The Science of Last Things: Essays on Deep Time and the Boundaries of the Self - Couverture souple

Wayland-Smith, Ellen

 
9781639550968: The Science of Last Things: Essays on Deep Time and the Boundaries of the Self
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 1639550968 ISBN 13 : 9781639550968
Editeur : Milkweed Editions, 2024

Synopsis

"Offering a deeply necessary, clear-eyed look at who we are as flesh-and-bone bodies during the climate crisis, this is a book that searches and finds meaning in both the hard truths and the value of wonder."--Ada Limón

In this luminous collection of essays, Ellen Wayland-Smith probes the raw edges of human existence, those periods of life in which our bodies remind us of our transience and the boundaries of the self dissolve.

From the Old Testament to Maggie Nelson, these explorations are grounded in a rich network of associations. In an essay on the postpartum body, Wayland-Smith interweaves her experience as a mother with accounts of phantom limbs and Greek mythology to meditate on moments when pieces of our being exist outside our bodies. In order to comprehend diagnoses of depression and breast cancer, she delves into LA hippie culture's love affair with crystals and Emily Dickinson's geological poetry. Her experience with chemotherapy leads to reflection on Western medicine and its intolerance of death and the healing capacity of nature. And throughout, she challenges the false separation between the human and the "primeval, animal mode of being."

At once intimate and expansive, The Science of Last Things peels back layers of human thought and behavior, breaking down our modern conceptions of individuality and reframing us as participants in a world of astounding elegance and mystery.

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À propos de l?auteur

Ellen Wayland-Smith is the author of Oneida and The Angel in the Marketplace. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Catapult, The Millions, Longreads, The American Scholar, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.

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Éditeur
Milkweed Editions
Date d'édition
2024
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1639550968
ISBN 13 
9781639550968
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
208
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible