Living Beyond The End Of The World

Swedish outlines a series of interrelated forces that could well undermine the fabric of life as we know it - climate change, exhaustion of natural resources, overpopulation, economic collapse and the escalation of global violence. In response to this, she outlines the spiritual values that might nurture a new community.

In Beyond the World's End T. J. Demos explores cultural practices that provide radical propositions for living in a world beset by environmental and political crises. Rethinking relationships between aesthetics and an expanded political ecology that foregrounds just futurity, Demos examines how contemporary artists are diversely addressing urgent themes, including John Akomfrah's cinematic entanglements of racial capitalism with current environmental threats, the visual politics of climate refugees in work by Forensic Architecture and Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, and moving images of Afrofuturist climate justice in projects by Arthur Jafa and Martine Syms. Demos considers video and mixed-media art that responds to resource extraction in works by Angela Melitopoulos, Allora & Calzadilla, and Ursula Biemann, as well as the multispecies ecologies of Terike Haapoja and Public Studio. Throughout Demos contends that contemporary intersections of aesthetics and politics, as exemplified in the Standing Rock #NoDAPL campaign and the Zad's autonomous zone in France, are creating the imaginaries that will be crucial to building a socially just and flourishing future.

Perfect for fans of Brandon Sanderson and Laini Taylor, this much-anticipated sequel to New York Times bestselling authors Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner’s The Other Side of the Sky is a thrilling race against time—with a tantalizing star-crossed love and an electric conclusion. Time to find a way between worlds. Time to find each other again. Time to do the impossible. Above, in the cloudlands, Nimh has no memory of her past, only an aching, undying certainty that she has left something—someone—behind. But while she struggles to recall her identity, an imposter wields her name with deadly purpose. Below, on the surface, North looks to the sky, desperate to join the person he loves and return to his world. But with only a traitor willing to help him, and others clamoring for him to take Nimh’s place, his home seems more unreachable than ever. Tragedy looms as the cloudland engines falter and mist rains terror on the surface, and in their desperation to reunite and save their people, Nimh and North face one ultimate question: can they defy their love and their destiny to save their homes? Or will the spark between them ignite their worlds, and consume them all together? Praise for The Other Side of the Sky: "Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner prove they are two living goddesses of writing, creating two compelling worlds with high stakes and gripping emotions." —Sarah Rees Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of the Demons Lexicon trilogy and the Lynburn Legacy series “A vivid and compulsive thriller set in a beautiful, perilous world of myths and treachery. You won’t want to put it down.” —Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series “I was left breathless by the book’s twists and turns, and was unprepared for the ending—it blew me away. Stop everything and read it!” —C. S. Pacat, bestselling author of Dark Rise “A book that absolutely shimmers with beauty.” —Buzzfeed

"A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction."--Publisher's description.

Recent decades have brought to light the staggering ubiquity of human activity upon Earth and the startling fragility of our planet and its life systems. This is so momentous that many scientists and scholars now argue that we have left the relative climactic stability of the Holocene and have entered a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene. This emerging epoch may prompt us not only to reconsider our understanding of Earth systems, but also to reimagine ourselves and what it means to be human. How does the Earth’s precarious state reveal our own? How does this vulnerable condition prompt new ways of thinking and being? The essays that are part of this collection consider how the transformative thinking demanded by our vulnerability inspires us to reconceive our place in the cosmos, alongside each other and, potentially, before God. Who are we “after” (the concept of) the Anthropocene? What forms of thought and structures of feeling might attend us in this state? How might we determine our values and to what do we orient our hopes? Faith, a conceptual apparatus for engaging the unseen, helps us weigh the implications of this massive, but in some ways, mysterious, force on the lives we lead; faith helps us visualize what it means to exist in this new and still emergent reality.

Rooted and Rising is for everyone who worries about the climate crisis and seeks spiritual practices and perspectives to renew their capacity for compassionate, purposeful, and joyful action. Leah Schade and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas gather twenty-one faith leaders, scientists, community organizers, theologians, and grassroots climate activists to offer wisdom for fellow pilgrims grappling with the weight of climate change. Acknowledging the unprecedented nature of our predicament—the fact that climate disruption is unraveling the web of life and threatening the end of human civilization—the authors share their stories of grief and hope, fear and faith. Together, the essays, introductory sections, and discussion questions reveal that our present crisis can elicit a depth of wisdom, insight, and motivation with power to guide us toward a more peaceful, just, and Earth-honoring future. With a foreword by Mary Evelyn Tucker and a special introduction by Bill McKibben, the book presents an interfaith perspective that welcomes and challenges readers of all backgrounds.