors: Heather Houser, Heather (University of Texas At Austin) Houser, Houser Heather
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.06.2020
• EAN: 9780231187329
• ISBN: 978-0-231-18732-9
• No. of pages: 336
• Series: Literature Now
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > General, dictionaries; LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, ART / Environmental & Land Art, Art treatments & subjects, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, The Arts: treatments and subjects, Literary studies: from c 2000, land art; modern literary criticism