Ruin ecology : an exercise in environmental imagination / Marco Malvestio.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Malvestio, Marco, author.

Series:

Cambridge elements. Elements in environmental humanities

Cambridge elements. Elements in environmental humanities, 2632-3125

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Building materials--Deterioration--Philosophy.

Building materials.

Ruins, Modern--Philosophy.

Ruins, Modern.

Building materials--Deterioration.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : color illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2025.

Summary:

"This Element discusses the presence of ruins in contemporary environmental imagination. Contemporary ruins, much more than those that served as constituents of Romantic and Gothic aesthetics, simultaneously express a fascination with and a dread of the non-human agencies at play in the world, while also countering the nostalgic dimension of traditional representations of ruins. The contemporary success of ruins can be connected to the sense of planetary precarity induced by anthropogenic climate change, and to the widespread presence of eco-anxiety in the public conscience. Moreover, at the centre of ruins' aesthetic power is the interaction of human and non-human forces, and in the process of ruination, buildings and monuments find new meaning thanks to the intervention of external agents that human civilization has long attempted to tame or eliminate and that make a disturbing return as soon as anthropic activity ceases"-- Cambridge University Press.

Contents:

Introduction : dreaming among ruins

A new ruinenlust

The world without whom?

An ecology of negativity

The promises of ghosts

Conclusion : the state of things to come.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge University Press, viewed November 5, 2025).

Other Format:

Print version: Malvestio, Marco. Ruin ecology

ISBN:

9781009683036

1009683039

OCLC:

1545081669

Publisher Number:

CIPO000290714

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license