Synopses & Reviews
Stone maps the force, vivacity, and stories within our most mundane matter, stone. For too long stone has served as an unexamined metaphor for the andldquo;really realandrdquo;: blunt factuality, natureandrsquo;s curt rebuke. Yet, medieval writers knew that stones drop with fire from the sky, emerge through the subterranean lovemaking of the elements, tumble along riverbeds from Eden, partner with the masons who build worlds with them. Such motion suggests an ecological enmeshment and an almost creaturely mineral life.
Although geological time can leave us reeling, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen argues that stoneandrsquo;s endurance is also an invitation to apprehend the world in other than human terms. Never truly inert, stone poses a profound challenge to modernityandrsquo;s disenchantments. Its agency undermines the human desire to be separate from the environment, a bifurcation that renders nature andldquo;out there,andrdquo; a mere resource for recreation, consumption, and exploitation.
Written with great verve and elegance, this pioneering work is notable not only for interweaving the medieval and the modern but also as a major contribution to ecotheory. Comprising chapters organized by concept andmdash;andldquo;Geophilia,andrdquo; andldquo;Time,andrdquo; andldquo;Force,andrdquo; and andldquo;Soulandrdquo;andmdash;Cohen seamlessly brings together a wide range of topics including stoneandrsquo;s potential to transport humans into nonanthropocentric scales of place and time, the andldquo;petrificationandrdquo; of certain cultures, the messages fossils bear, the architecture of Bordeaux and Montparnasse, Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste disposal, the ability of stone to communicate across millennia in structures like Stonehenge, and debates over whether stones reproduce and have souls.
Showing that what is often assumed to be the most lifeless of substances is, in its own time, restless and forever in motion, Stone fittingly concludes by taking us to Icelandand#9135;a land that, writes the author, andldquo;reminds us that stone like water is alive, that stone like water is transient.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;A poignant and poetic book, Stone is a provocative contribution to anthropocene studies. Rather than naming humans as agents endowed with geologic force, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen contemplates our anxious collaboration with lithic matter that outlasts and eludes us. Stone is a must-read for anyone interested in rethinking the anthropocene within the geologic turn in literary and cultural studies.andquot;
andmdash;Stephanie LeMenager, University of Oregon
About the Author
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is professor of English and director of the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute at George Washington University. He is the author of Medieval Identity Machines and Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages, and the editor of Monster Theory: Reading Culture, Prismatic Ecology, and Elemental Ecocritism: Thinking with Earth, Air, Fire, and Water (all from Minnesota).and#160;
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction: Stories of Stone
Geophilia: The Love of Stone
Excursus: The Weight of the Past
Time: The Insistence of Stone
Excursus: A Heart Unknown
Force: The Adventure of Stone
Excursus: Geologic
Soul: The Life of Stone
Afterword: Iceland
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index